She’d walked in.

This was El Dorado, on a cul-de-sac where everybody knew everybody. Of course the door wasn’t locked. Our parents only locked the doors at nighttime.

“It’s a gated community. How’d you get in?” I scrunched my nose.

“Someone put me on the list.”

“Who?” I pressed.

She looked away, shaking her head.

“I found him lying in a pool of his own vomit in the living room, unconscious. I called nine-one-one, flipped him over, and followed the ambulance with my car. It’s been forty minutes since he got to this room, and they’re not telling me anything. I’m scared for my baby.”

She clutched the tissue in her fist, pressing it to her heart. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if something happens to him.”

“You did the right thing.” I squeezed her thigh, trying to swallow and push the ball of emotion down my throat.

“Thank you, Moonshine. You’ve got such a pretty name. Very unique.”

Blinking at her for a beat, I proceeded to burst out laughing. In the hospital. In the middle of a double-Cole tragedy. Guess it’s true that human nature is programmed to fight. And laughter is the best medicine for almost every problem.

“Luna,” I corrected. “My name is Luna. Knight’s the only one who calls me Moonshine.”

She gave me a tired smile. “Despite everything, it’s nice to meet you, Luna.”

Two hours later, I sat in front of Knight, who lay in a hospital bed just a few hundred feet away from his dying mother.

I had spent those two hours making plans—plans I should have made a long time ago. Plans that ripped me open. Plans that had meant unplanning big portions of my life. For him.

Plans, I knew, that might leave me bitter with him in five, or ten, or twenty years.

Plans to cancel myself so I could help him.

When Knight opened his eyes, he closed them again as soon as I came into view. He put his big paws on his face, half-laughing and half-wincing.

“Shit.”

“Indeed.”

“I’ve really screwed it up this time, haven’t I?”

“Seems that way.”

“How’s Mom?”

I loved that he cared more about Rosie than himself. At his core, Knight was inherently unselfish.

“Same,” I said softly. “I just came back from checking on her. Everyone’s there.”

“Do they know about this?” He opened his eyes again, motioning with his finger to his hospital bed.

I shook my head, running my hand over his high cheekbone.

He took a deep, relieved breath and nodded. “What time is it?”

To grow up, Knight. To collect the pieces of your broken spirit and patch them up for your family. For yourself. For me.

“Ten at night. How are you feeling?”

“Never been better.”

I chucked his nose, leaning back.

He gave me a lazy, dark smirk, reaching for the collar of my shirt and yanking me so we were face to face. Half-dead and hospitalized or not, Knight Jameson Cole looked like every girl’s wet dream and her daddy’s nightmare.

“I’m hard.”

“Stop it.” I pulled away, standing up. “Stop pretending everything is okay when it is so unbelievably not.”

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t touch him. Hug him. Break down because he was alive, and lucky. So very lucky.

I needed to make a point, and it was high time I did, before he joined his mother in an early grave. It was going to be the hardest, most selfless thing I’d ever had to do, but it was far more important than entertaining my romantic dreams.

Every day of my life, since the moment I’d laid eyes on this broken, beautiful boy, I had dreamed of him being mine. And now that he was, I had to let him go.

“I’m leaving you.”

He rolled his head on the pillow to catch my gaze. He answered by ignoring me, yanking the IV from his vein and tossing it on the floor indifferently. I winced.

Dixie was outside, making calls to her family in Dallas, giving them updates about her son they didn’t know but apparently deeply cared for—the same son who wanted nothing to do with her.

Knight next ripped his hospital gown from his broad pecs, getting ready to stand up.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Chasing you,” he said tiredly, swinging his legs to the side of the bed, his feet hitting the floor. He looked like death—exhausted and pale, a far cry from his usual self. “That’s what you want, isn’t it, Luna? I always have to fight for you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t want that now. You don’t understand, Knight. It’s over.”

Now he looked at me with different eyes. Darker. The air shifted, moved differently in the room. It bunched around my neck. I couldn’t breathe.

“For real?” His voice leaked pain and apathy.

That’s when I knew this was the right decision. He was close to giving up. I couldn’t let him.

“For real.”

“You can’t do this to me,” he said emotionlessly, stating a fact. “My mother is dying.”

“I’m not bailing on our friendship; I’m breaking up with you. I will still be here for you every day. I dropped out of my semester to stay here as long as you need me.”