Chapter 18
Nathan
The next day, I’m back in Dr. Pembrooke’s office. It’s quiet in that way that makes you hear your own thoughts too clearly.
“How has your week been, Nathan?”
I sit in silence, picturing every moment from the week like a stressful highlight reel. “Interesting,” I say after the mental reel ends.
My hands are sweaty. I realize I haven’t taken a breath in… I don’t even know how long.
“I had sex with someone,” I blurt. The words land heavier than I expect. “A woman from my building. Her name’s Ella.”
Dr. Pembrooke doesn’t react. She never does. She just watches me with that calm, steady patience. “And how did that make you feel?” she asks.
“It felt…” I drag a hand down my face.” It felt real… It was beautiful. Honest. For those few minutes, I felt… normal.” I swallow.
“But when reality kicked in?”
“I left,” I confess quietly. “Just… walked out. Left her sitting there. Confused. Hurt.” I look up, waiting for judgment.
There is none. The words hang between us.
Then, my phone buzzes.
Once.
I ignore it.
It buzzes again.
Then again.
Dr. Pembrooke tilts her head slightly. “It’s okay, Nathan. You can answer that.”
I hesitate, then pick up my phone and start reading the texts.
Bishop: Hey, where are you?
Bishop: It’s my mom’s birthday.
Bishop: You haven’t missed this in years.
Guilt curls low in my chest
Another notification pops up.
Mom: Movie soon? Thinking about you.
The room feels smaller.
Dr. Pembrooke notices immediately. “Nathan?”
I set the phone face down on the armrest.
Her brow furrows gently. “Is everything ok?”
“I’m doing it again,” I say under my breath, rubbing my temples.
“Doing what?”
I let out a slow breath. “Letting people down.”
“Who?”
“My Mom… Bishop…. I haven’t told them I’m coming here,” I admit.
She waits. “And how is your relationship with your mother?” she asks.
I stare at the floor. “Not what it used to be.”
A pause.
“We used to be… closer when I was younger. She was the one constant when everything else was chaos. We had this thing. Traditions. Small ones. Silly ones.”
Heaviness settles over me.
Dr. Pembrooke leans in slightly. “Tell me about it.”
I sit in silence, reaching for another distant memory.
And just like that—
I’m not in her office anymore.
I didn’t even think about it when I ducked into the florist on Main Street.
I just knew Mom had been running herself into the ground lately, long hours at the vet clinic, answering phones, and dealing with cranky pet owners who thought every little thing meant their dog was dying.
She always acted like it didn’t get to her, but it did.
I saw it in her eyes when she came home.
She deserved something. Something small, but enough to remind her she was more than just tired hands and late nights.
I handed over twenty bucks I should probably have saved for gas and walked out with a bouquet of lilacs, her favorite. Then I texted her: Be ready at seven. Movie night. Don’t argue.
That was our thing, movies. Always had been.
Mom raised me on horror films, swore it built character.
She took me to see Scream when I was nine years old, and I didn’t sleep in my own bed for three months.
Every night, I crawled into hers, convinced Ghostface was hiding in the closet.
She teased me, but she never once told me to tough it out.
That was Mom. Tough and soft, all in one.
It was about halfway through the movie when a couple sat in front of us looking like they’d just spent the last hour in the back of a car.
I was reminded of Maddison.
Then I smiled at the sight of my mom, because for those two hours, she wasn’t worn down by life; she was just my mom again. And that made it worth every penny.
It was perfect, which should have been my first sign that everything was about to go to hell. Hours later, I was walking up the driveway when my phone rang. Maddison.
I answered, already smiling. “Hey.”
“Who is she?” Her voice was sharp, no hello, no softness.
I blink. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb, Nathan. The flowers. The movie. I had two different people text me tonight. You want to explain who the blonde was?”
My stomach dropped. Gossip. Of course. Sometimes I hated small towns.
“Maddi, it’s not—”
“Oh, my God.” Her voice cracked like she was laughing, but not in a way that felt good. “I can’t believe I actually thought you were different.”
“Wait, just listen.”
“No.” Her tone cut like glass. “I don’t need to hear your excuses. If you’re going to make me look like an idiot, at least own it.”
“Maddison!”
The line went dead. She’d hung up.
I stared at my phone, heart hammering, words unsaid burning the back of my throat.
