“You don’t have to tell me.” But he wanted him to. For the first time in a long time, Simon cared about someone enough to want all of the pieces of who they were, and he wasn’t sure what to do about that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Trevor didn’t know how to put this into words. How to organize all his thoughts in a way that made sense. A lot of the time, how he felt didn’t even make sense to himself.

“I think it was coming for a while. It’s hard to explain. Toward the end, I knew I had a problem. Before, I would deny it to myself. I hit a point where I knew, where some days I would think I was ready to get help, and then I’d go out on a bender again.”

He paused again trying to sort through his thoughts. Trevor appreciated the fact that Simon stayed quiet, letting him do this in his own time and way.

“It was a night like any other night. We got some speedballs, mixed them with too much alcohol. I was out of my mind, fucked up. The whole night is only fragmented memories. I can tell you it felt like a good time when it happened.”

It was always a good time, the best. It wasn’t until afterward that Trevor had regrets.

“I don’t know whose house we were at. It didn’t matter. All we cared about was the drugs they had.”

Thoughts bombarded him: the people he’d spent time with, the things he’d done. The packed bodies in the house. The people passed out everywhere. He hated himself in moments like these. When he thought about all the things he’d done.

“I remember leaving with a man. Fucking him in the car in some random alley in San Francisco.” He winced at that part. None of what he’d done had been pretty. “I get checked every three months, just so you know.” Because there had been not only a lot of sex in his past but IV drug use as well. “I can show you my latest test results, or go in again if you want. I probably should have thought about that before. I’m sorry.” And he would supply results or get tested again if it made Simon more comfortable. He was pretty sure he’d always used a condom, but who in the hell knew?

“We’re not talking about that right now. Go on.” Simon’s hand went to Trevor’s thigh, resting there.

“Thank you... We did another speedball in the alley afterward. Jesus, I remember feeling like my heart was going to jump out of my chest. It’s crazy, but I loved it. Loved that feeling. It was like I was invincible. We got into the car. Greg drove, not me. That’s not an excuse, because he was just as fucked up as I was. Time must have passed, who knows how much. It could have been a full twenty-four hours. At some point, I passed out in the car. I woke up alone. We were parked at a house. I looked up just as Greg was walking toward the open door. Part of me wanted to go with him so fucking badly. It didn’t matter how fucked up I was, I wanted more. We often went from one party house to another. I knew that had to be what he was doing. It’s what we always did.

“But I felt like shit. My head definitely wasn’t clear. I just wanted to get out, I needed air. I thought about taking the car. The dumbass left it running. Instead, I shut it off, stumbled out of the car and just started walking. It was stupid, getting out like that. We weren’t in the city anymore, somewhere outside of it, only I didn’t know where. But I just started walking. I wandered into the middle of nowhere, got lost, puked up my guts in the woods. I guess Greg didn’t have much fun at the party because eventually he got in the car and drove away. I don’t know where in the hell he was going because he was seventy miles away when he crossed the divider on the road and killed himself. He could have killed others too. I was passed out in the woods in my own vomit when he died.”

Trevor’s stomach cramped as he relived that day. Lying in his own vomit, in the middle of nowhere. The fact that the man he’d been with had died. The fact that Trevor very easily could have been with him. It would have broken his mom and Blake, losing him like that.

That day played through his head a million times since it happened—how Greg ended up finding out about a party out there. Why he didn’t wake Trevor up to go in. There was no other option than going somewhere to get high, though. None that Trevor could think of. All he knew was that Greg had died and he narrowly escaped the same thing, not only by not going with Greg, but passing out the way he had.

“To some people maybe it wouldn’t matter. He was just an addict. But I was just an addict too. I could have taken the keys. Could have kept him from driving in the first place. Could have gone into the party, or stayed in the car. Maybe any of those things could have saved him...he could have killed someone else! We both could have that day. What the fuck would I have done if we had killed someone?”