Page 66 of My Family

I spend five days at the hospital, and I don't want to admit to myself how good those five days are.

During the day, I work my shifts. At night, I stay with Tyler, who has a room like any other patient. Nobody asks questions about why he's there. The hospital staff are professional and treat him like anyone else who needs care. That's an enormous relief. I always expect the worst from people. But I'm trying to change that. If not now, at least when I get out.

Tyler is responding well. By the third day, he's no longer passing out. He can talk again—too much, actually—and we make jokes like:

"You're having to help me pee. What a loser."

"Who's the loser? The loser is the one who can't pee by himself."

He laughs. It feels like we're eight years old again. It's been so long that I barely remember what our life looked like before. I only remember that we used to have to invent things just to get through living with our parents. Pretend we were on an alien mission, that none of it was real, while we hid under a blanket fort I'd built for us.

The only thing I don't like is being away from Liam. I miss being close to him all the time. There isn't much to do at Aspire except hold each other, sleep tangled together, even spar badly in MMA. I can hardly wait to get back and spend some time alone with him. We could even skip a class. I'd come up with some excuse, use my leader privileges so we could be alone, maybe in my office. I miss his body, that lost-puppy look he gets when he's silently asking me to take care of him.

There's something strange about those five days that I keep turning over. I'm walking through a hospital like a person with a job. I eat in the cafeteria. I say goodnight to colleagues. I take the elevator alone. Nobody asks where I'm going. Nobody checks. For four years, the smallest movement has required permission. The bathroom, the courtyard, the phone room.

And here I can just walk down a hallway without accounting for it, and the feeling is so unfamiliar it almost makes me dizzy.

I don't know what to do with that.

I don't let myself think about it too hard. Tyler needs me present, and the patients need me present.

But Liam is there every time I try to put one of those thoughts away. He's the answer to most questions I don't want to ask out loud. What's the point of any of this without someone to come home to? What's a kitchen table if nobody's across from it? I've been building toward something for four years, and I realize, somewhere in the middle of the third night watching Tyler sleep, that the thing I've been building toward has a face. Blue eyes. Black hair. A laugh that makes everyone in the room turn around.

Two more days. I can do two more days.

On the fifth day, Nouha says, "Tyler's doing so much better. Soon he'll be able to continue treatment back at Aspire. You don't have to keep sleeping in that hard chair if you don't want to. Though if you're not ready to go back yet, I can let you stay a bit longer."

"Actually, I am ready," I say, and smile.

She looks mildly confused. It's a correctional facility, whatever anyone wants to call it. But she doesn't push it.

"If you want, I can ask Griff to send the transport for you today."

"That works. Perfect."

At seven that evening, when the shift ends, I tell Tyler I'm going back.

He laughs in my face. "You miss your boy, don't you."

I nod. No point lying, not with that grin. He's not hooked up to an IV constantly anymore, which makes everything from bathroom trips onward significantly easier—a blessing for both of us.

The ride takes forever because the traffic is brutal, but when I arrive I figure Liam will probably be at dinner. I go straight to the cafeteria, even though I've already eaten at the hospital. After four years of eating food from the same institution, I never pass up the chance to eat somewhere else.

But the first thing I see makes me feel like the world's biggest idiot for being so happy to be back.

Liam isn't at our usual table with Jack, Miles, and Harry. He's at Reed's table.

And Reed has his arm around his shoulders.

They're sitting close, and Liam is laughing at something, that full laugh that crinkles the corners of his eyes, the one that's supposed to be mine.

My heart drops.

My rational mind shuts off completely.

I stand in the doorway for a second that feels much longer than a second. I watch Reed lean in and say something, and I watch Liam's face do something I can't read from here, and every single good feeling from the last five days just evaporates. Tyler recovering. Nouha's hug. The shift ending and knowing I was coming home. Gone. All of it gone, replaced by something white-hot and stupid.

I can't believe he's doing this to me.