Fuck.
I tried my best to stand, but the unease in my form kept me stumbling back down. Warm hands gripped my shoulders, steadying my head. I couldn’t even focus on what was going on around me. The shouting persisted, and it was deafening.
“Asher, take a deep breath, okay?” a young voice said confidently.
I squeezed my eyes together. It was Mila. As I opened my eyes once more, I briefly confirmed that it, in fact, was her. I rolled over onto all fours, giving myself an internal pep talk about getting the fuck up off the floor.
Blood was pouring from my face at an uncontrollable rate. But I staggered to a stand, knowing I likely looked absolutely diabolical.
“Where. The fuck. Is Wyatt?” I asked once more with determination.
The room grew silent, but the energy charged.
Mila looked between both of them, hoping someone would fess up. When neither of them did, she sighed.
“Wyatt’s in the hospital on suicide watch. He attempted to take his life.”
Between the blood pouring from my nose and the shocking information I just received, my skin paled.
Suicide?
Attempt?
Hospital?
No.
“Are you sure?” I broke, staring into her soul trying to find any inkling that she was wrong. “That—that can’t be right.”
“You’d fucking know what’s going on around here if you weren’t such a selfish little prick!” my father barked, stepping toward me once more before my mother shoved him back.
She looked at me, pity crawling across her skin.
“Yes, my darling. He attempted to take his life. But I know he is in the best hands at the hospital. He’s where he needs to be.”
Behind her, my father paced like a caged animal.
“No!” he shouted. “He’s where YOU should be!”
I froze, really allowing what he just said to process in my brain. The chaotic room stopped. The world stopped spinning.
With hysterics, my mother slapped him across the face before storming off upstairs. I’m not sure where she was going or what she was doing, but my father didn’t even attempt to follow her.
The look on his face said he was not about to withdraw his statement.
“How could you?” Mila whispered.
“Oh, fuck off. Both of you. You know what I meant,” he snapped with his brash attempt at gaslighting us. We knew what he meant, there was no going back.
The blood still dripped steadily from my nose, but I ignored it knowing I needed to be present for Mila. I took her hand and ledher downstairs to the basement living room. She was too young and too fresh in this family to stand in the crossfire upstairs.
Once we sat, I started to speak, but she beat me to it.
“Asher, I don’t know if it’s my place…but your mother has been worried sick about you. She’s been crying by the window, like, praying for you to come home.”
“I haven’t even been gone long,” I protested before really looking at her. She gave me a look with her youthful eyes, having seen far too much already. It wasn’t fair.
“That may be true, but your mom got the news the moment you took off. About your appointment therapy thing? And then the very next day, we find your brother overdosing on pills at his house. So yeah, maybe it wasn’t a long time, but for your mother, it has felt like ages.”
