Chapter 24
Creed
Hyde: Stop calling. Leave me the fuck alone.
My heart sinks. I don’t know what I was expecting, though.
My hands ball into fists, another bout of guilt tunneling my vision. I’ve fucked up plenty of times before, but Hyde never reacted this way.
My throat feels as if someone’s fucking choking me.
I fucked up, but I can fix it. Whatever it takes. I’ll stop drinking. I’ll stop provoking assholes in bars. I’ll stop giving Hyde reasons to hate me.
He can’t be done with me.
Marching down the hospital corridors, discharge papers stuffed in my back pocket, I call an Uber. Then I try Dash. When he doesn’t answer, probably still asleep, I call Noah. He answers on the third ring, sounding awake and rested.
“Creed,” he greets. “Another fun night?”
“Not important. Did you see Hyde last night?”
He exhales down the line. “Before or after Jed called him to come get you from the bar?”
“After.” I hop into the back seat of the Uber. “He got a call from his mother and left.”
“He didn’t stop by here. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Did you know he has a sister?”
There’s a pause on the line. “Hyde has a sister?”
“Apparently. Her name’s Millie and...” I swallow hard, making room for words. “Something bad happened to her last night.”
“What do you mean?”
I walk him through everything I remember, and by the time I’m done, we’re outside my dorm. Noah’s still on the line, processing my words.
“Call him,” I say. “See if he’ll tell you what happened. I’ll grab a shower and come over.”
“Yeah, alright. I’ll see what I can find out.”
I head straight into my dorm room and hit the shower, washing the blood and the hospital scent off my body as fast as possible. Seven minutes later, I’m dressed and turning my room upside down, searching for my car keys before I remember they’re in Jed’s pocket.
Noah’s waiting for me in his room, both elbows on his knees, face hidden in his palms, fingers digging into his scalp.
“It’s bad,” he says, looking up, a note of disbelief in his voice.
I collapse into the armchair, my heart picking up pace. “How bad?”
“Their mother found her on the bathroom floor with an empty bottle of sleeping pills in hand.”
“Is she—” I swallow hard. “Did she make it?”
“Yeah, but she’s in a bad shape. They pumped her stomach and they’re keeping her sedated, but...”
“But what?”
“Hyde’s in fucking pieces, Creed.”
***
The scent of disinfectant permeates the air, doing a lousy job of covering up the stench of death, illness, and decay.
I don’t mind hospitals. When you visit them as often as I do, you learn to block out what they represent.
Everyone thinks it’s life and health, but it’s the exact opposite. I try not to allow my thoughts to wander down that avenue, but tonight, I’m not scared of dying. I’m fucking scared to my bones, dreading the hatred, fear, and helplessness in Hyde’s eyes.
He hadn’t said it aloud, But the implication of his words rang loud and clear.
He’s blaming this on me. I get it. If he hadn’t driven me to the hospital, hadn’t sat at my bed, pouring his care and attention into showing me I matter, while I acted like a selfish asshole, he would’ve answered his phone.
The corridor stretches ahead, so long it feels like I’ll never reach her room. Hyde wouldn’t tell Noah or Dash which hospital his sister was at. He didn’t want them to visit, but he must’ve forgotten he’s been sharing his phone’s location with me for years.
I glance at the screen, following the dot with a big H inside. He’s at the end of this corridor. Other than the life-preserving machines beeping inside every room I pass, it’s almost fucking silent.
Nothing like the ER, filled with people grunting, yelling, arguing, and crying. There’s a sense of life there. Here, everything’s still, conversations hushed so as not to disturb the patients.
I pause outside door 312, inhaling a deep, steadying breath that does fuck all to ease even an ounce of the tension coiling inside me. My hands shake, my heart thuds, and my head throbs, but I swallow it down and rap my knuckles against the hardwood.
For a few long seconds, nothing happens.
Then the door glides open to reveal my best friend’s harrowed face.
He looks like a ghost. Dark bruises under his pink-rimmed eyes, cheeks sunken, lips bitten raw.
His shoulders are slumped as if there’s an impossible weight on top of them.
He looks at me through glassy, hazy eyes, no emotion save for all-encompassing grief.
“How’s she doing?” I ask, my heart in my throat.
“Still unconscious.”
“How are you doing?”
His throat bobs with a hard swallow, eyes watering before he blinks it away, hardening his features. “Leave, Creed.”
I expected that. I expected worse, but Hyde’s so devastated I doubt he has room for anything else.
“You don’t have to talk to me,” I say. “But I’m not leaving.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want you here. Leave.”
