"Let’s not move him," I whisper.
I press myself close to Aiden and we both place our hands on Bay’s head.
"Please, Fate, give him another chance…" we pray together.
???
In the hospital, Bay is receiving a blood transfusion. The doctors say he was really close to the edge. We managed to find him at the last moment. Now I have him here on a white hospital bed, my son, wrapped in a thin hospital gown, and shock just won’t leave me.
He still hasn’t regained consciousness. I sit by his bed, holding his hand, feeling how cold and strangely weightless it is in mine, while my other hand grips my phone with Alex’s number lit up on the screen. I stare at it obsessively, my fingers trembling over the call button as the steady beeping of the monitors fills the room with a slow rhythm that makes my heartbeat throb in my throat.
What should I do? I’m at war with myself, wondering if I should call, if I should confront Alex, if I should ask anything at all, or leave this decision for Bay when he finally opens his eyes.
Aiden is sitting on the other side of the bed, hunched forward on a small plastic chair. His dark auburn hair is messy and tangled on his forehead. He’s just finished talking to Jordan, asking him to go to the house and stay with the kids.
When he hangs up, his eyes meet mine.
"Did you know Bay kept a journal?"
Feeling weirdly numb, I shake my head, emotional exhaustion has got to me; this day was a horror.
Aiden pulls a thick, dark notebook from Bay’s backpack. The cover is worn down at the corners, the spine softened and bent like it’s been opened a thousand times. It looks heavy, too private, almost ominous in the harsh hospital light.
"We… we shouldn’t, Aiden…"
"No? Lake, he tried to kill himself. These could be clues. We have to look."
"But what are we even looking for…? If it’s something recent, it won’t be in there. You think Alex did something that hurt him so deeply that…?"
"I don’t know," he says quietly, rubbing his tired eyes with the heel of his hand. His chest rises and falls in long, shaky breaths. "But we should still check. Maybe something showed up earlier. Warnings."
"This is a violation of his privacy."
"You know how he is. Closed off. He carries everything inside. And we… we need to know. This is too serious, Lake, we can’t lose him!"
"Aiden… we should wait until Bay wakes up."
Aiden lifts his hand and runs it gently over Bay’s hair, smoothing the strands away from his pale forehead. His fingers linger there, trembling slightly.
There’s sadness in his eyes when he whispers, "I believe something came between them, something that can still be fixed."
"So do I," I murmur. "They were such a good pair. I’ve never seen anything like it. Rain and Larry fight constantly, break up and get back together every other week, but Alex and Bay? They were perfect…"
Aiden opens the journal.
"Aiden, no…!"
But he shakes his head in refusal, and leans down over the diary.
His eyes fall on the first page, and his face drains of color.
Then he turns the pages toward me so I can see.
And the moment I read the words on the paper, the room spins, the beeping stretches into a long, distant tone, as I pass out.
BAY
I open my eyes and instantly know where I am, it’s a hospital room.
