by S. J. Sylvis
I hated to admit it, but part of me felt like I needed him. I needed him to lean on. I needed him to ground me. The thought scared me, because I was so used to being on my own, but it was kind of nice having someone as a clutch. Having someone you could lean on.
“I wish things weren’t like this right now,” I said. “I want things to go back to normal, before I got involved with my brother’s shit and Tank.”
All of a sudden, I heard a deeper voice. “But you mean, like, you want them normal, except for you still want us to be us, right?”
I almost squealed. “Ollie! What are you doing with Hayley? Are you guys all hanging out without me?” My lip jutted out. It was agonizing that I wasn’t with them.
“Open your balcony door, Pipe.”
My heart halted. “What?”
“We’re coming in to hang. Did you really think I could go this long without touching you? That kiss yesterday was a tease.”
I smiled so hard my face hurt. My phone fell from my hand as I jumped up onto my carpet. The balcony door pushed open slowly, and I slapped my hand over my face as I saw three smiling faces staring back at me. Oh my God. I love my friends.
And Ollie. I loved Ollie. The feeling that blossomed when I saw his lifted cheek was life-altering. That was what love was, right?
Ollie was the first to jump from the tree limb to my balcony. His arms wrapped around me almost instantly, the breeze of the cool January air coating my bare arms. “Hi,” I breathed into his chest.
“Hey, you,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “I missed you.”
Content. That was what I felt being in his arms. One hundred percent content and full. He filled me up.
“Move, dipshit.” I peeked over and heard Christian scoff at our embrace. He was the next to jump and then Hayley. Christian tried to reach over and grab her, but she swatted his hand away and rolled her eyes. So independent.
As soon as they were all safe and on my balcony, they shuffled inside my room. Hayley pulled me in for a hug, and I squeezed her.
“You okay?” she asked quietly.
I nodded before letting go. “I love you guys! I can’t believe you just snuck into my room!”
Ollie stood back along the wall and just gazed at me. I couldn’t help but smile.
Christian flopped onto my bed and acted as if he owned the place, per usual.
Hayley fell down beside him. “Are you kidding? These two are pros at sneaking into places, and believe it or not, it was their idea.”
“So, you missed me, huh?” I placed my hands on my hips and looked up at Ollie. He shrugged coyly. “You can admit it, you know. We no longer hate each other.”
His tongue darted out to lick his lip. “Oh, trust me. I have no problems admitting it. I just wish I could show you how much I miss you, instead of saying it.”
Christian groaned. “No sexual innuendos allowed. Breakin’ the rules.”
“What rules?” Hayley asked, looking between them.
Ollie pushed off the wall and went over to sit in the chair by my desk. It only took one tip of his chin for me to follow after him and to sit on his lap. His arms went around my middle, and I sighed happily, leaning back into his hard chest. “When Hayley and he had started dating, and we’d hang out, I had a little heart to heart with my brother here.”
“About what?” I asked, tipping my head back.
“I told him he couldn’t eye-fuck his girlfriend while we were all hanging out as friends. Or make out with her, because it always turned into something more, and I was forced to leave the room.”
I busted out laughing before Ollie slapped his hand over my mouth. “Shh,” he whispered along my ear. “Your parents will hear.”
Goosebumps broke out along my skin, but I shook them off. He was right. My parents would likely come investigate. I whispered, “Do you remember that time we were at Eric’s and they started to make out so intensely that the three of us were forced to go out onto the deck for the rest of the morning?”
“How could I forget?” Ollie asked. “It was chilly. You didn’t have a bra on.”
I smacked his shoulder, causing Hayley to snicker.
Just then, a loud bang came from somewhere in the house.
“What was that?” Hayley asked, sitting up a little taller.
I jumped off Ollie’s lap, fear taking away any bit of calmness I had felt seconds ago.
