“I know we haven’t had much time to chat lately, and I’m sorry for that,” Jill says as we stand outside the door and I fumble for my keys. I’m reminded of the time I fumbled through my purse for my sunglasses then quite literally bumped into Brian Fox. “I’ll make time. I love you and I miss you.”
I hug my best friend. “I love you, too. Thank you for coming tonight.” I slide the key into the door, and when I open it, I find my roommate on the couch.
With a guy.
Nearly naked.
Having what sounds like pretty good sex.
Oh, and it’s not Jason.
They don’t seem disturbed at all by the fact that the door has opened. I look at Jill and roll my eyes, and she just shakes her head. I close the door and back away. I have no idea how long Tess’s fuck fest is going to last, but I don’t want to sit inside while I wait for it to end. We walk over to the stairs leading up to the second floor apartments and sit next to each other on the third step.
“Come stay with Beck and me.”
I shake my head. “You don’t want me there. It might actually keep you from banging on your couch whenever you want.”
She laughs. “You need to move.”
“I know. I hardly ever see her, but when I do, she’s either having sex or just finished having it. You don’t really know someone until you live with them, you know?”
“Poor Jason.”
I rest my elbows on my knees and rub my forehead with both palms. “How long do you think we need to wait out here?”
“She sounded like she was getting close.”
“She always sounds like that.” I just want to crawl into bed after the fucked up night I’ve had.
Jill chuckles. “How’d it feel to see him?” she asks softly after a few quiet beats.
I glance over at her then turn my gaze down to the ground. “It felt...” I shake my head. “It felt good to see him, to know he’s okay. I had a minute there where I felt all this hope for us, but then...” I trail off as I remember the words and the emotion he poured into them. I lift a shoulder. “He wrote an entire song about how much I fucked him up.”
She slings her arm around my shoulders in a side hug. “I’m sorry, Reese. I’m sorry I haven’t been here for you through this.”
I shake my head. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away, but you were moving and it was easier to deal with it by being mad.”
“You’re welcome at our place,” she says.
“I appreciate that. I’ll figure something out.”
We’re quiet for a minute, and then she stands. “Come with me.”
“It’s okay, Jill.”
“We’re not going to my house. I have somewhere special I’m taking you.”
I follow wordlessly to her car since my other option is walking past my roommate having sex on the couch. She drives for a few minutes and then we end up at the International House of Pancakes.
“IHOP!” I exclaim once we get there.
Pancakes were our thing back in high school. We’d go almost every Friday night, sit in a booth with pancakes and coffee, and chat. Sometimes it was just the two of us, and other times we had a big group of friends. We haven’t done this in ages, and the memories of a simpler time bring an immediate smile to my face.
She grins at me and gets out of the car. I scramble to follow her inside, glad to have my best friend back.
* * *
When Monday rolls around, I’m hoping for work to be a distraction.
It’s not.
Thoughts of Mark on that stage haunt me as my seniors work on a timed essay during the last period of the day. I don’t even care about what happened with Justin—it’s Mark that I can’t seem to get out of my head.
My phone starts vibrating in my pocket when there’s just a few minutes left in class. Who would be calling me during school hours? I leave my phone in my pocket, hating the impatience I feel at not knowing who it is. The buzzing stops, and there’s no follow-up buzz, so whoever called didn’t leave a message.
When the bell rings and the last student leaves the room, I finally slip my phone out of my pocket to see who the missed call is from.
Brian Fox.
Why the hell would Brian Fox be calling me?
There’s no voicemail, no text message. There’s just one random missed phone call from Brian Fox sitting on my screen. He might think I ignored the call, might think I purposely didn’t answer when I saw it was him. Good—I hope he does think that. If I would’ve seen his name flash across my screen and been able to get to it in time to answer, I wouldn’t have picked up his call anyway.
A tremor of fear darts through my belly. What if something’s wrong?
That tremor follows me as I go through my end of the day routine. I pick up bits of paper kids dropped on the floor, gather a stray pencil and stick it in the box in the front of my room. I erase my white board in the silence of an empty classroom. I finalize my slides for tomorrow’s lecture.
The whole time, that tremor sits in the pit of my stomach as it spreads like an infection to my bloodstream. By the time I’ve finished paperclipping today’s essays together and dreading the scoring process, my entire body is tense with anxiety and I’m almost convinced I should call him back.
