"I'm coming," I tell her. "I'm on my way."
I hang up while she's still talking, grabbing my jacket and keys, checking my wallet for the hospital parking pass I never threw out. Mars looks up from his client. He reads my face, gives me a single, sharp nod toward the door.Go.
I'm already halfway to the door, the crisis-management programming running on autopilot. The old instinct screams atme to handle it alone.Don't drag anyone into this mess. Just drive.
My hand hits the glass of the front door.Stay.I remember Benji’s fingers laced with mine.Don't you dare do this again.
I pull my phone back out and hit his name.
He picks up on the second ring. "Miss me already?"
"My dad," I say, my voice completely flat. "He relapsed. I'm heading to the hospital."
The playful snark vanishes. The silence on the line shifts, turning sharp and focused. "Do you want me there?"
The old code fights the new code. "I don't know yet. I'll text you when I know what's happening."
"Okay." A pause. "I'll keep my phone on."
"I'm not disappearing," I say, the words scraping my throat. "I'm telling you what's happening. I'm not disappearing."
"I know," Benji says. It’s steady. Trusting me is the bravest fucking thing he's done, and I'm holding that trust in my hands as I get into my car.
The hospital is the exact same nightmare it always is. Same parking garage, same elevator, same bleach smell that coats the back of my throat. My dad is in a bed hooked up to monitors, looking gray and slack. My mom is curled in a plastic chair, clutching a cold cup of coffee. When she sees me, she stands up and crumbles against my chest.
I hold her. I'm twenty-six, and this is the one thing I know how to do. I talk to the doctors. I fill out the clipboards. I call his sponsor. I handle it.
The hours blur together. A nurse comes in with a non-update. A doctor asks for medication histories I can recite in my sleep. By three o'clock, my mom is dozing in her chair.
I reach for my pocket.Text Benji.But then my mom shifts, letting out a distressed noise, and I grab her hand instead. The thought gets swallowed by the next task.
I tell myself I'll text him after I talk to the doctor. Then it's after my mom wakes up. Then it's after the next vitals check. I keep chasing the wordafter, sliding deeper into crisis mode until everything outside this room ceases to exist. It's the exact same disappearing act I pulled last time, just in a sterile room instead of on a highway.
The clock over the nurses' station reads 6:17 when I finally step out into the hallway to stretch my legs. The corridor is dead quiet, save for the hum of a vending machine.
I pull my phone out of my pocket. The screen is lit up with Benji's name.
Benji: How is he?
An hour gap.
Benji: Knox?
Another gap.
Benji: Are you okay?
And the last one, timestamped two hours ago.
Benji: Don't you fucking do this again.
My stomach drops out. My grip on the phone goes white-knuckled. I can see it perfectly—Benji pacing his apartment, watching the hours tick by with zero response. The worry bleeding into fear, and the fear hardening into fury.Don't you fucking do this again.It’s not anger. It’s his abandonment wound ripped wide open on my screen.
I called him. I thought that made it different. But six hours of dead silence is still dead silence.
My thumb hovers over the keyboard. What the fuck do I even say?I'm sorryis a joke.He's alivedoesn't fix it. Trying to type out an apology right now is just another way of hiding.
I shove the phone back into my pocket and walk back into the room. My dad is stable. The nurse is checking his IV.