My ears strained, but I didn’t hear a single thing. “I don’t know,” I hesitantly said. I walked a little closer to my bedroom door. That was weird. “I’m going to go make sure everything is okay. Stay here.” I glanced at Ollie once before opening the door and peeking my head out. The long hallway was dark, but I saw the light from underneath my brother’s door on the carpet. I shoved away the apprehension and mouthed, “I’ll be right back,” to Ollie, Hayley, and Christian. Ollie’s brows were knitted, and his perfect, pale lips were set in a firm line, but he gave me a nod.
Once the door was latched, I crept down the hallway, still listening. I didn’t even hear my parents downstairs. Were they in bed? It was sad that I didn’t know my own parents’ sleeping schedules.
I didn’t know them at all.
My hand lingered in front of Jason’s door with my heart stuck in my throat. It had been at least a year since Jason lived here, but it felt like yesterday that I was standing here, afraid to go into his room to see him passed out from partying.
A heavy breath of air left my lungs as I flipped my hair over my shoulder and pushed through the door. His bed was messy, the covers thrown halfway across the room. My eyes quickly went to the bathroom where the light poured out onto the floor.
“Jason?” I half-whispered, waiting for a response.
Nothing.
The nerves picked up in my stomach; the bile in my throat was rising slowly.
I shook my head. He’s fine. Relax.
There was no way he could have gotten drugs since he hadn’t left the house since he got here. My parents made damn sure of that, I was sure.
Even though my head was telling me to retreat and to go back to my room, something dragged me over the carpet and the bundled-up blanket and into the bathroom.
The door creaked as I pushed it open, and when I saw the orange pill bottle turned on its side on the porcelain vanity top, it felt like I was plunged into ice-cold water.
There, on his side, was my brother, unconscious.
A blood-curdling scream left my mouth, and suddenly, everything went dark.
Chapter Forty-Six
Ollie
“What is taking her so long?” I asked, pacing Piper’s bedroom floor. There was a shift in the air the second her bedroom door closed.
I felt cagey and anxious. A lot like I used to feel before I’d race. Something ominous was in the air, and it was eating at me.
“Bro, relax.”
“Yeah, Ollie,” Hayley said, scooting down to the edge of the bed with her feet dangling. “It’s probably nothing.”
“I guess,” I said, about to sit down, but then my head snapped when I heard the most piercing, terrifying scream I had ever heard in my life.
My shoulders snapped straight, and when I locked onto Christian, we both flew into action.
I ripped Piper’s bedroom door open, and I swore I was to her within a second. Somehow, my feet knew where to carry me. I jumped over a mess of blankets on the floor, and when I walked into the scene, all the oxygen in the room ceased to exist. I couldn’t breathe. I was stuck, staring at the girl who literally made my heart skip a beat, huddled on the floor, lifting her brother’s lifeless head off the ground. There was a mess of yellow vomit around her knees. The putrid smell slapped me into action as Hayley came barreling through.
“Get her out of here!” Hayley screamed as she ran by Piper’s side and shoved her out of the way. Piper yelled out, reaching for her brother, tears flowing quickly down her face. Oh, fuck. Just the thought of Piper hurt made me want to kill someone, but seeing the look of pu
re fear on her face felt like every bone in my fucking body was being broken at the same time.
My hands wrapped around her tiny arms as she clawed and reached for Jason, yelling. I swooped her up.
“No! No! Let me go!” She smacked my chest and pushed at my shoulders. I caught the eye of Christian as he already had his phone pulled out, calling 911. Hayley had Jason’s head lifted, and she was shoving her fingers down his throat, saying, “Come on, come on. Puke it up. No, no, no, no.”
As soon as I pulled Piper out of the bathroom, her parents came through the bedroom door. Her father looked ready to kill me until they saw that Piper was now clinging onto me for dear life. Her mom took one look at us and ran past, screaming when she saw the scene.
Christian was talking quickly into the phone to the dispatcher, but I continued to drag Piper away. I could feel the grief radiating off her body. She was shaking in my arms, and in that moment, I actually turned to God. I’d only ever prayed once in my life, and it was the day Christian and I had found my mother dead in her bedroom. It was pointless then. Our mother was dead and had been for hours. But right now, I didn’t care. I prayed that he would take her pain and give it to me. I’d gladly carry it for her, because seeing her like this was one of the worst things I’d ever felt.
