And I faded away.
Chapter 14: Liam
Igrabbed my keys off the desk and was out the door before Noah could ask where I was going.
The parking lot behind the dorm was dark. My car—a twelve-year-old Civic with a cracked windshield and a heater that worked when it felt like it—started on the second try. I pulled out too fast, tires chirping on the cold asphalt.
The bridge was a quick drive, running the yellow at the intersection. The river moved beneath me—black and indifferent, catching fragments of streetlight from both banks.
Kingswell's campus opened up on the other side. Stone buildings. Brick pathways. The ornate lampposts casting their romantic glow like this was a movie set instead of a place where people actually lived.
I hated this side of the river. Hated the way it looked at night—beautiful and cold, everything designed to remind you that you didn't belong here. Every building named after someone's grandfather. Every pathway laid by money older than my whole family tree.
But Alex was here. Drunk and alone and spiraling because of something I did.
Sycamore Street was three blocks off campus. I knew the general area—Kingswell upperclassmen rented the Victorians that lined the residential streets east of the quad. The houses were all the same breed: tall, old, painted in muted colors, porches with columns. Rich-kid housing that pretended to be bohemian.
714 or 716. Columns.
They all have columns. Fuck. Alex.
But one of them had noise spilling from every window and cars lining both sides of the street, and that was enough.
I parked crooked behind someone's BMW and killed the engine.
The front door was open. Music and heat and the smell of beer hit me before I was up the porch steps. Inside—bodies, noise, and college-level chaos.
Nobody noticed me at first. Then someone did.
A guy near the entrance—Kingswell rower, one of the novices whose name I didn't know—gave me a look. The kind of look I'd been getting my whole life from people on this side of the divide.What are you doing here?
I ignored him.
The living room was packed. Couch full. People standing with cups, talking over the music. A flip cup game in the dining room. I scanned faces. Collins. Mason. A few guys from the eight.
No Alex.
I pushed through the living room toward the back of the house. Kitchen—empty cups on every surface, a vodka bottle on the counter with maybe two inches left. The sight of it made my stomach drop.
"Moore?"
Derek. Standing in the kitchen doorway with a glass of water. Not beer—water. Because Derek was the kind of guy who stayed sober at team parties.
"Where's Alex?" My voice came out harder than I intended.
Derek's expression shifted. "He ended up in the back living room. Back corner of the couch. He's—" He paused. Chose his words. "He's had a rough night."
"I know."
"Do you?" Something in Derek's tone. Not accusatory. Questioning. The senior who'd been watching the Liam-and-Alex situation unfold since last year.
"Yeah. I do."
Derek held my gaze for a beat. Then nodded. Stepped aside.
I went back to the living room.
There he was on the back corner of the couch. Half-hidden behind two guys arguing about something.
