For years, that’s all he was to me: Cam’s annoying, but equally as drop dead gorgeous, best friend who lived to make my life hell.
But everything changed the year Mom died.
I remember that summer vividly. The smell of fresh rainfall had lingered in the air with an increase in summer showers that year. I had barely turned eighteen when we found out Mom was sick—Stage IV Triple Negative Breast Cancer, or “the kiss of death” as some people referred to it. One of the most aggressive, fastest-spreading subtypes. By the time it was found, it had already spread to her lungs, liver, bones and brain.
In a matter of months, she was gone.
Alex was there through it all. He cared about Mom as much as we did. She was a mother to him the same way she was to us at that point. He went to many of her chemo treatments and eventually stayed by her side with us in the hospital until she took her last breath.
Losing her felt like losing the center of our world. My brothers tried to hold it together for me, for each other, but we were all falling apart in our own ways. I stopped painting for months. I stopped eating and leaving the house. I even stopped smiling, all joy was ripped out of my life. The house was too quiet without her, and every corner of it felt like a reminder of what we had lost.
Alex had randomly showed up one day with a bag of donut holes and a stupid grin. “I know you like the chocolate ones,” he’d said, holding the bag out like some sort of peace offering. I wanted to tell him to go away, but no words came out of my mouth. Something about the way he looked at me showed that he understood the pain I was feeling, and that kept me from slamming the door in his face.
From that day on, he was just…there. He started showing up more than usual—at the house, at my track meets, at the bookstore, keeping me company while I read the back of every book, even outside my window late at night when I couldn’t sleep. He never said much back then, and he didn’t have to. It was enough for him to sit there with me on the porch steps or on the swingin the backyard, sharing the silence. He helped me feed and take care of the animals on the ranch, knowing it was a therapeutic chore for me. He continued to bring me food I didn’t ask for when he knew I wasn’t eating and drove me around town until I calmed down after a violent panic attack. He was still sarcastic, still Alex, but there was something else there, too—a gentleness he’d never shown to anyone before.
Alex was steady in a way I hadn't ever known, like he decided it was his personal mission to make sure I didn’t completely fall apart.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of him as just my brother’s best friend. He simply became… Alex.
My Alex.
We got closer that following year after Mom’s death, closer than I’d ever been with anyone. Alex didn’t make me feel like I was a complete mess or that I had to be strong all the time. With him, I didn’t have to pretend. He saw me,reallysaw me, in all my broken pieces, and didn’t try to fix me. He just…stayed. I buried myself inside of him, grasping for any sense of comfort or normalcy.
I don’t remember actually falling for him. Maybe it was when I noticed the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. How his eyes softened and the hard front he displayed for the rest of the world suddenly disappeared. Or maybe it was when he’d defend me in an unapologetically loud and fierce way whenever someone made a comment about my mom or my family. Maybe it was the fact that he drove me to the bookstore every Friday afternoon, claiming he needed to “pick a new thriller” but always ended up in the romance section with me.
We never talked about “what we were” or about what whatever was going on between us actually meant. I think we were too scared to define it, too scared to ruin the fragile thing we had built. I think we didn’t feel like we needed to have a label.Whatever it was, it was already enough. But those moments we shared—all the stolen glances, lingering touches, whispered conversations—became everything to me. They became my lifeline, my literal reason for living when I was drowning in the depths of depression.
The summer after graduation, I told Alex I was leaving Windhaven. I simply said the words “I’m leaving,” like I was ripping off a bandage, fast enough to not leave any room for softness.
He just stood there, resting against the truck in his driveway. His arms were crossed and his jaw was so clenched that I could see the muscle twitch repeatedly. The sun was setting behind him, throwing orange light across the yard like some cruel joke. It seemed like the universe was trying to make the whole ugly situation prettier than it was.
“For how long?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. As long as it takes.”
“To do what?” His eyes narrowed. “Run away until it stops hurting?”
That was the match to the gasoline I’d been carrying around for months.
“Fuck you, Alex,” I snapped. “I’m not running. I wake up with this pain every fucking day! My mom isdead. I don’t want to be here anymore. I can’t?—”
“This is yourhome,” he bit out. “We are your family. Me, Leo, Cam, Frankie, Liv. This place?—”
“Exactly.” I cut him off, heat rising under my skin like I might explode. “That’s all it’s ever going to be. This town, that house, this same fucking story on repeat.”
His face hardened, anger building up with every word I said. “So what—what was this then? Just something to keep you busy until you could finally leave?”
The words burned straight through me. “Don’t you dare fucking do that.”
“I’m just asking,” he barked, stepping closer. “Am I that fucking disposable to you?”
I hated him for saying it. Mostly because he was right and it made me hate myself even more.
“I don’t know!” I shouted. “Alright? I don’t know whatthiswas. Maybe Ididneed something, someone,anythingto make the last year bearable. And guess what, Alex? It didn’t work. It was a fucking waste of time.”
Those stupid hazel eyes looked at me like I was a stranger. My words cut so deep that could see him unable to comprehend that they came out ofmymouth.
“You don’t mean that,” he said. The words slipped out softer, like he was trying to catch something that was falling out of reach.