“Shh, shh, shh,” I hushed her as I pulled her back into her room, shutting the door softly behind us, shoving all the chaos in her brother’s room out. Piper’s cries racked her body so hard that I had to cradle her head into my chest.
“No, no. He can’t—where—no.”
Agony wrapped itself around my windpipe. “Just breathe.”
She gasped so many times that I wanted to breathe for her. My own lungs constricted. My arms ached as they wrapped around her. The pain. I felt her pain.
God, don’t let him die. I knew what it felt like to watch someone die from a silent disease. I knew what it felt like to have someone pick a vice over you. A user took your love and they threw it away. They didn’t even mean to, and that was probably the hardest thing to accept. It was something I’d learned years ago, when I finally processed what had happened to my mother.
“Just breathe, Pipe.” Piper was still gasping for air, but it wasn’t as bad as before. My arms tightened around her as I finally lowered us to the ground in her bedroom.
“Ollie,” her voice cracked, and I swore I did, too.
“I know, Piper. I know. Just breathe. I’m here.” I kissed her head again as she buried it even harder into my chest. Her small, shaking hand clenched my shirt, and I had to smash my lips to keep myself together for her.
I knew, sitting there in her room as shit unfolded in the worst of ways in the next room, that nothing else mattered but this moment right here. No matter what happened in the next few days, or months, or even years, I would forever be linked to Piper. I would fight like hell to keep her safe and happy. Because the alternative was literal hell in my world.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Piper
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. A heavy breath left my lips and floated to the ground as I twisted my fingers together again. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Another breath escaped. A large hand came down and rested on my knee, giving it a light squeeze. I glanced up at Ollie’s tired face, and he gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach the dark circles under his eyes.
I wanted to smile at him. I wanted to tell him how much I loved him. How him being here by my side was enough to keep me from spiraling out of control. But I couldn’t even muster up a single syllable. My cheeks refused to rise. My mouth was glued shut. I only hoped that my eyes told the story, because I wasn’t sure I’d ever speak again.
I replayed the scene in my head over and over again. Small pieces of broken memories flew at me as I sat in the waiting room with the sound of beeping machines echoing through the hospital. I wondered what I’d done wrong over the years. I wondered, if I had done something differently, if Jason would be here. Regret and guilt started to sneak their way in, and I had no one to blame but myself.
That was the thing about situations like this: they were so uncertain. If my parents would have helped Jason a few years ago, would he have landed in the hospital? Or would their help have just turned into enabling? What if I’d told my parents about Tank, and Jason owing him money? What would they have done? Would he still have ended up like this? Was this the ending he was meant to have?
The ending. Was it the end?
I swallowed back a harsh lump as Ollie’s thumb rubbed the inside of my knee. I stared at it, the strokes back and forth somehow comforting me in my state of rising panic.
“How is he? Is he okay? Is he alive?” My mother’s voice had me snapping my head up in search of whomever it was she was talking to. The doctor, with his wrinkly tanned face, looked ambushed, but nonetheless, he answered.
I quickly got up and stood by my parents, my father glancing down at me once before looking back at the doctor.
“He is alive. We were able rid his system of the drugs and are giving him fluids now. Your son is tired but coherent enough to talk to you, if you’d like to go back.”
My heart leapt in my chest. He’s alive. But…now what?
My mother began to push forward, but the doctor quickly put his hand up. “Listen.” My mother stopped in her tracks. “I say this to all parents and caregivers when we get a case like this.” The doctor closed the file in his hand and lowered his voice. “We both are aware that your son needs help. In fact, I have had a lengthy talk with him about what happened, and now is not the time for you and your husband to go in there to reprimand him. Jason is in a fragile state. Not only did he just come close to overdosing, but he did so on purpose. He needs rest and fluids, and tomorrow, I have scheduled for a psychiatrist to come evaluate him and to talk with you two as well.” I sucked my lips between my teeth and glanced back at Ollie. Hayley and Christian were huddled beside him, talking quietly.
