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How could she think she’d meant nothing to me?

My fingers dug into the steering wheel until my knuckles ached. I counted my breaths the way I’d been taught.

In. Hold. Out.

What had I been thinking, saying the things I did? How could I crave someone so much and still feel like I was drowning every time I got close? I hated that leaving had been so easy for her when losing her had destroyed me. I did all the things I promised, but she wasn’t there with me.

I’d made it to the MLB, and all I wanted was to give her the life we used to dream about—the kind where she never had to wonder if she was safe, where she finally had a place to belong. I sucked in a breath. The person who had made my world feel right was gone, and I still hadn’t figured out how to live without her. I couldn’t save her. I could barely breathe. She thought she was broken, but I had begun to wonder if I had ever been whole.

The band around my chest loosened as I worked to control my lungs. There was no way she would ever want this version of me—the one who ran and hid when anxiety took over. The one who said cruel things when fear got louder than love.

I had spent my whole life swearing I would never become him.

And standing there, watching the woman I loved look at me like I was someone she needed to escape, I feared I had already become him.

Twenty-Four

Lane

Lane: I’ve screwed up. Big time.

Soren: What happened?

Lane: I said some things to Cali that I can’t take back.

Jonah: Are you taking your meds?

Istared at his message longer than I should have.

This wasn’t a secret between the three of us, but I hated that my past mistakes with my medication meant this was always the first question when I acted out of character. I’d been taking medication for depression since I was nineteen. Somewhere between my mom leaving, Cali leaving, and coming to terms with the man who raised me, I reached a point where I couldn’t pretend I was fine anymore. I had hated the feeling of dependency, so I’d pop a pill here and there to manage my symptoms, and it only made things worse. Back then, taking medication felt like admitting something was wrong with me. Now I understood that asking for help didn’t make me weak. It made me human. If I needed insulin, antibiotics, or any other medication, I wouldn’t question it. This was no different. It was simply something that helped me show up as the man I wanted to be. It was a part of my life but not the sum, and I was grateful every day that it existed. Lately, I wondered if I needed to make an adjustment due to the anxiety attacks I’d began having since I moved home. I knew they were connected to being back around my father, but I wasn’t going to let him take this place away from me too.

Me: Yeah, but I majorly screwed up. I have to fix this.

Jonah: You coming over later?

Me: Yeah

Jonah: We can talk it out.

My muscles loosened. These men were my brothers. The family I had always needed. They listened. They didn’t make me feel like I was a failure or a mistake. We held each other accountable without making each other feel like shit.

Everyone needed someone like that. Someone who would stand beside you when you were too exhausted to stand on your own. Someone who would reach into the wreckage of your worst choices, grab your hand, and remind you that you were more than the worst thing you’d ever done.

Twenty-Five

Lane

Money couldn’t fix everything, but it could buy access. A phone call, a connection, an appointment that would take someone else weeks could happen before I even had time to second-guess asking. My call barely rang twice before my doctor picked up; the faint hush of wind and the distant thwack of a club striking a ball drifted through the line. I could picture him without trying: pressed polo, visor, a half-finished game paused mid-swing because I had called.

“Give me a minute,” he’d said, his voice already moving away from the others as the noise became more distant.

I leaned back in the driver’s seat, pressing my thumb into the edge of the steering wheel hard enough to feel it in my wrist.

We talked for a few minutes. I didn’t bother dressing it up. I told him the meds weren’t working, that I felt like I was constantly bracing for something that never came and never left. That it felt like I was wading through water with a weight tied around my ankle, always close enough to see the shore but never reaching it. I couldn’t tell anymore if the anxiety was worse or the constant fear of when it would strike next. My muscles were constantly tense, waiting for the next wave to come.

“Alright,” he said finally. “We’ll switch it. I want you to taper off what you’re on now. Don’t stop cold turkey. I’ll send in the new prescription.” He walked me through it, step by step, as if he were drawing a map I could follow if I just kept my head down. Reduce this; introduce that. Watch out for side effects. Call if anything feels off.

“Anything feels off,” I agreed, staring through the windshield at nothing in particular.