He’d gone missing again, and when I finally saw him, the way he looked terrified me to the core.
It was as if there was no life left in his eyes, no blood beneath his skin.
He was still here, feet on the ground, moving, but he’d thoroughly checked out of this world.
His mind wasn’t with him anymore. It had gone somewhere else, somewhere I couldn’t reach.
I was so fucking terrified.
I couldn’t take it anymore. The silence, the waiting—it was too much.
I jumped off my bed, ran out of my room, and burst into his.
And what I saw stopped me cold.
I froze in the doorway, eyes wide, breath caught somewhere between my lungs and throat.
He was lying on the floor beside his bed, unnaturally still. An open bottle of pills rested near his hand.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak.
My mind screamed at me to do something, anything, but my body wouldn’t respond.
Xander wasn’t asleep. He wasn’t resting.
Something was very, very wrong.
I forced myself to move.
My legs were shaking as I stumbled toward him. I dropped to my knees beside his body, my hands hovering over him, too afraid to touch. But when I finally did, his skin was cold—not freezing, but wrong.
“Xander,” I whispered, then louder, “Xander!”
No response.
I grabbed his shoulders and shook him, gentle at first, then harder. “Wake up. Please, please wake up.”
His eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. His breathing was shallow, barely there. His lips had a faint blue tinge.
Panic clawed at my throat. I ran to the living room to reach the house phone with trembling hands and called emergency services, barely able to get the words out.
“My brother—he’s—he took something. Pills. He’s not waking up. Please, please hurry.”
They were saying something to me, but I didn’t catch what. I was already running back to Xander.
I dropped beside him, whispering his name like it could pull him back.
“Please don’t leave me, Xander. I told you not to leave me.”
He didn’t answer.
“I love you, Xander. You’re my brother. You’re all I have in this world. Please... don’t do this to me.”
I was panicking—no response, nothing.
Then, suddenly, I heard it: a faint whisper.
“Yeah... love you too, sis.”
