Page 122 of Don't Look Down

“I think we can all agree Andrew hadn’t been acting like himself for a while now.” Addy nods, but doesn’t say a word.

He expels an audible breath. “That was just wedding planning stress, though.” His eyes dart between us. “Wasn’t it?”

I shake my head slowly. “Maybe not.”

“So that means he could have needed help for months and I ignored the signs? I knew he wasn’t acting right, but I didn’t say anything.”

Addy moves up to his side. “You can’t think like that. Nobody would have guessed something was wrong. You can’t beat yourself up.”

I can, because Idoknow better. Ishouldhave known better. It’s not his fault, it’s mine.

“Boo, look at me.” Cayden’s eyes are overflowing with tears as he gazes at the ceiling. Like he’s looking for answers on the ceiling tiles. How can he find comfort, though, when his fiancé is dead? His eyes meet mine. “I am so sorry, Cayden. I tried… I tried so hard to bring him back to you, but I couldn’t. I’d hit the rewind button faster than you could blink if I could.”

A sob bursts out of his mouth and the tenuous hold he had on his emotions crumbles in front of me. My throat and eyes burn. I don’t deserve to cry with Cayden. This nightmare is my fault, but I can’t hold the tears back any longer. Silently they leak from my eyes.

A throat quietly clears, and we all turn to see a nurse in the doorway. Her voice is soft when she speaks.

“Family of Mr. Adams?”

Cayden chokes on a sob, but nods. She informs us Andrew has been moved down to the morgue, and my stomach revolts. Any remaining color in Cayden’s face is gone. He swallows hard, while she continues.

“Take all the time you need here, sweetie. We’re not rushing you, but when you’re ready, let us know. We have some arrangements to discuss.”

“Okay, thank you.” His eyes widen. “Oh my god. I have to call his parents.”

Her eyes soften. “If you’d like to wait for them to arrive, we can do that as well.”

Addy wraps her arm around Cayden’s waist and rests her head on his shoulder.

The nurse leaves the room as quietly as she arrived. Cayden’s next words shatter my heart into pieces. “How am I supposed to plan his funeral when I should be planning our wedding?”

The drive homepasses in a fog of self-preservation. By some miracle of my mind and muscle memory, I navigate safely to Landon’s house and manage to park in his garage. I should be alarmed. I can't remember the drive.

Using voice-to-text, I send a message to Addy, letting her know I made it safely. She stayed with Cayden while he waited for Mr. and Mrs. Adam’s to arrive. They’re going to help with paperwork and making the arrangements to transfer his body to a local funeral home.

My brain short-circuits on that thought, and I rush out of my car.

I don’t bother grabbing my backpack from the seat next to me. There isn’t anything in it that will help me right now. I just need Landon.

His familiar scent surrounds me. I’m home. It’s almost a balm on my wounded heart, but not quite enough.

I close the door softly behind me when everything inside me really wants to slam it. I want to slam it so hard that it shatters like my heart and soul. It’s funny that you can outwardly be whole but completely obliterated inside at the same time.

Nobody who looks at you would ever see the difference. They’d never know how broken you are.

Music runs through my head like a soundtrack. I’ve always found comfort in music. And it makes sense to my traumatized brain that a song would linger in my mind. It’s on repeat like a soundtrack playing in morbid harmony with today’s devastation.

“Stages of Grief” by Awaken I Am. The death of a friend. A death I wish I can erase. Take it back so that it never happened.

I wish I could go back in time and hear Frankie out. If I had listened, maybe I would’ve paid more attention to the warning signs. Frankie was concerned, but I wasn’t. I was too relieved that Andrew seemed like himself again. In actuality, that was another red flag signaling his impending medical crisis.

My mind won’t stop racing. If I had done something differently, I’m sure I could have prevented it from happening. Helped somehow.

I’d thought he was a creeper, when, in reality, I should have been concerned with his behavior. I was scared to blow up his relationship with Cayden, and I’d hesitated. A slew of medical diagnoses run through my head as the probable cause of his personality changes and today’s accident. If I had confrontedhim sooner, or talked to Cayden, maybe we would have realized something was wrong. I made the wrong call and missed the signs. Meanwhile there was a ticking time bomb inside Andrew.

Twelve forty-one.

Nausea curls in my gut.

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