Why the hell did Brian Fox call me? Why didn’t he leave a message?
I begin drafting a text message.
Saw your call.
I backspace and start over.
Did you mean to call me?
That doesn’t work either.
Is something wrong?
Maybe he’s just looking for Jason and since I live with Tess, he tried me. That doesn’t even make sense, and besides, if he was just looking for Jason, he’d have texted. If he needed the shirt he left behind that I threw away when I moved out of the house I shared with Jill, he’d have texted. If he had some other trivial question, he’d have texted.
He didn’t text. This isn’t something trivial.
Something’s wrong. It’s the only explanation. It’s the only reason he’d pick up a phone and purposely dial my number after what he did to me.
It’s Mark. I feel it in my bones. Something’s wrong with Mark. Something bad happened.
I always used to think bad things only happened in the middle of the night.
My mom used to worry about me when I was in college and told her we’d left our apartment at ten or eleven the night before to go out. She’d always tell me, “Bad things happen in the middle of the night.”
I ignored her at the time, but she wasn’t wrong.
I think back to those simple college days, when the biggest decision of my day was whether I wanted to drink rum or vodka that night.
When Shelby Anderson drank too much and had to have her stomach pumped, guess what time it was? It certainly wasn’t noon. When Johnny Bates was arrested for getting into a fight at a bar, guess what time it was? It wasn’t dinnertime.
But right now, it’s not the middle of the night. I hold onto the false sense of security in the daylight as I look out the window for a beat at the cloudless sky and the palm trees just outside.
I avert my eyes from the window and open a browser on my phone. I search Mark Ashton and click the news button.
I read the headline from the first article—it’s from this morning: Bad Boy Mark Ashton Hospitalized with Exhaustion.
My chest tightens with a sob so thick I can’t even get it out. I choke on something in the back of my throat.
Exhaustion.
I know what that means. It wasn’t exhaustion last time, and I’m terrified it isn’t this time, either.
I push my pride aside. Brian Fox called me after everything that happened between the three of us, and I can’t think of a single good reason he’d do that—especially considering that article. I scroll desperately through the headlines to find some update that says he’s released or doing better, but everything I find is vague and says the same goddamn thing.
Exhaustion.
Bile rises in the back of my throat as I sit at my desk and stare at Brian’s contact in my phone. I dialed this number so easily so many times in the past, but now I can’t bring myself to click the button. I can’t bring myself back into their fold. I want Mark to be okay with everything in my being. Not knowing is torture, but I’m terrified that knowing could be even worse.
I glance at the clock on the top of my phone. Forty-six minutes have passed since he called.
My phone starts buzzing in my palm, and I nearly drop it as it startles me. My heart races as it takes me a second to put together the fact that I’m receiving an incoming call. I stare at the name on my screen.
Brian Fox.
I accept the call with a deep breath.
“Hello?”
“Reese, hi. It’s, uh, Brian Fox.”
“I know.”
“I wasn’t sure if you deleted my number.”
I don’t respond. I can’t talk around the lump in my throat, and my heart’s still racing. It won’t slow down, and I’m scared as we make small talk.
He sighs heavily. “I’m calling because of Mark.”
“Is he okay?” I whisper.
“No.” His voice breaks on the single word, and I’m not sure I’m equipped to handle this conversation. My breath falls out of me like I’ve been punched in the stomach.
I can’t deal with this.
He’s not okay? I just saw him on Friday. He didn’t look great, but he looked okay at least.
What happened since then? I’m so stunned at that single word that I can’t even cry, not yet.
“But I think he will be,” Brian says. His voice is full of emotion that shocks me into needing to keep him on the line.
I swallow, try to clear my throat, but nothing helps to dislodge the lump back there. I finally manage to ask, “What happened?”
Brian clears his throat, too, as he tries to talk around his emotions. “He mixed some things last night that caused him to black out. They’re calling it an overdose.”
“What did he mix?”
“Weed, scotch, and morphine.”
“God.” I blow out a breath. “Why are you telling me this?”
He doesn’t answer my question. “He’s in Chicago and I think you need to go see him.”
“Why?” I whisper.
“He’s on a path of destruction, and it’s because of me and what I did to you.” His voice breaks again. “I know I fucked up, okay? I know I took it too far. I think you might be the only one who can get through to him.”
“He won’t want me there.”
