10 Years Ago
LAKE
I wake in the night with a crushing sense of dread in my body, something almost yanking at me as if it wants to drag me out of bed.
Fear chokes me, makes my throat painfully tighten, I want to cough, and I turn to the side to look at Aiden who is asleep with his arm draped over my waist.
I slip out of his embrace and sit up.
The unease won’t let me fall back asleep, so I stand, wrap myself in my robe and leave the bedroom.
For some reason I know exactly where I need to go.
I step outside and head toward Bay’s tiny house, immediately spotting his car in the driveway. He must have arrived during the night while everyone was sleeping, but what would he be doing here? He moved into the new house he and Alex bought together.
The tiny house is open.
I walk inside and look around, but I know Bay isn’t here, I need to keep searching, and my gaze drifts to the hatch in the floor. Something pulls me toward it, I can’t fight it, so I drop to my knees, grab the handle, and pull the hatch upward.
I go down the renovated stairs, covered now with elegant non-slip tiles.
The lights are on everywhere, but my eyes fix on one door, the only closed one, the door to the bathroom.
I don’t knock, I don’t call out; the fear inside me has risen too high to wait even a moment, so with one violent tug I open the door, and a scream bursts from my throat.
Bay is lying in the tub, and it is red with blood.
The water fills it almost to the top, my son’s head resting against the edge, his eyes closed, his face deathly pale.
A terrified howl rips out of me.
I rush to the tub, plunge my hand into the water, and grab my son’s arm, pulling it up to see the horrifying wound, the veins slashed not crosswise but lengthwise in the most brutal and effective way.
I’m an omega; I don’t have the strength an alpha has, but right now I am a parent fighting for my child, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do. With a tremendous effort I shove my arms under Bay’s armpits, bracing myself against the back of the tub, and with a wild scream I haul him out of the water.
Bay is very muscular; even at eighteen he is massive, but by some unbelievable miracle I manage.
I yank off my socks and in a split second wrap them tightly around his forearms to stop the bleeding, tying them just above the wounds because the blood keeps flowing.
I tighten them as hard as I can on both arms.
At the same time I can’t stop the painful sobs tearing out of my chest, because for a parent there is nothing worse than seeing your child lying limp on the floor, pale as a sheet.
I hear running footsteps and know it’s Aiden who must have felt my distress.
"Lake! Lake!" he yells.
"Here, Aiden, here, hurry, it’s Bay! He tried to…"
The words won’t leave my throat.
Aiden bursts into the bathroom, and his face drains of color, almost as pale as Bay’s.
He bends over our son and checks his pulse, as his heart sounds eerily quiet.
"He’s still alive, but his pulse is very weak."
"Call an ambulance, but better do it outside, I don’t know if you’ll get a signal here, hurry!"
Aiden runs out like a madman, and I rest my son’s head on my lap.
I’m shaking, trembling outright, whispering,
"My boy, my beautiful boy, why did you do this, why…" My voice breaks, I sob so hard I can barely see, my eyes flooded with tears. I never thought I would see something like this with my own child at the edge of life and death, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood.
My mind instantly spins out dark scenarios of what might have happened, and I am absolutely certain it’s connected to Alex.
Did Alex leave him, cheat on him, die?
I feel the impulse to call him now, immediately, to find out, to demand answers, to ask why my son lies here fading.
Bay’s clothes are on the washing machine beside the tub, and I reach into his pocket and find two phones, which surprises me.
I look at the screen of his main phone, but I see no new messages from Alex.
Their last exchange was at one in the afternoon, Bay telling Alex he would be home in half an hour, followed by a full line of heart emojis and a couple of eggplants.
What did Bay find when he came home? Something must have happened, something that pushed him to end everything.
Suddenly Bay’s second phone starts ringing.
It’s strange that it’s getting a signal down here underground; it must be a powerful device. The phone is different, a bit thicker and heavier.
A private number appears on the screen.
I hesitate, staring…
Something feels off, but in some strange impulse I answer and bring it to my ear.
"Hello, Bay," a voice says.
"Who are you?" I snap, my voice shaking.
There’s a moment of silence.
My other hand strokes Bay’s cold forehead, but I don’t end the call.
"My question is who you are and why you have access to this phone."
The voice is cold.
Anger rises in me.
"Did what he did have anything to do with you? Some shady business?"
"And what did Bay do?" The question is asked calmly.
Emotions overwhelm reason, and I snap into the receiver,
"I’m holding his head on my knees right now! Bay tried to kill himself!"
