Thud, thud, thud.

“Open up, Ace!”

I’d have groaned if I had the energy. Instead, my gaze remained transfixed on the dark ceiling above my head.

“You know I can pick locks,” Danny said from behind my bedroom doorway. “Or I could just break the door down.”

I doubted either of Danny’s threats but didn’t take the chance. Pulling myself out of bed felt more difficult than building a mountain by hand. My body was stiff, my muscles ached from inactivity, and the floor felt foreign against my bare feet.

When I pulled the door open, Danny’s face dropped.

“Ace—” He couldn’t finish. I must’ve looked like shit. He eyed me up and down, starting with my disheveled hair, stubble around my jaw, and then over my threadbare T-shirt and hole-filled sweatpants.

“When’s the last time you went outside?”

“I went to class yesterday.”

“That doesn’t count. I mean besides walking to and from lecture halls.”

I shrugged.

“You look like shit.”

“I feel like shit.”

He shifted on the balls of his feet. “What happened?”

Truthfully, I hadn’t the slightest idea.

I’d been getting worse since leaving Banff over Thanksgiving break. I didn’t know if seeing Danny with his father had rattled some old, sad memories inside my brain or if I simply missed the cold Albertan air and snow-covered rock formations.

Whatever it was, it sat like something vile in the pit of my stomach.

After we’d returned home from our brief trip, I found everything harder to do. Going to classes was harder, focusing was harder, waking up each day was harder. I didn’t have the energy to do anything but lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.

“Did you go to the bereavement group meeting last night?” Danny asked, finally slipping into my room. He began flicking on the lights and opening the curtains like some kind of butler from a movie.

“No.”

“When’s the last time you went?”

I paused a moment, considering lying to him, but what was the point? “Since before Thanksgiving.”

He’d been kicking clothing from the floor into the corner but stopped. “It’s been over a month.”

For lack of words, I shrugged.

Danny said, “That’s a long time, Ace. You should start going again. Or go talk to that one shrink you liked.”

“I liked her, but that doesn’t mean talking to her was helping.”

“It’s better than nothing.”

“Nothing doesn’t sound so bad right now.”

Danny stared at me like he hadn’t seen me in a lifetime. “I’m worried, Archer. You don’t eat, you barely focus in classes. You don’t go to the bereavement groups anymore. Have you been to the firing range?”

A long time ago, while I was living a different existence entirely, I’d promised Danny—and myself—I wouldn’t go more than once a week.

“Yes.”

“How often?”

“Often.”

He looked stricken.

“I’m just tired.” And I was. I was unexplainably tired. Well, I knew how to explain it perfectly, but it didn’t change anything. It didn’t mean giving it a name made it a lighter burden.

Danny sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. He looked good, but perhaps, like me, a little tired. I wondered if I’d done this to him—stressed him out enough to lose sleep. The thought didn’t sit well with me. Danny was the last person in the world I’d want to hurt.

“How’s your father?”

The moment after that question slipped past my lips, I regretted it. I wasn’t sure why I’d even asked it. Maybe it was because his father was the only person in the world who knew I was gay and could still look me in the eye.

He almost laughed when he said, “He’s fine. Why? I’d be more worried about myself if I were you.”

“I don’t know. He just seemed kind of sad.”

“He’s been like that since Mom died. He’s not sad, I don’t think, but not quite like he used to be. He doesn’t laugh or smile quite as much.”

I nodded slowly and looked down at my bare feet.

The hush around us was loaded.

Bullet in the chamber.

Finger on the trigger.

“Don’t you want to be happy, Ace?”

And because he was my best and only friend, I said, “I don’t know. I don’t remember what it feels like anymore.”

Within the next moment, Danny was there, his arms around me, engulfing me in a paralyzing hug. He said, “I want you to be happy.”

It took me a moment but I hugged him back. “I don’t know why you put up with me, Danny.” And wasn’t that the honest to god truth. I had no idea why Danny—or anyone—put up with me. I could barely put up with myself. And maybe Danny knew that. It might’ve been written all over my face and that’s why he was always afraid to leave me alone or trust me with the key for the lockbox that was under my bed.