The machine breathes for him.
I lift his hand and press my lips to his knuckles, hold them there, and close my eyes.
I don’t know how long I stay like that for. Time has no meaning right now.
Then I set his hand back down, carefully. "I'll be back tomorrow," I tell him. "I'll tell you everything."
The corridor outside is long and bright, and it takes me longer than it should to walk it. I don’t know if I can walk away right now. I turn the corner toward the waiting room and I stop.
I stop completely, one hand still on the wall, because what I’m looking at doesn't make immediate sense to the part of my brain that’s been running on grief for the past hour.
They're all here.
Not just Hayden, all of them. Mason is by the window, Miles is beside him, upright, hands in his pockets. Lileah’s in one of the plastic chairs, her knees pulled up, eyes on the door.
And Hayden's parents. His mum is already standing. Already moving, the moment she sees my face, crossing the waiting room.
She doesn't say anything. She just opens her arms.
Something inside my chest cracks clean in half.
I close the distance between us and I walk into them. She holds me the way my mother used to, both arms, her hand at the back of my head, and I press my face into her shoulder, and the tears come again, differently this time, not the sharp violent wave from before, but something deeper.
"I've got you," she says quietly, into my hair. "I've got you, sweetheart. You're not alone. Do you hear me?"
I can't speak.
"You’re not alone."
My hands grip the back of her cardigan and I hold on, and she lets me. She doesn't move, she doesn't rush me, and she doesn't say anything else because she doesn't need to.
I don't know how long we stand like that.
At some point I become aware of a familiar hand on my back. Hayden.
Standing just behind me, not pulling me away, but letting me know he’s just there. Present.
When I finally lift my head and turn around, I wrap my arms around Hayden's waist.
“I’ve got you, Cupcake,” he says into my hair.
I’m not alone. I haven't been for a while now. I never thought they would forgive me for putting Hayden behind bars, but they are all here for me now. I’m never going to be able to apologize for what I did to him, to them, but I’m so grateful they forgive me.
Thirty-Three
Hayden
It’s been a few days,and I’ve not left her side. My dad spoke to our college and explained the situation, and they said for us to return when we can.
She's not sleeping much, I spend the night holding her, while she cries herself to sleep.
I hear her sometimes, in the early hours. Not moving, not crying, just awake. Lying in the dark, which is somehow worse. I pull her in when it happens, and she lets me. We don't talk about it because there's nothing to say. What can I say that I’ve not already said.
During the day she sits on the couch not wanting to move, and the only reason she comes down is because I tell her she can’t sit in bed all day. She answers when the family speaks to her. She eats when food is put in front of her. She sits with the family in the evenings and watches whatever is on the television, without taking any of it in.
I can't blame her. I don't, not even for a second.
I stay close. I make sure she knows without having to say it that I'm not going anywhere. It's the only thing I know how to do right now, and I'm doing it with everything I have.
