The hallway smelled like cafeteria food and medicine, the same as it always did, but today, it smelled worse.
Because now, I knew.
Now, I understood what had happened this morning.
Now, I was bracing myself for the fallout. We turned left into Mom’s room, and my heart slammed against my ribs the second I saw her in bed.
She was sedated, peaceful, her chest rising and falling steadily, her hands folded loosely over the blankets.
If not for the machines beeping softly around her, I could’ve pretended she was just sleeping.
I could’ve pretended she wasn’t slipping away from us more and more each day.
I took a slow breath, my throat thick.
“So what happened?”
Logan exhaled sharply and dropped into the one comfortable chair in the room, dragging a hand through his hair.
“Angela called me this morning,” he said. “Cops were here because Mom called them—said she was kidnapped, couldn’t get out.”
My stomach twisted.
“She was screaming,” he continued, his voice dropping lower. “Woke up half the hall. Kept asking for Dean.”
Squeeze my fucking heart.
Dean.
She hadn’t said our names.
She hadn’t asked for her sons.
She had asked for our father—the man who died before we were even old enough to remember him.
I forced myself to breathe past the burn in my chest.
“Did she recognize you when you got here?”
Logan let out a hollow laugh, rubbing his hands down his face.
“No,” he admitted. “She was still in the middle of the episode when I arrived. I watched them get her into bed, gave her a sedative.” His voice wavered for the first time, and he looked at me with raw, unfiltered pain. “Brooks, this was fucked up.”
I swallowed against the sting in my own eyes.
“I’m sorry you had to see it.”
And I meant it.
I had seen one other episode where she had hurt herself—where she had begged me to let her go home to a place that didn’t exist anymore.
The helplessness had nearly broken me.
It still showed up in my dreams.
And now, Logan carried that weight too.
I felt like shit for not being here when it happened.
