53

EMBER

Sometimes, I think I'm okay. Like when I'm keeping myself busy with baking and homework, and when I can look up and catch the two brown eyes that calm me. But when I'm alone, I realize I'm just as doomed as I ever was. So, I try not to be alone.

I've printed myself to Michael like a tattoo. I'm glad he doesn't mind, because he's keeping me afloat. I inhale, I exhale, and I let him help me breathe.

But sometimes I catch small glimpses of darkness in Michael's eyes too, and it makes me wonder if he's not as okay as I originally thought.

He wants me to accompany him to group tonight, then to his adoptive father's retirement home, which is wholly terrifying because that's not a friend's job. It's a girlfriend's job, and I'm not...that. I don't want to be that.

I type out my answer, watching him across Skyfall's front foyer.

Two weeks is a long time. Let's go.

Maybe, just for one night, I can help him smile. As his friend. The least I can do is try.

❀❀

"No, no, no, you can't wear that," says Michael, rifling through his closet while I sit on his bed, flipping through his secret stash of Lord of The Rings novels. "You look like you exclusively listen to Jim Croce," he bluntly informs me. I look down at my brown flannel and dark jeans.

"Okay. And?"

"And," he says pointedly, throwing a ball of socks in my face, "it's a dance. It's formal. Kind of."

"I don't have a dress just lying around my mouse-sized dorm room, Blondie." I throw the socks at him, hitting his back. "Remember the night we met? You said to accept that which we cannot change. I accept that I love Jim Croce. Time the world did too."

Michael throws a different pair of socks right at my face.

He's in a suit, a full three-piece suit that's tailored to every curve of his impressive, lean frame. He stands tall, looking like the kind of handsome that sings into your bones, the kind of handsome that reminds you of a time that never was. Of old books and written letters, of power and grace. He is a beautiful assault on the eyes.

"You don't necessarily need to wear a dress," Michael says in passing, still shifting the clothes in his small closet.

"You have to move on or we're going to be late to group," I say. "Walter already thinks I'm insane. I, at least, should be punctual."

Michael says Walter Li doesn't think I'm insane. I scoff. I shoved the man to the ground. By accident, yes, but still.

"Do you have a skirt or something?" asks Michael, sending me a pleading, hopeless look.

"I haven't shaved my legs in weeks," I inform him, a brow raised, "and the only skirt I have here is a skort. It's literally a golf uniform. I found it at a thrift store. It's my sleeping skort. It's actually pretty comfort—"

Michael groans, hitting his forehead against the open closet door.

I smirk and say, "What about some knee-length neon-yellow biker shorts? I have those. They're in my dorm so I'd have—"

"Oh my god, shut up." Michael hits his head on the door again.

"You're going to bruise your face," I say, remembering what he told me about his 'super sensitive baby skin'.

"Don't care," he grumbles, hitting his head over and over and over and—

I get up and set my hand between the wood and his face, catching his forehead in my palm.

"Why are you so sweaty?" I chuckle, shoving his head away from the door.

"I'm nervous," he admits, staring at me. Then his eyes widen as if recognizing what he just said.

"Why would you be nervous? It's not like you're the one meeting new people. I know I say...weird things sometimes, but I'll try to be, like, as normal as possible." I reach up and punch his shoulder, then bite my lip at how awkward that felt and choose to move on. "Uh, just give me those clothes from before. The shirt and the pants."

"They were too big!" Michael laments.

"Okay then I guess I can't go," I say, walking back over to his bed. I jump on the covers and open up one of the novels. "Leave me here to read and let me know how it goes. I've always wanted to read an epic fantasy series. If Pirates of the Caribbean had been books, I would have read them. Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I told someone my name was Jackie Spar—"

Next thing I know, a white button-down, a belt, and a pair of slacks are thrown in my face. I laugh, looking up at a peeved Blondie.

"I can put my flannel on top, right?" I ask innocently.

"Don't even start," he warns, one hand up toward me. "No more flannels in my apartment starting now."

I pout. "Not even for me? James Taylor's biggest fan?"

"Jim Croce," Michael corrects, narrowing his eyes.

I grab the clothes and slowly stand. "Well, why not get...the best of both worlds?"

Michael chases me out of his room, no doubt embarrassed by my Hannah Montana jab, while I laugh and run into his bathroom, locking the door behind me.

I chuckle to myself behind the door, knowing I got his mind off the darkness, even if just for a little while.

❀❀

The pair of us walk into Healing Heartbeats looking like restaurant waiters. Michael left his jacket and waistcoat in his SUV, so we're both in white dress shirts and black slacks, ambling towards our seats before Walter begins his little introductory speech.

New Girl is already here, and this time she has a handful of lollipops in her lap. Good for her, taking back from The Man. She catches my eyes and smiles a little, so I do the same, lifting a hand to wave.

We settle side by side to the right of Walt's podium.

Once every seat is filled, the white-haired wizard man begins. I tune out for most of it, finding enough solace in just being here, until a young man with dark brown skin and buzzed black hair, throws his phone into the ground.

Everyone in the room flinches as the pieces scatter. Robby, the old woman's fat wiener dog, runs away to the back of the room, curling into the corner, shaking.

"Jake?" Walter begins carefully.

"Suicide isn't an option, right?!" Jake snaps, leaning forward in his chair. "It's not an option?!" His voice gets progressively louder, angrier. "Where's the fucking better one?!"

My heart kicks up into gear. My chest tightens. Michael touches his leg to mine. I glance sideways and he holds me still with his eyes. You're okay, he mouths. I intake a breath and nod.

I roll my shoulders as Jake rocks back and forth in his chair, hands over his head, and Walter calls his name from the podium.

"Jake," he says gently. "Look at me, son." The boy's eyes, filled with tears, meet Walter's. "Suicide isn't a good option."

"But it ends the pain," Jake rasps, squeezing his hands together so tightly in his lap I think he might break his own fingers. "It takes all the bad things away, Mr. Li."

And the good.

Walter shakes his head. "Suicide doesn't end the pain, it only gives it to someone else."

Someone like you, Jake, I think. Someone like me. Like Serena, Steven, and Michael, and every single person in this room, Jake. All of us. We're the pain, now.

Jake shakes his head, staring into Walt's eyes as the rest of us watch, frozen in time, scared that his words might just be true.

"I can't do it anymore," Jake chokes out. "We're just a whole bunch of broken people looking around, telling other sad, broken fucking people, hey, it'll get better, so don't be sad, keep your chin up." His bottom lip warbles as his face contorts in grief. "It's a bunch of bullshit, Mr. Li, and I can't do it anymore." In a softer voice, one that breaks me, he adds, "I can't forgive her for this."

"Sometimes," Walter begins quietly, "forgiveness is a lesson we're cursed to learn, Jake. Sometimes, at a very young age. And I'm sorry for that, I truly am, son."

"I can't do it," Jake repeats, choking on the words. He looks down at his hands, and that's when I see the bruises and cuts. "I'm angry all the time, Mr. Li. I don't know what to do anymore."

The next words to break the room's silence aren't Walter's.

They're mine.

Thank you for reading ♥️ This chapter rolls into the next.

-Laurel

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