I’d tried to sleep—Ireally did. I had to work at the crack of dawn, but I spent every moment tossing and turning, slowly losing my mind because the ringing in my ears was way too loud and blasting my fan, and the TV wasn’t covering it up well enough.
All I could think about was Moon. Moon and Harrison, and how on the sixth day, I’d lost everything, and today was the sixth day all over again. Fuck work. Fuck everything else. All that mattered was my brat, who was obviously hurting behind that goddamn door I’d grown to hate with a fiery passion.
The same door I was staring at now, burning an imaginary hole into it. It was late. Far too late for me to be banging against it again, which would definitely get me a noise complaint.
I tried my luck with the doorknob, knowing for a fact that Moon had a bad habit of keeping his door unlocked. To no one’s surprise, it turned easily. All I had to do was push, and it’d be open. But I was stuck.
If I walked in, there was no telling what I’d find. Maybe Moon would be fine. Maybe he was safe and sound, asleep in his bed, and he’d be super annoyed and mad at me for walking in uninvited. Or maybe, just maybe, he was gone. Whether in the life sense or the physical sense, it didn’t matter. Either one would destroy me. I wasn’t sure if I was truly ready to face the truth, but I knew I’d do anything for him.
So, finally, I pushed the door open, letting it creak into the night. All the lights were off, and the blinds were closed. It was dark. Pitch black, confusing my eyes and brain as to what was what and what was where. I stumbled around for a moment, trying to gather myself.
I pulled my phone out, using the flashlight to sweep across the apartment, looking for any open doors or signs of life. What looked like takeout food was piled up on the coffee table, and clothes were strewn around on the floor. I walked toward the couch, studying everything I could see.
One pair of sweatpants was turned inside out, lying on the armrest. When I moved my phone closer, I noticed what looked like stains.
Blood stains.
Lines and drops of rust-colored, faded blood stains all along the pants’ legs.
My vision went blurry as my eyes unfocused, forcing me right back to that day. Harrison’s house had been dark, too. He’d shut himself in, locking the entire world out from being able to reachhim. It was the first thing I’d noticed. The second was how much of a mess his place was.
Much like Moon’s apartment, Harrison had relied on takeout to get him through the days. Where he’d gotten the money, I wasn’t sure. The biggest difference was that Moon didn’t have a single beer can or whiskey bottle lying around as well.
I panned my flashlight over the doors once again. His bedroom door was shut, and I didn’t see any light pouring out of it. I turned and walked toward the hallway with the bathroom, noticing that door was shut too.
But there was light coming from the crack.
Just like Harrison.
My heart started to hammer against my chest, pounding and pounding, desperate to escape. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t fucking ready to face it. The possible horrors lying in wait behind that bathroom door. It was too much. So much, I didn’t know how to make my legs move.
I had no idea if any noise was coming from it. All I could hear was screaming static and loud bells chiming right in my eardrums. My head was buzzing with all the chaos, and my palms were starting to sweat.
I took it one step at a time, walking closer and closer to the bathroom door. “Please, please, please…” I whispered to myself. I didn’t know who I was begging to. I didn’t really care. Maybe God could hear me for the first time in my entire life, and maybe he’d help me. Help me not lose one more important person in my life, because if I did—if I lost Moon—I’d truly lose myself.
Grief followed me like a never-ending plague, waiting to pounce at any given moment. It was its own weapon, armed and ready to shoot me straight between the eyes.
But maybe that’d be more peaceful than going through this again.
Taking a deep breath, I gripped the doorknob and turned it. Once again, I was stuck like that, holding it in my hand, feeling the metal slip from my grip at how sweaty my palm was. Somehow, I gained the strength, prepared myself, and pushed the door.
And we both stared at each other in shock.
Chapter Twenty
His first cryalmost broke me right then and there. Moon breathed in, his chest physically stuttering just before opening his mouth. He let it out, sobbing immediately. His voice cracked as he almost screamed, bending forward with the force of it.
There he sat, in a shirt and briefs on the bathroom tile, what looked to be a blade in his hand, with blood smeared across his thighs.
A lot of blood. His blood. Blood pouring from cuts he’d made, dripping onto the tile, stripes of it across the bottoms of his hands, as if he’d accidentally set them in the mess. Moon cried, and I stood. I stood, mouth open, hand on the doorknob, frozen in time while time kept going for him.
I watched his back rise and fall with his heaving sobs, tears mixing with the blood on the floor. He could hardly catch hisbreath, coughing through the tears. “I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m s-so fucking s-sorry!”
His wailing, broken apologies seeped through my skin and into my bones, making time start moving again. I fell to the floor with him, looking over his body as I tried to figure out how I could hold him without hurting him. I just wanted to hold him and pick up his pieces and make him feel whole again. I just wanted Moon to see himself the way I saw him—worthy. Worthy, and beautiful, and so fucking precious.
I knee-walked closer to him, my eyes filling with tears. “Oh, my god. Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re alive.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