The door closes in my face and I’d be lying if I said something hasn’t fractured inside me. It feels like my world is shifting, fucking shrinking.
Being unwanted isn’t unusual, but it hurts ten times more when it’s my fault. Hyde’s been by my side for years, no matter what. He stayed, helped, and started healing parts of me I thought were beyond repair. He’s never made me feel like a burden... until now.
I deserve this. I know I do, but fuck, it hurts.
I stand there, my head pulsing with a headache from bottling up my negative feelings so they won’t drag me under. I’m shaking with the need to let them out, grab the first guy who looks at me the wrong way, and let my fists do the talking.
The numbness spreading through me makes me want to tear my hair out while I climb the walls.
Unsticking my feet from the floor, I sit on the plastic chair by the wall, elbows on my knees, face hidden in my hands.
I could leave. Hyde sure wants me to. He fucking expects me to cause more trouble. Fuck knows I want to, but this is my chance to show him he means as much to me as I used to mean to him.
He needs to know he can count on me, and I need to know that too. I need proof that I’m not a trainwreck through and through, that I’m worth more than bruises and a hangover.
Worthy of his friendship.
Time passes while my thoughts spiral, body shaking with everything I’m holding back. I check my watch when it gets dark outside. Five hours. That’s how long I’ve been sitting here, unmoving. Hyde hasn’t left Millie’s room once. Not for food, not for water.
I rise to my feet, then navigate the hospital by instinct until I find a restaurant.
“Hey, what can I get you?” a young guy behind the counter asks. “We’re all out of soup, but there’s some meatloaf left.”
I doubt Hyde will stomach that. If he’s been surviving on scraps since his sister was admitted, he needs to start small.
“Two BLTs and two bottles of water,” I say.
Ten minutes later, I’m back in front of Millie’s door, knuckles rapping the hardwood, heart on my sleeve. Hyde opens, the same indifferent expression devastating his pale face.
“You need to eat,” I say, holding out the paper bag.
“I told you to leave.”
“And I didn’t listen.”
He scoffs. “Yeah, shouldn’t surprise me. I’m not hungry, Creed.”
“I know, but you can’t starve yourself.”
He stares at me—or maybe through me—either contemplating or frozen. Time stretches into a minute of silence before he takes the bag and closes the door.
Going back to the plastic chair, I eat my sandwich, wash it down with water, and... wait.
High-heeled footsteps break me out of my stupor sometime later. An elegantly dressed woman is walking down the corridor, a tall man at her side. He looks like Hyde, or rather, Hyde looks like him, so I guess that’s his father. They have the same nose, eyes, and build.
Neither acknowledge me in any way as they enter Millie’s room.
“How is she doing?” Hyde’s mother asks before the door’s fully closed, his reply cut off as it seals shut.
An hour later, the three of them exit when a nurse informs them visiting hours are over. Hyde’s eyes briefly land on me, but he doesn’t speak, following his parents down the corridor.
My stomach hollows out.
The pattern continues for days. I show up bright and early, and Hyde finds me outside his sister’s room when he arrives at nine am, the second visiting hours start. He takes the breakfast I bring for him without a word, and we spend the whole day together, separated by a wall.
I bring him a warm meal on day three, then extra snacks on day four. We don’t speak, and every time he looks at me it’s as if someone’s punched a hole through my chest and pulled my heart out.
Dash and Noah call me every few hours, even though I know nothing. By day three, it’s Noah who starts filling me in. He calls Hyde in the evenings and though there’s no improvement and Millie’s still in a coma, at least I’m somewhat in the loop.
My mind’s so numb it feels like I’ve repressed everything about me, and I’m just a corpse in a plastic chair, waiting for my best friend. He runs like a clock, always there at nine am sharp, and today’s no different. But when I hand him his breakfast through the door... he doesn’t close it.
It’s fucking pathetic how my heart rate soars.
Tentatively, I follow him in, my breath catching when I finally see his sister for the first time. She looks so fragile, the large bed somehow swallowing her whole, her pale, almost ashen skin thin, dark bruises under her eyes, even though she’s been in this bed for a week.
She doesn’t look comatose, simply asleep. Machines beep softly around her, her heart rate strong and steady. Hyde takes a seat beside her and covers her hand with his.
“Hey, sis,” he says, exhaling a long breath.
I’m rooted to the spot, my back parked against the door.
Hyde’s been a tower of strength since he walked into my life. Seeing him so vulnerable, shoulders slumped, not a trace of confidence left, is painful.
“She overdosed on sleeping pills,” he says quietly.