“I know I’m making himsad.”
My jaw grits.
“You’re makingmesad, fool,” I choke out.
He cries.
“I’mso fucking sorry.”
Sucking in a breath that reeks of a three-day old bender, I swallow back how much it hurts to see him like this and pull off his shirt.
“I need help, Ten.”
The words break the wall I’ve been desperately building up and my eyes fill. My chest cracks open. Tears spill over when he dives forward, circling his arms around my waist andsobs.
“I know, Hatley. I’m here. We’re gonna …”Fuck, I don’t know what the hell to do. “We’re gonna figure this out.”
It feels like it takes a lifetime to stop the flow from my eyes. Just a little longer to get Hatley to climb out of his sweatpants and into the shower.
And when I’m convinced that he’s at least rinsing off and not going to fall out, I turn to give him some privacy only to findEmmett standing in the hallway. The door’s open, has been, and when I meet his gaze, it’s glassy.
He holds out Hatley’s phone, the one I told him to hang onto and silence if it rang for anyone except Hat’s mom. There’s a website open on the screen when I accept it, fingertips tingling when they graze his,. My burning gaze shoots right back to his when the words displayed register.
“How’d you know about this?”
Fuck, how did I notthinkof this.
His brow lifts.
“Seriously?”
I clear my throat. Hand the phone back to him.
“Right. The hospital would have given you shit like this.”
He nods and tucks it in his pocket. “They have a meeting at six. If he gets dressed, we can make it.”
My face grows hot, though I couldn’t explain why if I tried, and I nod.
“Okay.”
“Here,” Emmett adds when I go to turn away and I pause. “I-I don’t know whose is what, but I assumed these were his since it’s his room.”
Looking down at what he’s holding out, I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from throwing my arms around him and crying into him like Hat’s been doing to me.
“Thank you,” I say and accept the pile of Hat’s clothes with a thickness to the words. The As Above band tee stares at me from the top of the pile, the first concert Hat and I ever attended together—sober—and I swallow back the reminder of all the excitement we’d shared that night. Being at a live show without taking anything and experiencing it as if it was new all over again.
We were like teenagers all over again, finally let loose to the wild and free.
I miss it.
My chest is weighted as I get my best friend out of the shower and into clothes. Heavier as we walk to the kitchen for the first time in days and meet Emmett.
His hair is wet, like maybe he washed it in the sink, and he’s wearing another one of my hoodies.
Seeing him help himself to my stuff … it helps ease some of the tension in my chest, while also adding to the guilt weighing down the oxygen in my bloodstream.
Something behind him pops and my eye twitches.
