He was laughing about something, and I heard her laughter, too.
What was funny?
Why weren’t they helping me?
What was wrong with me?
Why couldn’t I feel my body?
Then, darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next time I awoke, Addy was standing at the side of the bed. I tried to find my focus as the blurry halo of her face hovered above me.
As my eyes blinked open, she leaned further down, her face coming into view, though there was still a strange blurriness to the edges of her skin. “Wes? Can you hear me? How are you feeling?” she asked. I felt her cool touch, a finger laid against my cheek. She trailed it down to my jawbone carefully.
I stared at her, the words forming in the back of my mind, though I couldn’t force them forward. I wanted to answer her, to tell her we needed to leave, that something was wrong, that she should get help, but there was nothing there.
No part of my brain could turn thoughts to words.
It was as if that part had never existed at all.
Maybe it hadn’t.
What was exist after all?
What was anything?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Oh, I don’t know. I shouldn’t leave him.”
I heard the voice.
Addy’s voice.
I moved to sit up with a painful jolt, surprised to see that my arms worked again. As if I’d been reconnected to my body somehow. Every movement was slow, my thoughts swimming through Jell-O, but they were there. I knew where I was.
The sun had begun to rise, peeking out between my curtains and blinding me every so often as they danced in the breeze from the fan.
“Come on, Ad,” he called her, the use of the nickname on his lips making my stomach turn circles, “you’ve got to eat something besides pizza. We’ve been up all night. Let me take you out for breakfast. Coffee, at least. We’ll just go right down the street. He won’t even know we left.”
“It just doesn’t feel right…”
“Come on,” he said with a giggle, and then I heard her giggling, too. “For old time’s sake.”
“Okay!” she cried. “Okay, you win.” He’d been tickling her. It made me sick to think of his hands on her body. “For old time’s sake.”
I pictured him slinging his arm across her shoulders, my skin crawling at the image. My arms went stiff, and I collapsed under my weight, no longer able to prop myself up.
Chapter Thirty
They were quiet for a moment, and then I heard her say, “I just hate it.”
I’d fallen asleep. I realized it then. I’d fallen asleep long enough for them to have had breakfast. They were back, the room was warmer, and I assumed it was around noon, the sun’s rays beaming through the curtains at full force. The room was too warm, sweat beading at my hairline and in the small of my back, but I couldn’t move. Addy was crying. Why was she crying?
“I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Elias was saying. “You were doing the best you could.” He paused.
“I’m so self-centered. I wasn’t paying attention—”
“Hey, don’t talk about yourself like that, okay? I think you’re amazing, Addy. I always have.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, so low I almost didn’t hear it. “But I failed him. I broke him. What if I did this somehow? What if it’s all my fault?”
“No, no, no you didn’t. This isn’t your fault. You couldn’t control it or prevent it… You can’t think like that. Trust me, it’ll destroy you.”
“Maybe there’s something wrong with me…” More sobs.
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, his voice dripping with admiration. It made my skin crawl. I felt my stomach tighten with sudden nausea.
“How do you explain it, then? The two men I’ve loved in my life, and they’ve both… How could I not see the signs in either of them?”
“Noah wasn’t your fault,” he said, and the name struck something in me. What was it? I closed my eyes, trying to think. It was as if I were trying to shock my brain back to life.
“I loved him. You know I did,” she said. “I would’ve done anything to have helped him.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated more firmly. “The depression was too much for him. We tried, we all tried… It wasn’t anyone’s fault. But, look at it this way, it could’ve saved Wes. What we went through because of Noah, it might be the only thing that saves Wes. Because I recognized the signs—the paranoia, the highs and lows—we can get him the help he needs. There’s a really great center a few hours from here. I can call them if you’d like.”
“Do you really think he needs that? I mean, a therapist and some medication. From the research I’ve done, I think, given enough time and the right combination, he could be okay.”
“I hope you’re right, I’d just hate to know we didn’t do all we could for him.”
I shuddered, listening to them talk. I wasn’t depressed. I wasn’t paranoid. I wanted to scream it at them. Why couldn’t Addy see what he was doing? Why hadn’t I seen it coming?
The memory of Noah came back to me all at once, the fog clearing. He’d been Addy’s boyfriend before me.
A boy who’d taken his own life in junior high.
As the memories flooded me, I remembered the memorial service we’d had for him in the school gymnasium. The counselors they’d called in to talk to us all and help us work through the grief and confusion.
Noah Munn.
His full name hit me swiftly.
Elias’ brother.
No wonder he’d been so quiet in school. Of course, I remembered now. Really remembered. He wasn’t just the shy kid. The smart kid.
He was the kid living in his brother’s shadow.
The kid living in the wake of his brother’s
