He’s in bed, wasted away.His face is gaunt, skin pale, cheekbones sharp where there used to be strength.His eyes are sunken but alert, his frame swallowed by the blankets.He looks fragile.And Gray was never fragile.
Maddie bustles around the bed, uttering atut-tutsound that I distinctly remember my preschool teacher making when I spilled chocolate milk.“Gray, you promised you’d drink more,” she chides, taking a glass with water from beside the bed and handing it to him.Her voice is brisk—typical Maddie—but not unkind.
Gray groans and waves off the water.“Enough, Maddie.I’m not thirsty.”
“You need to stay hydrated,” she lectures, but I hear the panic in her voice.The body needs water to survive, and this is all part of dying.
“Why?”he counters, his eyes holding a tiny sparkle of mischief.“So I can fill my bladder just to piss it out of the tube into a bag?”
“But—”
“No, Maddie,” he says quietly, but with such conviction I know she won’t argue with him.“Give it a rest.”
She sets the glass down with a sigh, but I can feel her gearing up to push again.The air in the room crackles, buzzing with her stubbornness, and before I can stop myself, I cut in.“He’s not going to fall apart just because you’re not calling all the shots, you know.Gray’s tougher than you give him credit for.”
Her head snaps toward me, blue eyes flashing like ice.“Or maybe he just doesn’t need you swooping in once a month to tell him how tough he is.”
The hit lands because she’s not entirely wrong, but I’ll be damned before I admit it.
“Atlas… Maddie,” Gray says with that tone that says he’s tired of us bickering, because God know he’s heard us go at it plenty.“Just stop.”
Maddie glances in my direction and if looks could kill, I’d be dead.She turns on her heel and stalks out, muttering a string of curses under her breath, presumably all aimed at me.
The silence she leaves behind feels louder than the hum of the machines.
I drop into the chair by the bed, grumbling, “She drives me insane.How you are friends with that woman is beyond me.”
Gray’s lips twitch and his papery chuckle tells me the cancer hasn’t sucked out his humor.“You two are more alike than you think.”
“Don’t insult me,” I growl.
His chuckle rattles in his chest and leads to a coughing fit.It sounds bad, deep in his lungs, and I scramble up from the chair to grab the water.I stick it in his face, the straw nearly going up his nose before I manage to shove it in his mouth.“Here, drink this.”
“For fuck’s sake, Atlas,” he snarls, shoving the glass away with a strength that tells me he’s not exactly on death’s door yet.“I’m not thirsty.”
“I know that, you asshole,” I grumble back.“I thought it might help your cough.”
“It possibly could have, had you not tried to spear my brain through my nose with that straw,” he snaps.
We stare at each other, glares firmly in place.
He’s the first to break though, the corner of his mouth quirking up and then we both laugh.
I set the glass down, take my seat again and point toward the door.“I make a much better nurse than that harridan.Honestly, Gray.Why is she even your friend?”
Gray studies me for a moment, licking at his dry lips.“I’ll repeat… you two are more alike than different.”
I scoff, lean back in the chair and lace my fingers over my stomach.“You’re high on pain meds.”
“The medication is quite good, but I’m serious.You’re cut from nearly the same cloth.That’s why you’re both my best friends.”
I have to force myself not to grimace at that proclamation.I’m the best friend.The original.The one and only.I’ve known him since we were five years old and grew up a block apart from each other.She’s only been his friend since their freshman year in college and has no right to think of Gray in that way.
I try to rein in those toxic thoughts because I know they smack of pure jealousy over their relationship, even so, I can’t help but ask, “How the hell do you think we’re the same?”
Gray struggles to push up a bit on the pillows and I resist the urge to help him.My best friend is a proud man, and while I’m sure he lets Maddie get away with that, he won’t appreciate it from me.“You’re both stubborn as hell, neither of you will take help, and you both think you know best.You and Maddie—same flavor, different packaging.”
I scowl.There’s no fucking way we have anything in common.
