Page 107 of Take My Hand

“I’m not. I’m telling you this as someone who loves you. And I’ve let you push me away for too long. I’m not going to anymore.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“Maybe you don’t, but you need someone’s help.” I pace around the small space, feeling restless and unsettled. “I mean, fuck Will, look what you almost did to yourself.” I scrape a hand down my cheek, staring at the chart on the wall just to give myself something to focus on other than sheer devastation gutting me.

Silence coats the air and hangs between us for a tense beat, before Will speaks.

“I didn’t do it on purpose.” His voice is quiet but the admission rings loud.

I turn around and cross my arms, waiting for him to continue.

“I didn’t. I know you may not believe me, but I didn’t want to die,” he says, then clears his throat of the emotion fighting its way to the surface. “One of my friends brought home a few pills and thought we could kick the party up a notch. But since I had already been drinking since the day before, I didn’t realize no one else was drunk. They had all just a few beers earlier in the day when we were watching the game.

“So when everyone else was taking one and seemed to be okay, I thought, fuck it.”

He looks out the window, not much of a view from here but at least the sky is a bright shade of blue today, bringing a little bit of life into the heaviness of the air.

“I wasn’t trying to overdose like they thought I was. It’s the first time I’ve ever taken something like that. You know me, you know that I’ve never messed around with drugs before. I was just trying to find a moment of peace for once in my fucking life. I just wanted everything to be quiet.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, blinking away the tears.

“I promise, Hayden. I just…”

“I know,” I say, crossing back over to his bed and taking a seat on the edge of it. “I know. I believe you.”

I believe that he just wanted to forget everything and enjoy a reprieve from his memories. I’ve been there.

And he may be struggling, but after escaping death once, I know he’s not eager to meet it so soon. But there’s a sense of invincibility that you can create after looking death in the eye and making it through. I’ve seen it in Nikolai. Always testing limits, pushing boundaries, taking things to the edge for that rush.

Besides the alcohol clouding Will’s judgment, he likely had the same idea. If a person with a gun with the sole intent of killing as many people as possible didn’t take him down, then what was a little pill going to do to him? Especially when he saw his friends taking it and being fine.

And he probably would’ve been too, if he hadn’t been drinking so much.

“I didn’t mean to scare anyone. Fuck, I need to call Charlie.” He sits up, searching for his phone to call his roommate; the one who found him and called 911.

I put my hand on his chest, guiding him to sit back. “Lucas already talked to him and told him you were okay. You can call him later.”

A knock on the door draws our attention to it and Carter peeks her head around the corner.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a doctor out here for Will.”

“Guess it’s finally time for my psych eval,” Will says, trying to infuse some humor behind his words but it falls flat.

I get up to leave, giving Will’s shoulder a comforting squeeze before I go. “Be honest with them, okay?”

He nods, chewing the inside of his mouth nervously.

The doctor enters the room, gray hair tied back in a low bun and a pair of glasses sitting high on her nose. She greets Will with a warm smile.

“I love you,” I tell him, watching the words hit him and hoping they penetrate the surface of pain he’s been holding onto.

“I love you, too,” he says, voice exhausted, but there’s the tiniest of spark buried in it.

And when I look back at him as I exit, he looks slightly more at ease for the first time since I arrived. Like he needed to reach this low in order to find his way back up. Like he’s finally able to see a path forward through the darkness that’s been consuming him.

I shut the door to let them speak and pull Carter into my arms, relishing in my own light at the end of the tunnel.

36

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