He stepped inside.
And before I could ask again, the question hung in the air… unanswered… as the door clicked shut behind us.
Bishop sat on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. The porch light outside cut thin lines of gold across the living room carpet.
For a minute, neither of us said anything. Just the buzz of the fridge and the quiet ache of everything unsaid.
Finally, I broke the silence. “You gonna tell me what happened to your hand?”
He sighed, leaned back, and stared up at the ceiling like the truth might fall from it. “Mom’s been sick,” he said finally. “The meds she needs…they’re antibiotics. Doctor said she’d be fine if she could stay on them for two more weeks. But the pharmacy wouldn’t refill without payment.” He released a deep sigh. “Insurance lapsed again.”
My stomach twisted. “So, you?—”
He nodded before I could finish. “Yeah. I broke into the pharmacy. Back door. Grabbed what she needed and got out. It wasn’t even about the money anymore. It was about watching her cough herself half to death while people kept telling us to ‘come back when we could afford it.’”
I sat down beside him, the words sinking deep.
For the first time in a long time, I really looked at him. The dark circles under his eyes. The bruised knuckles under the bandage. The weight that had been sitting on him while I’d been too wrapped up in my own world to notice.
Bishop’s words hit harder than I’d expected. Not because he was wrong…because he was right.
Somewhere between chasing Maddison and trying to hold on to everything she made me feel, I’d stopped paying attention to the people who’d been there all along. Bishop had always been the guy who’d share his last dollar, who’d sneak out at two a.m. to help me when I screwed up, who’d cover for me without question. And I didn’t even know his mom was sick. Didn’t see how bad things had gotten.
Didn’t see him.
It made me feel small. Selfish. Like I’d been living in a tunnel where all I could see was Maddison, and the rest of the world was just background noise I kept tuning out.
I rested a hand on his shoulder. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
He gave a humorless laugh and met my eyes. “Let’s be honest. You couldn’t afford it either.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I swallowed, the sting of guilt catching in my throat. “Still,” I said quietly, “you didn’t have to do it alone.”
Bishop finally looked at me. His eyes were tired but steady. “It’s done now. No one saw me. No cameras. No alarms.”
I held his gaze. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
I nodded slowly. “Then don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. No one will ever find out.”
For the first time that night, his shoulders eased.
We sat there in silence, two kids carrying too much for our age, pretending we could handle it. When I hear my mom’s voice echo from the kitchen, “Nathan Alexander-Reign, get in here.”
The memory fades, and I’m back in Dr. Pembrooke’s office. The afternoon light has shifted, streaming soft and gold through the blinds.
She’s watching me closely, her expression thoughtful but kind. “A lot here, Nathan… remember no one can be everywhere at once… That was a lovely story about your mother.”
Her head tilts just slightly. “Does she know what you’re going through?”
The question lingers. I glance down at my hands, fingers clasping around the arm of the chair.
“Yes, but,” I say quietly. “I don’t want to burden her with it.”
Moments later, I’m walking out of Dr. Pembrooke’s office
