He must have felt me looking at him, because he glanced over at me, and his features softened.
“Are you all right?” he asked me.
I let out a humorless chuckle. “Are any of us?”
Alec sighed deeply. “No.”
Maybe it was just because we were all too tired and too vulnerable to bother with niceties, which was why I didn’t feel bad asking, “You’ve known this whole time, haven’t you?”
“Knowing things isn’t as objective as you think,” he replied. “But I had afeeling. I—” His voice cracked and he paused, pressing his hands hard into his thighs. “I could say I wish I’d done more, but there’s nothing any of us could have done. Not really.”
The truth of Alec’s statement hurt more than it should have, and maybe that’s what finally allowed my tears to flow freely. I leaned my head on his shoulder, and he gave me a gentle pat on my arm.
“I’m sorry about you and my sister,” I said to him.
I felt Alec’s body shift underneath me as he let out a sigh. “Me too. I liked her.”
“She liked you too.” I sat back up and looked at Alec head-on, seeing so much human vulnerability in his bloodshot eyes and his pale cheeks. “I don’t think she was as ready as she thought she was for someone to see her. I meanreallysee her, like you did.”
Alec nodded, pinching his lips together. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” And I wished it didn’t.
Another eternity went by before the same nurse came back out to us.
“I can take one of you back there now.”
Without hesitation, Alec motioned for me to go. I got up shakily, my body almost numb as she walked me through a long, sterile hallway.
“He’s okay,” she said softly.
“Oh.” I had to tell myself to actually breathe. “Thanks.”
She led me through another set of doors to the emergency room bays sectioned off with plastic curtains. Outside one of the bays Brooklyn’s parents were talking with another nurse. I exchanged a sympathetic glance with Annie before the nurse brought me into the bay.
Brooklyn was mostly upright in the hospital bed, his shirt torn off and draped over the side of the bed. There were breathing tubes up his nose and an IV in his arm, and although the color was starting to come back to his face, his eyes were dull and lifeless as he noticed me walk in. He barely looked human, and it scared the shit out of me.
“Hey,” he croaked.
My body moved on its own again, lowering into the lone plastic chair beside the bed.
I sighed and rubbed the corners of my eyes, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall. I thought back to last night, and felt sick to my stomach as I replayed every word he had said to me. Every single perfect word that made me feel like I could fly. That guy was long gone. The boy who lay in front of me now felt like a stranger, and I was no longer flying. I was falling—hard.
“Hi.” I put whatever energy I had left into keeping my voice steady.
“I feel real sick.” He groaned.
“Do you want me to get the nurse?” I asked.
He moaned and shook his head.
The exhaustion seemed to hit me all at once now that all the adrenaline had worn off, and I could have fallen asleep in that stiff plastic chair. I wasn’t sure how to decipher the feeling that was left. It was murky and sad.
“Nat, do you hate me?” He spoke up again, his voice scratchy and raw like someone had rubbed sandpaper on his throat.
I clenched my jaw, feeling tears sting the corners of my eyes. “Why would you even ask me that?”
“Because I hate me.”
