Page 56 of Past the Broken Bridges

Dawson is right. I was a shitty friend.

I used alcohol and sex to get through a lot of shit I kept hidden from him and everybody else. And I hurt him.

There’s nothing I can do about it now. I’ve managed to let it go. I thought he had too.

“Desiree is old news” is the only thing I can offer her.

The rest of the ride to the hospital is full of silence, andI know it’s because she obviously doesn’t believe me. When I turn the radio on to drown it out, an old eighties country song starts playing.

“You like country music?” Dixie asks to fill the silence.

My fingers twitch around the wheel. “No.”

“Oh.” She watches me for a moment.

Clearing my throat, I flick the radio dial to turn it to a different station. “Sawyer does.”

I feel her eyes on me, but she doesn’t reply.

But I see a small smile from my peripheral.

A few minutes later, Dawson fights me as I get him out of the back seat and into the emergency room. I don’t care if he’s going to get into trouble for whatever he’s on because I’m more concerned about his hand. Hell, maybe getting into trouble will do him some good. That’s what had to happen last time for him to get his act together.

Dixie volunteers to stay with him since only one of us is allowed back until he can get fixed up, so I let her follow the nurse when she takes him back to one of the rooms.

I’m walking over to the waiting room seating when I see one of the desk clerks staring at me with a frown. “That’s going to be a shiner,” she tells me. She glanced between Dawson and me when we brought him in like she knew exactly what happened. Working in a college town, I’m sure she’s seen a lot. “Need some ice while you wait?”

I shake my head, willing to bask in the pain throbbing in my face.

I deserve it.

Enabler.

Knee bouncing when I sit, I realize that I’m in deeper than I want to be. Because instead of worrying about the person behind the closed doors probably getting stitched upas we speak, I’m thinking about Sawyer.

Frankly, I’m glad he fell when he hit me.

Because if he hadn’t, then I would have returned the favor for grabbing Sawyer, and I’m not sure I would have stopped as easily as he did after I saw her body lock up from the invasion.

Who knows where my friendship with Dawson would have gone if that had happened.

An ice pack appears in front of my face.

When I look up, the woman from the desk is standing in front of me. “It’ll help.”

I blink at the offering, slowly wrapping my fingers around the bag of wrapped ice, not that I think I deserve it.

“You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders for such a young man,” she notes, studying me. “Hopefully it gets better.”

Her kind smile has me staring in disbelief as she walks back over to her desk and keeps working.

Sometime later, long after my phone dies and my patience thins to nothing, Dixie appears and tells me I can come back. As we’re walking to Dawson’s room, I say, “Speaking as a friend, you can do a lot better than him.”

It’s not a dick thing to say if it’s the truth. She seems like a sweet girl with a promising future. I don’t know how deep whatever Dawson got himself into is this time, but I know it’s going to take a lot to get back out of. I’d hate to see him drag anybody down with him.

Dixie seems contemplative, hearing me out with a wariness to her sullen eyes. “Is he like this a lot?”

I know she’s heard about his past from people around campus, so all I can say is “He struggles.”

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