Page 18 of The Intimacy of Finding You

His eyebrows rose. “How the fuck do you know that?”

“Jack.”

“Oh, of course. Should’ve known.”

“He didn’t know that I didn’t know. But that’s not the point.”

“And what is, Callum? Hm?” He tried to sit up, wincing as he put weight on his wrists. After struggling for a moment, he seemed to give up, letting his body fall back against the bed. “There’s no point to be made. It just is what it is.”

Shaking my head, I rubbed a hand over my face as I tried to find my resolve. “Come home with me. Sober up. Get your shit together. Just please don’t go back to the goddamn subway or anywhere else where this can happen again.”

“That’s funny. That’s a funny joke, Callum.”

“I’m not fucking joking. Do you see me laughing right now?”

He rolled his eyes. “You should be because that’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why won’t you just do it? Take the olive branch I’m giving you.”

He sighed, looking back up at the ceiling, the only other place to look. “I don’t need help. I don’t wanna owe nobody. I’ll figure my shit out, like I seem to always do.”

“Owe someone?” Frustration replaced the butterflies in my stomach as I growled a bit under my breath. I stood from the chair, starting to pace the room in front of him. “You wouldn’t owe me shit, Tobes. Not a dime. Can’t you see? Don’t you understand?” I turned on my heel, standing right in front of him, looking at him even if he wouldn’t look at me. “I can’t lose you. I lost you for ten years, but at least I knew you were alive. I can’t lose you again. I can’t lose you permanently. I wouldn’t be able to handle that.”

My blood pumped in time with my heart that was pounding relentlessly in my chest. Tobi’s eyes narrowed, his pupils seeming to darken. Or maybe they were just getting distant. Sadder, if that was possible. “The worst part of it all is that I know y’all would get over it. Over me. Eventually, anyway.”

“You think I’ve just gotten over you?”

“What other choice did you have?”

I closed my eyes as they started to burn, unwanted tears forming once again. “I thought about you every single day, but I couldn’t bring your name up anymore because it killed Crew to think about you. I couldn’t speak your name into existence, so instead, I searched it. I searched for obituaries. I searched for articles. I searched and searched, even though I knew you didn’t want to be found. I just wanted to say your name again. If I never got to see your beautiful fucking face, at least I could’ve talked about you, but I couldn’t because you hadn’t just left me—you left all of us. And all of us missed you so much that it broke our hearts to say it.

“Crew thinks it was his fault. He blames himself all over again. He misses you so much that he can’t handle the idea that you’d just leave us for no reason. I told him I saw you, and I swear to god, it looked like I’d dragged him right back to Tiger Claw Camp with you. Jesse, Liam, and Isaac will talk about you every now and then, but it’s barely a whisper and barely a hope. We learned to stop hoping a long time ago. Sometimes, Price will be doing prep, and he’ll just stop. He’ll stop, step back, and look up at the ceiling with a smile that looks so fucking painful on his face. I don’t have to ask him what he’s thinking about because I know it’s you.”

When I opened my eyes again, I let the tears slowly fall down my cheeks as I looked at him. His cheeks were wet, gleaming beneath the shitty, horrible hospital lighting. I opened my mouth, and my voice had gone hoarse, cracking at the start. “So, no, we didn’t get over you. We didn’t forget you. We lost you, and I, for one, never stopped looking for you. I don’t want to let you go again. Please fucking come home with me. Let me help you. Let me be your friend instead of the stranger you turned me into.”

Tobi sniffled and looked away for a moment, doing nothing about the tears that were freely falling down his cheeks now. All I could do was anxiously wait as his lips twitched and his nostrils flared before finally, finally, he looked at me. “Okay. Fine. I’ll come home with you. But you’re asking an alcoholic to enter your life, Callum. I ain’t the same guy from ten years ago. I never will be.”

“Isn’t the first step to recovery admitting you have a problem?”

“I guess so.”

“Then I think we’ll be just fine. You’ve already taken the first step.” I sat back down in the chair, looking over every inch of his face. He still looked like him. His hair and his beard needed some major TLC, but he was still my Tobi. Even if I couldn’t love him like I used to anymore, I’d sure as fuck take care of him like I did.

I’d do anything as long as it meant he’d stay.

chapter ten

My chest was too tight, and my ears had started to ring. I wasn’t seeing clearly anymore. I didn’t know what I was looking at, but it wasn’t the world I was supposed to be seeing. “Why the fuck would you let him just leave like that? He was just starting to detox!”

Hayden put his hands up in defense. “He was discharged AMA. There was nothing else we could do.”

“This is bullshit. Bullshit!” I turned away, hissing through my teeth as panic raced through my entire body. It was hot. I was hot. Everything was fucking hot. Sweat was beading along my forehead, threatening to drip into my eyes. Would it burn? More than everything already was. I wondered just how bad it could be. I wondered if it would feel better than the rage and fear and pure fucking panic churning in my gut already. “Did he say where he was going?”

“No. I’m sorry. I know this must be a shock, and I know how worried you are, but we legally couldn’t do anything. He didn’t say where he was going. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all except that he wanted to check out AMA, which we are legally bound to let happen.”