Emma’s voice sounded older now… but still too young for this. I forced my eyes open, and the room swam.
She poked my shoulder again. Harder. “Mom?”
“What?” The word came out thick and slurred, and I hated myself for it. The look on her face told me she did too.
“Wake up!” She grabbed my shoulders and shook me, harder than she ever had. Fury burned behind her eyes, but beneath it was a daughter begging her mother to come back. “Quinn and Grace need to be fed and bathed. Kyle hasn’t come out of his room in days. Is anyone even checking on him?”
I didn’t know. Was there anyone? I’d tapped out the second Melanie walked away and left me with her poisonous words.
“You,” I said, opening my eyes just long enough to look at Emma.
“Me what?”
“Do something.”
“Me?” Her laugh was sharp and incredulous. “These are your damn kids, not mine.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
“How many of these pills have you taken?” she demanded, snatching the bottle from the nightstand and shaking it. Relief flickered across her face when she realized it was still half full. My poor daughter, clinging to whatever hope she could find.
“Not enough,” I said, crushing her optimism.
Emma’s breath faltered. “Mom, please,” she begged. “You’re not helping Jake like this. You don’t want him to come home and find you like this.”
And that was the difference between us—the line she was still standing on and the one I’d slipped off days ago. I rolled toward her, my eyes drooping, my chest hollow. “You don’t get it, do you? He’s dead. Jake’s dead. He’s not coming back.”
The scream that followed wasn’t hers.
“Jake’s dead?”
Quinn stood frozen in the doorway, his eyes blown wide, fear spilling out of him. I’d done that. I’d shattered something sacred in him, and I was too far gone to stop it.
“No, Quinn. No.” Emma grabbed his little hand, her voice shaking but unbreakable. “Come on.”
She pulled him out of the room like she could shield him from me. God help me—maybe she should.
“Dammit, Mom!” she shouted right before the door slammed.
I didn’t know how much time passed. A minute. An hour. A day. Then she was back, shaking me and calling my name. My eyes fluttered open. Emma was standing over me, her eyes blazing with something between fury and pure panic.
“Mom. Kyle needs you.”
There was an edge to her voice sharp enough to cut through the fog in my head. I groaned, burying my face deeper into the pillow. “Get your dad,” I mumbled, turning away because facing her felt impossible. “I’m sleeping.”
“Then you better wake up,” she snapped. “Unless you want to lose another son.”
The air left my lungs.Another—
“He’s in his room,” she said. “Cutting himself with a knife. If you even care.”
I bolted upright so fast the room spun, my hair sticking to my face in tangled clumps. “What are you talking about?”
“Kyle. He needs his mother. Pull yourself together andbeone!”
I didn’t remember standing.One second, Emma was shouting that Kyle needed me, and the next, my wobbly legs were moving, carrying me down the hall faster than my mind could keep up.
“Kyle.”