When I turned back to look at the doctor, he was staring at me. The wrinkles on his face softened just a tad before he turned and glanced at my parents. “You all are welcome to come back now, but please keep in mind that this is not the time to have a yelling match. Jason’s health is my number one priority right now, and that will do harm.” He began to turn away but not before he said, “If you cannot control yourself and your anger and disappointment, please do not come back.” Then, he turned to me and inched his head for me to follow. I felt the small rise of my lips as I trailed after him, not really caring if my parents were doing the same.
Once we got to the window, we both stared into the room. My brother was lying on the hospital bed with an IV hooked up to his arm. His eyes were closed, and the white sheet was pulled up to his chest. He looked so unlike the picture I had of him in my head. When I thought of Jason, I thought of the good times. The times where he was happy and glowing. The times we had fun together. Not this. Not this shell of a person I used to know.
“He’s sorry, you know.”
I shifted my attention to the doctor. “How do you know?”
He continued peering through the window. “The first words out of your brother’s mouth when he woke were, ‘I’m sorry, Piper.’”
My hand came up to cover my mouth.
“It took me a while to figure out who you were, but once he was coherent and I started asking questions, I learned you were his sister.”
I said nothing. I didn’t really know what to say. All I knew was that my heart hurt.
For a while, the doctor and I just stood and stared through the window. Jason was sleeping peacefully, his coppery-brown hair matted down to the side of his head. His cheeks had more color, thankfully, but he still looked rough.
“I’m sad,” I finally said, barely above a whisper.
And I was sad. I was sad for a lot of reasons. I was especially sad that my parents chose to stay in the waiting room rather than see their son. Did they hate him that much? Or were they sad too?
“It’s okay to be sad. It’
s hard to see someone you love being destroyed by something that's completely out of your control.” The doctor cleared his throat before looking down at his phone. “It’s hard to love a user.”
I stared at his profile as he continued looking at Jason. “Sounds like you know from experience.”
“I do,” he answered abruptly. “And my only advice to you is to hope for the best, but always expect the worst. I was told that once, and it stuck.”
I nodded, taking in his advice like it was actual oxygen. I repeated the mantra in my head as he began to walk away, leaving me to stare at my brother all alone.
But then, that was when I heard the raised voices.
I gave Jason one more glance before rushing to the waiting area, waiting just behind the far wall to listen.
“Ollie, calm down. I’ve never seen you act like this.” Christian.
“Yes, I would appreciate it if you calmed down.” That was my dad.
“I’ve never acted like this because I’ve never cared about someone like I do Piper!” Ollie’s voice roared over my father’s and Christian’s. There was a pause, but then Ollie started up again. “You and your wife are standing out here, for what reason? Because you can’t hide your disappointment that your son has an addiction? Piper is back there alone while you two do what? Sit out here and argue about whose fault it is that he’s in the hospital and that Piper is somehow involved in all of this? Of course she’s involved!”
“Calm down.”
I wanted to peek my head around the corner and see what was unfolding, but I didn’t want my cover blown, so I stayed tucked away, pressing my hands to the wall behind me.
“No! I will not calm down.” There was a pause. “You two don’t even know your own daughter! She cares about people so deeply that she’d do anything to help them. She has been fighting for Jason from day one, and it’s because you backed out. If she didn’t fight for him, who would?”
My heart squeezed. Ollie. I could hear the protection in his voice.
“I agree with him.” My brows dipped at Hayley’s voice. “I know all about loving someone with an addiction. And the second you stop loving the person they used to be, they’re gone forever. Piper has been fighting for the old Jason, her brother, the one before drugs took over. Don’t fault her for trying to help him, for holding out hope. Because that’s when resentment comes through, and I can tell you right now, speaking from experience, once that happens, you won’t just lose Jason, you’ll lose her, too.”