His voice is low and comforting when he speaks. “Of course he will. He combined enough drugs to black out, but he could’ve taken enough to kill himself. He didn’t. He’s still breathing, and where there’s breath, there’s hope.”
Tears fill my eyes as he recites the very words that were in my own mind not all that long ago. “How do I get in to see him?”
“You’ll need to go in with someone on his approved visitor list.”
“Are you on it?” I ask.
He clears his throat. “No.” His voice is distant. I can’t tell if he’s angry about that or not, but I don’t believe he has any right to feel anger over it.
“Who is?”
“Ethan, Steve, James, Vick, Vinny, and Penny.”
“Not Liz?”
“No family. I’m sure he doesn’t want us to know the truth.”
“But you know?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t ask how because it doesn’t seem important. The only thing that does seem important is getting to Mark as quickly as I can. I need to see him with my own two eyes. I need to watch the rise and fall of his chest and know he’s still here—even if it doesn’t mean we ever have the chance to be together. “I don’t know how to get in touch with any of them.”
“It’s a good thing I do, then.”
* * *
I speed home to pack a bag with enough of my belongings to get me through two nights and then I speed to the airport and book a seat on the first flight to Chicago.
I busy myself on the flight with lesson plans for the next two days. I don’t know if I’ll need more time beyond that—hell, I don’t even know if I’ll need to stay in Chicago for two whole days. All I know is I need to get to him.
There’s a car waiting for me at the airport. Brian told me he’d arrange it for me, and—surprisingly—he didn’t let me down. I stare out the window at the scenery as the car takes me from the airport to the hospital. I focus on emailing my lesson plans from my phone and putting in for a substitute for the next two days so it’ll be off my plate.
When we finally arrive at the same hospital where Pops passed away not so long ago, I text Vinny. Brian gave me his number, and he’s the one who’ll get me in to see Mark.
Vinny meets me at the entrance with a nod. “Ms. Brady.”
It’s the second time Vinny has ever spoken to me, but for some reason, it fills me with a well of relief. I throw my arms around him. “It’s so good to see you, Vinny.”
He huffs out a breath, not really a chuckle, but not really not one, either, then turns to walk into the building. He leads me toward Mark’s room.
I just saw him a few nights ago when he performed on a stage in front of me, but I didn’t really see him.
I’m scared. I don’t know what I’m walking into, don’t know what to expect.
“How’s he doing?” I ask.
“Exhausted,” Vinny says pointedly.
I nod, desperate for more—desperate for the truth. But I understand his meaning: we shouldn’t talk out here.
We wind through a series of hallways until we find his floor. Each step matches the pounding echo of my heart.
We walk all the way down to the very last door where a uniformed police officer sits. He eyes me shrewdly and nods to Vinny, who reaches for the doorknob.
“You ready?” Vinny asks me.
I lift a shoulder. How can you ever prepare for this moment? How can you ever be ready to see the person you love more than anyone or anything in the world sitting in a bed in a hospital because he’s self-destructing?
He nods then opens the door.
My eyes instantly meet Mark’s across the room. He’s connected to an IV and his head rests against a pillow, but he sits up a little straighter when he sees me. He looks like my Mark, though he looks like an exhausted, weaker version of the man I love. The man I can’t get out of my head because my heart won’t allow it. His eyes are sunken deep into his pale face. The normal vibrancy and charisma are replaced with the haunting look of a man who’s completely lost.
He looks away from me as he refocuses his eyes out the window. “What are you doing here?” His tone is blunt but his voice is weak. The rasp I recognized behind his lyrics on Friday night was because of whatever this is. This doesn’t look anything like the strong man I fell for after one night.
Seeing him like this—like the man I love but at the same time not—causes the fissures in my heart that I thought might be starting to mend to split wide open again.
“Exhaustion?” I ask, going for a light tone. I expect him to give me some sort of acknowledgment, a wry smile or even a look of shame to validate my innuendo, but all he does is lift a shoulder without looking at me.
I glance around the huge hospital room. Only the best for a celebrity who needs help, I suppose.
A nurse is busy with a stack of papers near a counter on one side of the room. She’s young and blonde and pretty and I hate that he’s in here with her. She glances over at me but keeps doing whatever she’s doing. Vinny steps back out into the hallway to give us the illusion of privacy.
