I squeeze my eyes shut, letting the blackness seep under my eyelids. It would be so easy to let it take the rest of me too.
“Tell me that you can stop the nightmares. Tell me that you can save that little girl… that you can save all of those little girls.”
Brand’s breath is ragged and rough. “You know I can’t save them. But I can save you, Gabe. Get the fuck off that balcony. We can stop your nightmares.”
I’m silent as I open my eyes and stare down, past my feet, past the cars to the ground. It’s a long way down, but it’s there. Brand follows my gaze.
“Gabe, I don’t have nightmares much anymore. I swear to Christ. Only once or twice a month. And someday I won’t have any. You just need to get off that ledge and go to therapy like I did. It feels stupid and terrible and dumbass, but it helped me, Gabe. And it will help you. It’s a whole hell of a lot better than this.”
Better than dying.
I glance over my shoulder at him. “Because this is the easy way out?”
Brand stares at me, his eyes a steely blue, determined. “You said that you’re too much of a pussy to fix it. This is being a pussy, Gabe. Maybe not for some people—because who am I to judge people I don’t know? But I know you. And this is being a pussy for you. Do the hard thing and get your ass off that balcony.”
I exhale, long and slow, contemplating.
I don’t want to die. If I die, the bad thing wins.
Fuck that.
I take a breath, then grab Brand’s outstretched hand.
Chapter Twenty-One
Madison
Gabriel isn’t coming back.
I know that now. It’s been a week.
Seven days.
One hundred and sixty-eight hours.
I don’t know where he is and I doubt I’ll ever see him again. It’s a thought that I can’t think about or it will crush me. It still hurts that much.
Instead I focus on pretending that I’m fine for Jacey and Tony, Mila and Pax. Today Jacey brings me a cup of hot chocolate. Because hot chocolate obviously fixes everything.
Curling up across the table from where I’m rolling flatware into napkins, she glances at me.
“I haven’t heard from him either, by the way. He probably knows I’m going to bitch him out for what he did.”
I glance up at her. “Can we not talk about it? Seriously. I just don’t want to think about it.”
“OK. That’s fine,” Jacey says quickly. “I just didn’t want you to think that I would hide talking to him from you. I wanted you to know that he hasn’t called.”
I nod, folding another napkin. “Thanks, Jace. I’m sorry for being bitchy. I just… I’m not myself.”
“It’s OK.”
We sit in silence until the door opens, sunlight flashes on the floor and then Jacey’s face lights up.
“Brand!”
She jumps up and runs across the room like she hasn’t seen him in a year. I suck in a breath, not sure if I’m ready to face Gabe’s best friend. Seeing him will just punch me in the gut—make me remember Gabriel. As if I’ve forgotten.
I don’t turn around, I just keep rolling the silverware, my eyes glued to the task in front of me. But I can hear their low voices and I keep my ears trained in their direction. Brand’s deep voice carries through the restaurant far better than Jacey’s does and I hear it easily.
“He’s fine, Jace. He feels guilty, of course, for leaving you… and Madison. But he’s fine. He’s going to get a special kind of therapy, something designed to help victims of PTSD. I went through it back when we first came home. It sucks pretty bad, but it’s effective. He’s going to need your support, though.”
I hear the sound of Jacey’s voice, but I can’t hear her words.
Brand answers whatever she said.
“I knew you’d understand. PTSD is terrible, Jace. It’s something we can’t control and guys like Gabe and me… well, it’s hard to deal with something like that. He needs all the support you can give him. He’s going to be at Walter Reed this week but he wanted me to check in on you, to make sure that Jared’s still leaving you alone.”
Jacey murmurs something.
“What the fuck? Why would you do that, Jacey?”
Brand seems annoyed now and I can’t imagine what Jacey said to him.
“Whatever. Just don’t lie to us again, Jacey. You can tell Gabriel when he’s out. Don’t tell him while he’s there. His attention shouldn’t be split. He needs to concentrate on CPT, all right?”
Jacey murmurs again.
“Trust me, Jace,” Brand continues. “I’ve been there. I know what it’s like. If Gabe has any hope of taking care of this, he’s got to focus on it one hundred percent. You can support the hell out of him when he comes home.”
Jacey murmurs and then they’re quiet. I’m just getting ready to glance behind me to see if Brand is leaving when his voice pops up by my ear.
“Maddy?”
Fuck.
I slowly turn, looking up into Brand’s blue eyes. “Hi, Brand. Good to see you.”
But it’s not. It’s really not. Because he’s here and Gabe’s not. And even though that’s irrational, it’s how I feel.
“Hey.” He looks as uncomfortable talking to me as I am listening. “I just wanted to say something, if you don’t mind. Gabriel doesn’t know I’m doing this, but I just wanted you to know that he’s a good guy, Maddy. I know it looks like shit that he left the way he did, but I promise you… he didn’t want to. He got it in his head that you needed protecting. From him. That’s the reason he left.”
My eyes sting as I nod.