I should call her back, I should say a lot of things, but the one thing I couldn’t bring myself to do was beg for her to listen, to not jump to conclusions when, at this point, she should know better, right? Trust me more.
Did she know me at all? Was that all bullshit? I went from being defensive over what I was doing to disappointed.
I’d rather be pissed.
Instead, I was hurt, hurt that I’d never lied about who I was, but that the minute she had a reason to doubt me, she believed everyone else instead of me.
A knock echoed through the house.
For a second, I thought it was her. Maddison. Coming to apologize, or to yell, or to make me pay for something I didn’t even do. My heart was still raw from the fight, my head pounding with everything I wanted to say but didn’t.
When I opened the door, it wasn’t Maddison.
It was Bishop.
He stood there under the porch light, hoodie half-zipped, face unreadable.
“Hey, buddy,” I said, rubbing a hand over my eyes. “Now’s not the best time. What’s up?”
He hesitated, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I muttered. “It’s been a night…”
Mid-sentence, something caught my eye: his hand.
Wrapped in fresh gauze, the edges stained faintly red.
My voice softened. “What happened to your hand?”
Bishop looked down, flexed his fingers, and for the first time, wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Come in,” I said quietly.
He stepped inside.
And before I could ask again, the question hung in the air… unanswered… as the door clicked shut behind us.
Bishop sat on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. The porch light outside cut thin lines of gold across the living room carpet.
For a minute, neither of us said anything. Just the buzz of the fridge and the quiet ache of everything unsaid.
Finally, I broke the silence. “You gonna tell me what happened to your hand?”
He sighed, leaned back, and stared up at the ceiling like the truth might fall from it.
“Mom’s been sick,” he said finally. “The meds she needs…they’re antibiotics.
Doctor said she’d be fine if she could stay on them for two more weeks.
But the pharmacy wouldn’t refill without payment.
” He released a deep sigh. “Insurance lapsed again.”
My stomach twisted. “So, you—”
He nodded before I could finish. “Yeah. I broke into the pharmacy. Back door. Grabbed what she needed and got out. It wasn’t even about the money anymore. It was about watching her cough herself half to death while people kept telling us to ‘come back when we could afford it.’”
I sat down beside him, the words sinking deep.
For the first time in a long time, I really looked at him. The dark circles under his eyes. The bruised knuckles under the bandage. The weight that had been sitting on him while I’d been too wrapped up in my own world to notice.
Bishop’s words hit harder than I’d expected. Not because he was wrong…because he was right.
Somewhere between chasing Maddison and trying to hold on to everything she made me feel, I’d stopped paying attention to the people who’d been there all along.
Bishop had always been the guy who’d share his last dollar, who’d sneak out at two a.m. to help me when I screwed up, who’d cover for me without question.
And I didn’t even know his mom was sick. Didn’t see how bad things had gotten.
Didn’t see him.
It made me feel small. Selfish. Like I’d been living in a tunnel where all I could see was Maddison, and the rest of the world was just background noise I kept tuning out.
I rested a hand on his shoulder. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
He gave a humorless laugh and met my eyes. “Let’s be honest. You couldn’t afford it either.”
He wasn’t wrong.
I swallowed, the sting of guilt catching in my throat. “Still,” I said quietly, “you didn’t have to do it alone.”
Bishop finally looked at me. His eyes were tired but steady. “It’s done now. No one saw me. No cameras. No alarms.”
I held his gaze. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
I nodded slowly. “Then don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. No one will ever find out.”
For the first time that night, his shoulders eased.
We sat there in silence, two kids carrying too much for our age, pretending we could handle it. When I hear my mom’s voice echo from the kitchen, “Nathan Alexander-Reign, get in here.”
The memory fades, and I’m back in Dr. Pembrooke’s office. The afternoon light has shifted, streaming soft and gold through the blinds.
She’s watching me closely, her expression thoughtful but kind. “A lot here, Nathan… remember no one can be everywhere at once… That was a lovely story about your mother.”
Her head tilts just slightly. “Does she know what you’re going through?”
The question lingers. I glance down at my hands, fingers clasping around the arm of the chair.
“Yes, but,” I say quietly. “I don’t want to burden her with it.”
Moments later, I’m walking out of Dr. Pembrooke’s office
My phone rings.
Detective Barnett.
I answer. “Yeah.”
“We’ve been tracking him since he left your office yesterday,” Barnett says. “We haven’t located him yet, but we found his car abandoned in the woods about twenty minutes out of town.”