For a few moments, we stand in silence.

“Is it like…” Jake hesitates. “PTS—”

“No,” I snap. “Don’t fucking say it.”

Logan stands in front of me, his hands on his hips. “There’s nothing wrong with—”

“Shut up!”

I turn swiftly and hobble back to the car. I don’t wait for them to follow me before throwing my crutches in the back seat and getting in. I stare at the clock on the dash, watching the minutes tick by until I can be alone again. So I can drown myself in the guilt and the hate that make it impossibly easy not to see her.

Not to hold her.

Not to tell her that I’m sorry.

So fucking sorry.

But it doesn’t matter that I love her and I miss her and I’d do anything if she would just get in my truck that’s no longer drivable and sit next to me while we drove to the calm of the horizon.

After a few minutes, they both join me. I don’t know what they had to say to each other. I don’t care.

“Take me home,” I tell them.

“All right, man,” Jake says, turning the car over.

It doesn’t take long before they start talking again.

“I used to see my dad,” Logan says. “My real dad. In my nightmares. He’d come and beat the shit out of me and I’d wake up in a pool of sweat and sometimes piss, and I’m not talking when I was a kid, man, I’m talking two fucking years ago. I had a break down when I was with Doctors Without Borders and a psych diagnosed me with PTSD. I was on meds for a long time. And then I came home and Amanda—”

“So you’re saying I go running back to Riley and hope she forgives me?” I ask, my tone flat. It’s not like I don’t appreciate what he’s saying, and there’s a part of me that feels like the biggest asshole in the world that I didn’t know any of this about him considering he’s one of my best friends, but nothing he’s saying is relevant. At least not to me.

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“So what then?”

“You know after what happened with me before I left, Amanda changed her major.”

I lean back in my seat and look over at Jake, sitting silent, driving like a fucking grandma. I wonder if he at least knows where the fuck this conversation’s going.

Logan continues, “She changed her major to psychology.”

And there it is.

“She’s actually pretty good,” Jake finally chimes in. “My dad sends some of the kids he works with to her. Not so much for sessions but more as a mentor.”

“So?” I ask. “She’s going to braid my hair and everything’ll be better?”

Logan faces me, a scowl on his face.

I look out the window.

And I stay that way until the car pulls up in front of my house.

They start to get out but I stop them. “I just need some time,” I tell them honestly.

And silence.

Fuck, I need the silence.

Fifty

Dylan

Martin Luther King once said “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends” and as I sit on the couch, the TV on mute, and my mind on Riley, I wonder if it’s true.

I wonder if I’ll remember about the recent events in my life and be able to recall The Turning Point. I wonder if I’ll look back on Dave as an enemy, because right now, that’s what he feels like. I wonder if the silence of my friends for the past week was their form of showing me they care.

“I just need some time,” was the last thing I told them. And I meant it.

But now I’m here, surrounded by silence so loud it’s deafening. And I’d give just about anything to feel something else.

The fear is still here.

So is the grief.

But the silence I crave is nowhere to be seen.

I didn’t think coming home would hurt this much. Actually, I didn’t think about it at all. Had I done so, I probably would’ve found somewhere else to stay, just until someone could come in and remove everything so I could sell it and move out. The second I walked in, I was filled with memories of Riley. She’d picked out every single piece of furniture, chosen every paint color, decided on the placement of everything. We even stood in the flooring store for three hours while she debated over the carpet that lay under my feet. I’d give anything to have those three hours back.

I haven’t left the house. I haven’t needed to. Eric and Dad bring me enough food to feed an army. I barely eat. I can’t. I barely sleep. I can’t do that either. I definitely can’t sleep in our bed. I realized that the moment I stepped in there. It got worse when I walked into the bathroom to see the shattered mirror. It seemed like forever ago since I punched that fucking thing while she stood right in front of me, her eyes wide, her body shaking from fear. It was three weeks post Dave. Two weeks since I’d been back. Two nights since I’d been home.

Time.

Time is fucking stupid.

A knock on the door pulls me from my thoughts.

Dad and Eric have a key and let themselves in.

Sydney always calls before she comes.

The knocking starts again and I sigh. Finally, I get off my ass and limp over to the door.

The second I see her, time stops.

So does my heart.

“Hi,” Riley whispers, raising her hand. She’s even more beautiful than I let myself remember.

I inhale deeply. Hold it. And wait for the world to start spinning again.

It doesn’t.

“Hi,” I finally manage to say, my entire body rigid.

Her gaze moves from me to inside the house. “Are you busy?”

I shake my head, my words caught in my throat.

“I just came by to get a few things if that’s okay?”

I open the door wider for her, my stomach flipping as she steps inside, her bare arm skimming mine. There’s a weight on my chest, about as heavy as the one on my shoulders. My mouth’s dry, my mind’s spinning. My heart—I don’t know… I don’t have possession of it. I did. And then she showed up, reached inside, and stole it without me even realizing.

“My mom came by, as you know,” she says over her shoulder as she makes her way to the living room. She starts to pick up a few of Bacon’s toys. Bacon. I haven’t even thought about Bacon. She adds, “She got some of my things, but not everything I needed so…” She turns around, her eyes on mine while I just stand there, crutches under my arm, wondering how it is she’s functioning the way she is when I feel like death.

What a stupid saying.

No one feels death.

It just happens. One second you’re breathing, the next you’re not.

Dying, yes. You can feel like you’re dying, but the actual death part—no. Or, at least I choose to believe that.

Because I’d hate to think otherwise.

What a morbid fucking thought.

“Anyway, I guess that’s why I’m here,” she continues. “I’ll be quick. Just ignore me.”

Right. That should be easy enough.

I sit on the couch and continue to stare up at the ceiling like I was doing before she decided to ruin me.

I ignore her familiar scent as she walks past me. I ignore the sounds of her footsteps as she moves around the house. And I ignore the fact that I can’t fucking ignore her at all. Her steps, her sounds, her moves, her very presence is everything. Everything.