I force one foot in front of the other. This is hard, but whatever demons he’s battling are worse than what’s going on in my head. Whatever put him here is harder, and suddenly I’m desperate to be the one he unloads that on. I thought once upon a time that I couldn’t be strong enough to shoulder his issues, that we’d need to face them together, but maybe I’m stronger than I’ve given myself credit for.
I look at his bed—I want to sit there, but I’m not sure how welcome it would be. I choose the chair next to the bed instead. I reach for his hand, but he pulls it away.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says.
“I agree.”
He finally blows out a breath and his green eyes fall to mine, those same green eyes I love, but they’re different today. “Who told you?”
“You ready for this one?” I press my lips together.
He lifts both brows.
“Brian.”
He shakes his head. “How does he even know?”
“I didn’t ask. He’s worried about you.”
He ignores my words. “You were there on Friday.” He says it like a fact, not a question.
I nod slowly. “The tickets were a surprise from a friend who thought I’d love to see my favorite band from the front row.”
“But you ran out. Our new shit’s not that bad is it?” A glimmer of my sweet Mark shines through this new version at his teasing tone.
“I loved seeing you there,” I say softly as I pick at a fingernail that doesn’t need picking. “But ‘Until You’ was kind of rough.”
“Rough like it needed work?”
I shake my head. “Rough like it was hard to hear.”
His brows draw down. “A love song that was hard to hear?”
“That was a love song? You said you didn’t know what hate was until you met me.”
“Didn’t you listen to the last verse?”
“I left somewhere around ‘I can’t think of you anymore.’”
His eyes soften for just a beat, but then his gaze returns to the window. “You should’ve stayed.” He doesn’t expand on that, and I can’t help but wonder about the rest of the song.
“What are you doing to yourself, Mark?”
“Trying to find something that makes me feel as good as the last hit I took.”
“If you’re trying to make a joke, it’s a bad one.”
He levels his gaze at me, and there’s not a trace of joking behind his sad eyes. “I was talking about you.”
“Oh.” Like some bumbling fool, it’s all I can think of to say.
We’re both quiet, and I look out the same window he’s returned his gaze to. After everything we went through, it’s hard to believe we can’t come up with anything to say to each other right now.
“People are worried about you. Your sister—”
“Thinks she knows everything. She doesn’t,” he says, interrupting me. His voice is cold and hard. The nurse glances over at us.
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
He holds out a hand as if to tell me to continue.
“She’s been worried about you for a while. She told me to get in touch with you.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asks. His voice is flat, and I can’t tell if he’s asking because he wanted me to or if he’s asking because he’s genuinely curious why I didn’t.
“You basically kicked me out of Chicago and told me you needed to focus on your family. What was I supposed to do?”
He doesn’t answer as he rests his head back on his pillow. “I need to sleep. I’m in here for exhaustion.”
“Understandable. I’ve heard drinking and marijuana can make you tired, but mixing morphine on top of that must make you downright exhausted.”
He presses his lips together, not responding to my words yet at the same time acknowledging the truth of what I said—that I know the real reason he’s in here.
“Two depressants mixed with liquor would exhaust anyone,” I say.
“I don’t need another goddamn lecture.” His voice is sharp—sharper than I’d expect in his weakened state, and the nurse glances over at us again. He looks at her. “Can you give us a minute?” he asks her.
“I’ll just be a few more minutes, Mr. Ashton,” she says. “And I need to check your bags before I go.”
He blows out a frustrated breath and nods over toward the nurse. “Becky’s just making sure I’m not going to hurt myself. Or you.”
“You already hurt me once,” I say softly. “Give me your worst.”
His eyes soften again, and I feel like I might be getting through to him.
“Can I ask you a question?” I ask.
“That was a question.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m serious.”
He nods.
“You have it all, Mark. You have everything going for you—talent, money, fame. Why are you on this path of self-destruction?”
He shakes his head and looks at me pointedly. “Because I don’t have everything.” He lowers his voice and breaks our eye contact.
I catch his hidden meaning, and it breaks my heart.
I stand from my chair and sit on the edge of his bed. I take one of his hands between both of mine. It’s ice cold—a temperature I’d never associate with Mark. “I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
He blows out a breath and closes his eyes. Becky steps over and does something to his IV bag before tapping some information into a computer.
His breathing evens out, and by the time Becky leaves the room, he’s asleep.
I hold his hand as I sit on his bed, staring at the man I love as I wonder where the hell we go from here.