What had I done? Who had I turned him into? The last time we spoke—before he ended up here—he was mad, confused, but he still… cared.
When I sent him my location the night of the demon attack, I hadn’t anticipated he would show up. Maybe that’s where I went wrong. Maybe I didn’t believe he would come because if it were reversed, I’d have an excuse—too tired, too sad, too anxious—heart the text and go to bed.
But he was the better friend. The better person.
A single, silent tear slipped down my cheek. I blew out a shaky breath, fighting to keep the rest of them in.
“You’re upset?” He leaned forward, patterned gown slipping off his shoulder, a blistered, irritated scar poking out. “How do you think I feel?”
Chin dipping towards the floor, I bit back a sob, my lungs spasming.
“I had to defer my admission to UCSB. I have to learn how to walk again. I’m going to be stuck in this miserable place for months. Months.” His face twisted with pain. “Meanwhile, you get to go off and frolic and do whatever you want.”
Looking up from the scuffed tile, I took in the cold room around us. There was no color in this space. No vibrancy, no life. Not even a sliver of natural light made it past the closed curtains.
Guilt devoured me like a hungry, flesh-eating virus. “I’m… I’m sorry.”
“It’s not fair.” Javi threw himself back into the starchy pillows, the words hoarse—like he’d repeated them a hundred times before. “Are you even going to summer school, or did you give up on that, too?”
Too. Like I’d given up on life—given up on us. Given up on him. I just wanted to keep him safe, and I failed. Worse, I’d snuck around and kept secrets about my angel lineage, lied to his face about Ryder, and gotten him to hate me in the process.
“There’s a few weeks left,” I choked out.
His hardened stare turned glassy. “And what are you going to do after? You can’t work at Kona Coffee forever.”
“No.” Heat crept up my neck, scorching my face. “I can’t.”
What remained unspoken hung between us.
“Oh my God.” He shook his head, and it wasn’t disbelief that laced his tone—it was palpable disgust. “You got fired.”
“Right after the incident,” I said, almost too ashamed to admit it out loud.
“Figures,” he murmured.
“Do you want to know what happened?” I scooted closer, testing out the shorter distance. Maybe if I told him everything, from the beginning… It might not repair the damage, but at least he’d understand—I hadn’t even given him that chance. “That night at the Boardwalk?”
Another shaky step, then another, and another, until my legs hit the edge of his bed.
His upper body tensed. “It’s all my family’s been able to talk about this morning. The storm, River, her psychotic break, the fact that I never really mattered to her. I think I’ve heard enough.”
“They weren’t there.” A zing of relief softened the nerves. He didn’t remember Finis, the Source, the portal to Chthonia. “Don’t you want to hear what happened, from me?”
Air blew out from his lips with a sharp tsk. “You know, I could deal with a broken heart. I was going to shoot my shot regardless, and if it didn’t work out…” he shrugged, jaw tightening at the discomfort. “I can’t fault you for not loving me back.”
“But I did love you.” My words twisted into a cry. “I do love you.”
He held out his arm, blocking me from treading closer. “You’re entitled to your feelings, even if they’re messy. You know what I find unforgivable about all this?”
My fingers shot to my mouth, and I feverishly bit the nails as if I were a scavenger that’d gone weeks without food.
“Instead of being up-front, you led me on. Instead of being honest with me, you lied. And after thirteen years of friendship, of me being the only person you could rely on… you didn’t trust I would show up in your darkest hours.”
“I didn’t think you would…” I trailed off, stopping myself from proving his point.
“OF COURSE I WOULD COME!” The monitor next to his bed started beeping shrilly, the sound piercing my eardrums. “Because that’s what friends do, but I wasn’t a friend to you. I was just a placeholder until something better came along.”
I cupped my chin with my hands, placing my middle fingers on my earlobes to drown out the noise of the chirping machine. “That’s not true.”
