His eyes are wide, pure horror etched on his face that does nothing to ease my own. All the words I could say—want to say—fall flat in the shadow of his wide-open grief. He’s looking at a ghost, haunted by all the regrets that led us here. With Easton in this hospital bed on the edge of life and death with nothing we can do to fix him anymore. Not like this.
I have a million of my own; I’m sure he has more.
Blakely appears, possibly from thin air, and demands we sit down before we fall. After we’ve obeyed like well-trained dogs, she walks up to Easton and brushes his limp hair from his face. “Sweet boy…” she whispers wretchedly before lightly kissing his forehead. Careful to avoid the bruises, of course.
When she crouches in front of us, she’s got a look that I can’t say I’ve ever seen on her before. Like she knows the ending, but just doesn’t want to tell anyone. “His doctor got pulled away for surgery so don’t be alarmed if you don’t see him for a while, but I found some things out if you guys want to know.”
“Anything. Please,” Brady croaks.
“He took a lot of pills. Xanax, to be specific, and chased it with a decent amount of hard liquor. They pumped his stomach, got him stabilized, but he hasn’t woken up yet. Before he does that, it’s hard to tell if there was any long-term damage done. It’s on him; he’s got to fight.”
Brady takes a ragged breath and nods. “Who found him?” I interject before one of them says any other shitty news.
“Is that motherfucker here somewhere?” he asks in a bone-chilling tone.
Blake is quick to smooth it over. “No. I don’t think so. The emergency call came from the postman, and there was no one else there when the paramedics arrived besides him. But I wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility, especially with how little we know right now.”
God, I just want to talk to him. Hear his voice. Let him tell me what is going on for himself. All this speculation is making me sick. It’s unfair to Easton; this is personal to him. I had to earn every little piece of backstory, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now he’s like that… and we can’t ask him what happened or what he wants to do about it. We can theorize and wonder and worry, but what does any of it mean without Easton?
“We won’t leave him,” I find myself saying. I look to Brady for confirmation, surely the thought of leaving Easton vulnerable makes him sick too. He nods resolutely.
He doubles down. “I’m never leaving his side again.”
Blakely takes a deep breath in through her nose. “Yeah, I’d be careful who you say things like that to around here. They know what they see and they’re looking out for it. I had to show one nurse a picture of you and Easton cuddled up on that ugly purple chair to get them to not call the cops. I don’t feel good about telling them his history like that, but the staff here is amazing, and they are definitely looking for red flags.”
Wait, did she say—“You have a picture of us? From when?”
She rolls her eyes affectionately. “When I hung out with you two? You do remember that, right?”
My voice cracks. “Can I see it?”
When she hands over her phone, my heart lurches. There we are. Curled around each other like if we get close enough, we could become the same person. My hand is on his hip, anchoring his small frame to me. Predictably, he’s all over the place. Noseburied in my chest, one hand grabbing my shirt, the other tucked behind my shoulder, hair all over the place. Even sound asleep, there’s a slight smile on his face with a dimple visible and everything.
He’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen, all happy and warm and safe.
“It was like that with you two, even straight from the beginning.” I force my eyes away from the screen to find Brady staring at it with tear tracks down his face.
Fuck. Did I ever even tell him how I felt about his brother? Was I so wrapped up in falling in love that I didn’t tell my best friend?
Blake uses my leg to push herself up before I can speak. “All right. Chase, babe, is there anyone we should be calling about this?”
Brady realizes the same time I do. “Oh, shit,” we say in unison. My parents and brothers are probably still waiting for us to come home. It never even occurred to me to tell them what’s going on.
“If we get Logan to tell them, think it’ll delay them rushing over here?”
One can only fucking hope. Even the thought of all one thousand of them—four—seeing Easton like this, the crying, the hugging, makes my skin crawl.
It’s an effort not to physically recoil. Someone should protect Easton’s dignity. He’d be horrified to wake up and have so many people looking at him like this. And someone should save me from the fucking touching.
It never makes sense to me. Sometimes it’s fine; nonexistent even. When it’s Easton, I crave physical affection. Brady and Blakely have me almost entirely desensitized, where I don’t even have to pretend to go through the motions. It just is. But with my family, the people I share DNA with, at best, a hug is somethingI have to remind myself that they’re probably looking for, and at worst, a chore that makes me feel like I’m about to break out in hives.
Well, my niece isn’t a problem for me. Just my parents and siblings, the humans that I have known for literally my entire life.
Maybe it’s an exposure thing. Before too long, I’ll reject all creature comforts and retire to a dark cave; living the life of a hermit.
Not a comforting thought to have in a fucking hospital room, where the only thing keeping me from turning to that is if someone who apparently attempted suicide decides to fight to wake up again.
“What did you tell them?” I ask, looking at Blake. She raises an eyebrow in response, and I realize that it didn’t make any sense. “To find out what happened. Aren’t there, like, laws and shit about telling random people someone’s medical information?”
