“I thought that was our thing,” I tell her, grinning ever so slightly. “Abject honesty.”
She nods and chews. And then, slowly, like she’s testing the waters, “He’s a train wreck lately.”
My stomach twists and burns as acidic guilt fills me up.
She presses on, albeit gingerly. “Did . . . did something happen between you two?” Panic tears through me, which she must notice, because she quickly adds, “He hasn’t told me anything, if that’s what you’re thinking. If something did happen and all. It’s just . . . I’m worried about him.”
“Me too,” I croak.
She sets her chopsticks down. “I’m gonna tell you something that’ll probably make him disown me, but . . . I figure if anyone is going to get through to him, it’s gonna be you or J. And as I know he’s blocking J on a regular basis nowadays, that leaves you.” She presses her palms against her eyes for a long moment. “He’s upped the whole adrenaline junkie shit up to a whole ‘nother level. Like, at least once or twice a week nowadays.”
I think I’m going to throw up. Seriously throw up right here, right now, all over this beautiful coach and blanket. “He does it because of me.” My stomach churns and cramps. The headache I’ve cultivated for the better part of a day and a half intensifies.
“It’s because of the Connection,” she says, like there’s a difference. “And because he’s a Magical and knows he can. He’s friends with some stupid bitch of a Shaman who totally enables him and a group of guys he hangs out with who are running from their problems.” She moves closer, like she’s going to hug me, but she doesn’t. I think she knows that touching me might set off my perilously fragile reflexes. She stares down at her hands. They’re shaking. “Back when he first admitted the truth about you two to me, I encouraged him to find something to help distract him. I knew some guys . . .” She chews on her upper lip. “After Jonah and I broke up, and Kel was in California, I hooked up with a bunch of adrenaline junkies in hopes of distracting myself. So, when he said he was desperate to find distractions, I . . . I introduced him to some of these guys. I thought he’d just—” She laughs bitterly under her breath. “I figured it’d be short lived, as Kel is pretty damn good at keeping his feelings locked down tight. But, I was wrong. And when it started to become a regular occurrence, I tried talking to him about maybe taking a step back, but he’d go nuclear and we’d not speak for days. So now . . .” She blinks rapidly. “Now I don’t say anything at all, even when I’m in the hospital watching Kate put him back together. Which is far too often nowadays. I don’t know what to do anymore. He won’t listen to me.”
Breathe, Chloe. Breathe.
“You say it’s you who’s to blame, but one could also argue that I am, too. Even more so than you.” Her chopsticks slide together, the sound deafening compared to her voice.
She’s wrong, though. If there were no me, he’d be fine.
They’d all be fine.
She wipes at her eyes angrily, like her showing her pain is the worst thing in the worlds. “Christ, I suck at the whole friend thing. I’m sorry. I brought you here so you could have a girls’ weekend, and what do I do? I unload a whole pile of crap on you that you don’t deserve.”
But I do.
She hugs me now. Warily, like she’s afraid I’ll bolt. Or maybe, she’s afraid she’ll bolt from the close contact. And we sit there, two broken girls, bound together by our love for two broken boys, forced into silence out of fear of losing them.
I’m brushing my teeth when Jonah comes into my bathroom. His hair is still wet from his shower when he sets a bottle of pills down on the counter in front of me.
I stare down at the bottle, wondering which one he found. I don’t have to guess because he sets another bottle down next to the first.
“I found these,” he says, “while looking for my earphones.”