"What is his condition?" the stranger asks evenly.
"Bad. I’m praying he’ll survive, his pulse is barely there, the ambulance is already on its way. Why did he do it? I don’t understand!"
There’s silence, then the voice replies,
"Whatever his reason was, it wasn’t connected to me. My condolences; I hope Bay pulls through."
The call ends.
What the hell?
I clench my fists, staring at the screen glowing faintly.
Who is this man? What did he want?
What kind of strange phone is this?
Is Bay in trouble?
Is that stranger involved?
Something doesn’t add up. I stare at my son, then at the screen, but I have to rely on my intuition telling me that what the stranger said was the truth.
So I slip the phone into Bay’s pocket and look at the other phone again.
The message to Alex is still open: a row of hearts and eggplants.
I stare. I almost press the call button, fury rising within me. But I stop myself. I switch off the screen and tuck the phone back into Bay’s pocket.
That’s when I hear Aiden’s steps. He’s carrying Bay’s backpack and a blanket. He covers our son and then wraps his arms around me, kissing my temple.
"Good Fate, what happened here, Lake? Why? Our son…"
"I don’t know, I don’t know! Someone called and then hung up, something strange is happening."
"Who?"
"Some stranger, no idea."
Pale as death itself, Aiden adjusts the blanket over Bay because his body is so cold.
"Are they coming? The ambulance?"
"Yes, they’re already on their way; they’ll be here in a moment. I’ll carry him outside…"
"Let’s not move him," I whisper.
I press myself close to Aiden and we both place our hands on Bay’s head.
"Please, Fate, give him another chance…" we pray together.
◆◆◆
In the hospital, Bay is receiving a blood transfusion. The doctors say he was really close to the edge. We managed to find him at the last moment. Now I have him here on a white hospital bed, my son, wrapped in a thin hospital gown, and shock just won’t leave me.
He still hasn’t regained consciousness. I sit by his bed, holding his hand, feeling how cold and strangely weightless it is in mine, while my other hand grips my phone with Alex’s number lit up on the screen.
I stare at it obsessively, my fingers trembling over the call button as the steady beeping of the monitors fills the room with a slow rhythm that makes my heartbeat throb in my throat.
What should I do? I’m at war with myself, wondering if I should call, if I should confront Alex, if I should ask anything at all, or leave this decision for Bay when he finally opens his eyes.
Aiden is sitting on the other side of the bed, hunched forward on a small plastic chair. His dark auburn hair is messy and tangled on his forehead. He’s just finished talking to Jordan, asking him to go to the house and stay with the kids.
When he hangs up, his eyes meet mine.
"Did you know Bay kept a journal?"
Feeling weirdly numb, I shake my head, emotional exhaustion has got to me; this day was a horror.
Aiden pulls a thick, dark notebook from Bay’s backpack. The cover is worn down at the corners, the spine softened and bent like it’s been opened a thousand times. It looks heavy, too private, almost ominous in the harsh hospital light.
"We… we shouldn’t, Aiden…"
"No? Lake, he tried to kill himself. These could be clues. We have to look."
"But what are we even looking for…? If it’s something recent, it won’t be in there. You think Alex did something that hurt him so deeply that…?"
"I don’t know," he says quietly, rubbing his tired eyes with the heel of his hand. His chest rises and falls in long, shaky breaths. "But we should still check. Maybe something showed up earlier. Warnings."
"This is a violation of his privacy."
"You know how he is. Closed off. He carries everything inside. And we… we need to know. This is too serious, Lake, we can’t lose him!"
"Aiden… we should wait until Bay wakes up."
Aiden lifts his hand and runs it gently over Bay’s hair, smoothing the strands away from his pale forehead. His fingers linger there, trembling slightly.
There’s sadness in his eyes when he whispers, "I believe something came between them, something that can still be fixed."
"So do I," I murmur. "They were such a good pair. I’ve never seen anything like it. Rain and Larry fight constantly, break up and get back together every other week, but Alex and Bay? They were perfect…"
Aiden opens the journal.
"Aiden, no…!"
But he shakes his head in refusal, and leans down over the diary.
His eyes fall on the first page, and his face drains of color.
Then he turns the pages toward me so I can see.
And the moment I read the words on the paper, the room spins, the beeping stretches into a long, distant tone, as I pass out.
BAY
I open my eyes and instantly know where I am, it’s a hospital room.
For a moment I can’t piece anything together, for a moment I float in blissful ignorance.