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I press my face into it anyway and cry as quietly as I can, so no one down the hall will hear.

I keep thinking that he could be ten minutes from here. I could get in Mom’s car right now and drive past his parents’ house to check, but I don’t know which street it’s on. I never asked. He always picked me up and drove.

Through the tears, I pull up our text thread, a long column of messages with no replies, and send one more.

Me:

I miss you

The next morning, I wake up to the smell of bacon and the sound of Claire and Tommy running down the hallway. I drag myself out of bed and into the kitchen. Dan is there too, coffee mug in hand, and he looks up when I walk in. He gives me a concerned look—guess I don’t look like any less of a sad sack today—but I brush it off.

Callie texts me later that day, and it’s casual, just asking how my Thanksgiving went.

I smile a little at that. It’s nice having her as a friend since she knows everything I’m dealing with.

Me:

It’s alright so far. Still haven’t heard from him. Hope yours is good too.

My phone buzzes, and I almost don’t look because I really don’t feel like having a conversation or declining another invite from Derek.

But I do, and the whole room tilts.

His name is on my screen.

After almost a year, his name is there.

My hands start shaking so hard I nearly drop my phone. I read the message once, then again, then a third time, sure I’m imagining it. But I’m not.

Marcus:

The Riverside Hotel. Room 412.

CHAPTER 33

Marcus

The message says Delivered and I hold my fucking breath.

I’m sitting on the edge of the hotel bed, phone in my hand, staring at the screen like if I look away for even a second, I’ll miss his response. Even though he doesn’t owe me one. He doesn’t owe me anything.

After Evan came to my apartment and I didn’t open the door for him, guilt ate at me more and more every single day. I wanted that guilt to be enough to push me into calling Dr. Patel, enough to make me finally admit how bad things had gotten, but it wasn’t.

Depression didn’t care how good my reasons were for wanting to get better. I had decent reasons to reach out before Josh showed up too: a psychiatrist who’s been with me for years, a friend who never stopped checking in, and a man who didn’t stop telling me he missed me and wanted more for me, even though I didn’t respond. Yet, none of it had been enough to get me out of bed some mornings, let alone pick up the phone and say the words “I think I need help” out loud.

It took Josh standing in my kitchen, refusing to leave until I actually sent the email, made the call, picked up my medicine and swallowed the pills. I don’t know if I ever would’ve pulled myself out of depression on my own.

Now I’ve been back in therapy twice a week for the last two months. Two months of medication working its way back into my system, enough that the fog has lifted. Two months of acknowledging what happened, of talking through why I couldn’t open the door for Evan, of what finally cutting off my family means for me, of how to move forward from here.

It’s all helped me become present in my life again, in a way I wasn’t for most of the year. I’m finally showering, eating proper meals, and shaving my face regularly again. I also hung that goddamn record on a wall three weeks ago. When I stood back to look at it, I let myself cry, because it felt like proof I could keep a promise, even if I was eleven months late. I still hope Evan will let me keep my other promise to him, but visiting Seattle will have to be earned.

Dr. Patel asked me in our last session if I was ready to reach out to Evan, knowing that Thanksgiving is our “thing.”

I told her I knew how badly I’d hurt him with my silence. He flew across the country for me and sat outside my door for three days, begging me to say something, and I gave him nothing back. Not an explanation or a goodbye. Not even the basic decency of telling him I was still alive in there until he asked me point-blank.

I told her I was scared I’d already lost the best thing in my life. But I was ready to try, because he deserves the truth, and he deserves to decide what he wants to do with it.

So here I am in Bloomington, in another hotel room, waiting to see if he’ll respond. He could tell me to fuck off, and I wouldn’t blame him. That was the first text I’ve sent after almost a year of silence. But I know I had to try because another one of Dr. Patel’s questions was, what’s scarier… reaching out and finding out it’s too late, or never reaching out and always wondering?