“Can you tell me what happened?”
He stretched his arm out towards the toilet, feeling around onthe floor until he found what he was looking for. The brightness of his phone screen pierced my retinas after sitting in the dark, and I winced.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll just never see your pretty face again.”
A weak huff of laughter escaped him. I took the win.
After lowering the brightness to something that didn’t feel like the sun, he turned the screen toward me. An article. I took the phone and skimmed.
Someone had died and it was breaking news. The picture of a young man told me who.
“No way,” I breathed. “Jake Gibson died?”
The man in question was an actor, and he’d been in more than one blockbuster over the last few years.
Bodhi answered with a nod, flipping his phone face down on the floor.
“Overdose,” he rasped, voice still hoarse. “He was o-only twenty-nine.”
“Jesus.” I tilted my head. “Did you know him?”
Bodhi nodded again, rubbing at his eyes. “We used to go to a lot of the s-same parties,” he said, voice trembling. “I wouldn’t call us f-friends exactly, but w-we were always friendly.”
“Still,” I said. “It must’ve been a shock to see.”
“My m-mom sent me the article. She obviously didn’t expect it t-to hit like this.” He waved a hand towards himself.
“What do you think triggered it?” I asked, careful. The news was sad, sure, but that alone didn’t seem enough to set him off like that.
He sighed and leaned back against the wall, utterly drained now the panic had eased.
“The last time I s-saw him was just before I went to rehab,” he said. “H-he told me he wanted to get clean, a-and—” Heclosed his eyes, inhaled sharply, as though reminding himself to breathe. “I laughed it off. L-like it was a joke.”
He rubbed his thumb over my thigh in a slow circle.
“At first I thought it w-was ironic,” he continued. “I went to rehab, and h-he...” He cleared his throat. “Then I s-started spiralling. Thinking how e-easily that could’ve been m-me if Clara and the label hadn’t s-stepped in.”
His breathing started to hitch again.
“That I could’ve d-died. Left everyone b-behind. The guys. My m-mom?—”
I leaned in and kissed him. A grounding kiss, a tether. His breath steadied, and his hands found my neck, curling into my hair, pulling me closer.
Our kiss deepened, gentle yet insistent. Not for pleasure. Just to remind us that we were alive.
When we finally pulled apart, his head flopped forward against mine.
“You tired?” I asked, running my fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck.
He opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by a yawn.
“I guess that answers that,” I chuckled.
Bodhi gave me a small, tired smile. I grabbed my phone to check the time.
“We’ve got about an hour left on the bus.” I rose, wincing at the stab in my hip. “Let’s go to bed.”
