AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Still shirtless.
Still in Akara’s sweatpants.
Still reeling from tonight.
Oscar downs the water in one gulp. “We all do, bro.” He crushes the paper cup and free-throws it into a nearby trashcan. “For both of them.”
I shut my eyes, pushing back horrific images of Lily on the news. She’d been in so much pain that doctors put her in a medically-induced coma. I can’t stand knowing I’m a piece that caused this shit to happen. I can’t stand seeing the families this broken up.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I choke out and rise to my feet. I don’t know where to go. I can’t leave the hospital and risk paparazzi seeing me.
“Hey.” Oscar catches my shoulder before I turn. “You found her. You just got arrested and sat in jail to protect the Hales. You are a shirtless motherfucker right now, but you’re not a villain.”
Jokes wither in my head. I stare at one of my best friends like he’s watching a different movie where I’m the star. “I’m cleaning up a mess I made. Does that seem very heroic to you?”
“Their mess isn’t yours.” He points down the hall. “Your family is here. You’ve never been a dumb motherfucker, so I know you get this. Your family is here.”
It digs deeper into me.
His phone starts ringing. “Charlie,” he reads the screen and sighs. It’s been a long night, and I’m still playing catch-up with all I missed while in jail.
I nod for him to take it.
He props the phone to his ear. “Yeah?” While Oscar disappears down the hall, I stare ahead at the visitors’ room. The Hales. They’re in there.
I wish I had something to give them. Tomato pie. Some Wawa coffees. I have no wallet to even buy vending machine candy bars. All I’ve got is me.
Normally, I’d say that’s more than enough.
As I stride forward, I’ve still gotta believe it is.
I want to brave the sight of Luna’s family, and I open the door and slip inside the eerily quiet visitors’ room. Been here before. When I was much younger, I tried to find Farrow during his rounds or rotations. I don’t remember the correct terminology, but he’d been out of med school.
It was empty then.
Now it’s half-full. The room deadens even more on my arrival.
Last time I saw Lo, he’d been destroyed and just barely holding it together in the ambulance. I know what I expected now. I thought he’d be smothered with worry by his brother Ryke, but he’s not.
Ryke is offering Lo a wide berth of space. So is Connor.
The two of them are standing with Maximoff near the coffee bar, the only three on their feet. Ryke is also holding a sleeping Baby Ripley.
I can’t look at the baby for too long.
Seeing me, Lo goes from a slouch to a pin-straight position. He’s next to Xander. My little elf wears bulky red headphones, likely listening to music in the corner. The seventeen-year-old looks the most shattered of anyone—when I thought that’d be Lo. It’s his son.
It sinks my gut.
I take off my baseball hat. Seems like the polite thing to do.
“I…” What do I even say? I just tore through my past to pry out and protect what I thought would be my future. Luna. Every time I picture Luna in that house, handcuffed on that bed, pain and rage rip inside my heart, and oxygen is acid. Burning me alive, inside-out.
I blink away the image. Suffocated by it, I turn around to leave.
“Stay,” Lo says, his voice sandpapered but sharp.
He wants me to stay? By the time it processes, he’s walking over to me. Everyone is watching, but I can’t tear my gaze off Xander’s dad. What’d I think he’d be? Angry, judgmental, pissed off that I’m the malevolent thing attached to his family, ready to kick my ass to Montana, wishing he’d already done it weeks ago?
But he’s none of those things.
His reddened eyes are windows into my heartbroken soul, and I blink back the surge of emotion. Flashes of the row house, stripping down, clothes on fire, Luna in my arms, knuckles searing, leaving without her, then the bright cameras, cop car, behind bars, waiting—it all courses through me.
I just want her to wake up.
“I tried…” I hear my voice shake.
Lo puts a hand on my shoulder. And he pulls me into a hug. It almost breaks me. Then he whispers, “I know.”
I start to shake my head.
“You did enough,” he breathes.
My hand flies to my pained face. Been thinking I could never do enough in his eyes, so I can hardly believe it. “I didn’t.” She might never wake up.
I don’t want to survive without her. I’ve never felt this crushing feeling in my life. It’s worse than drowning. Worse than being lit on fire. Worse than Luna’s biggest fear—floating endlessly in space.
