36. Hunter
36
HUNTER
Then
“ L ook who’s awake,” a voice from the far side of the room says, way too cheerful and loud for the throbbing happening at the back of my skull and the rolling wave of nausea in my stomach.
I’m barely awake.
And by barely, I mean I’ve just cracked a single eye open because when I slipped into consciousness, I couldn’t figure out what the beeping sound that woke me was. Now, I know that beeping is coming from the monitor that keeps track of the amount of liquid in the IV bag that’s dripping fluids meant to support hydration into my body.
I’m in the hospital.
The last thing I remember is being in the bathroom at the house, using the hour I knew it would take Rae at the store to get myself back right. I turned the shower on because I wanted to have an excuse to be in the bathroom if she came home early, but I didn’t bother to get undressed, so I guess I wasn’t too committed to the lie. Not that it would have taken much to convince her. After I flipped out on her the night of Will’s funeral, she stopped pushing. She stopped asking follow-up questions if things don’t make sense, and a lot of things don’t make sense anymore because I’m falling apart, and I’m tearing us up in the process.
Fuck. I try to sit up, my brain finally realizing that if I’m in the hospital, I must have done more than take the edge off, and there’s only one person who could have found me, so now I need to explain. Now I need to fix it.
“Don’t try to sit up, Mr. Drake,” the nurse says, coming into view. She’s a young, Black girl with a friendly face and more strength in her one hand than I apparently possess in my whole body. She forces me back down to the thin mattress without exerting much effort, and I go easily because my body is heavy and I’m so tired.
“Where’s Rae?” I ask, glancing around the room for any signs of her and coming up empty. The scent of her perfume is absent from the air.
“Who?” The nurse—Carla, according to the badge clipped to her chest—asks. I frown up at her as she pulls the stethoscope from around her neck, preparing to listen to my broken heart.
“Rae,” I repeat. “My girlfriend. Where is she?”
Carla doesn’t answer, she just places the end of the stethoscope to different parts of my body and instructs me to breathe deeply at some points. When she’s done, she loops the tool back around her neck and fixes me some water.
“She’s not here, is she?” I ask, taking the cup from Carla’s hand. She gives me a sad smile that answers my question.
“You came in alone.”
Everything hurts.
My head, my stomach, my back, but the pain that lances my heart is the worst. I shouldn’t be surprised that Rae left. I can only imagine what it must have been like for her to find me like that, knocking on death’s door if the way my body feels now is any indication of how bad it was. But it still hurts to know that she did.
And I don’t try to hide the tears. The shame. The anger, not at her, never at her, but at myself. I failed so fucking thoroughly. First with Will, and now with my recovery. But most importantly, I failed with Rae. I ruined us, and she left.
She fucking left.
Carla pats me on the shoulder, her face a mask of practiced, professional sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s my own fault,” I tell her, handing the cup of water back so she can set it on the table.
“You’re right,” she says, glancing at my chart, which tells her exactly how true my statement of ownership is. “But I’m still sorry.”
“You can accept blame and compassion at the same time,” someone says from behind Carla. She turns around and then steps to the side, revealing a face I’m not at all surprised to see.
“Nate.”
He has his hands in his pockets as he walks into the room, and Carla slips out to give us some privacy. The last time I saw him, we argued for close to an hour because he could see right through the facade I was putting on down to my broken core. He knew I was using again, and he called me out on it. I hated him for it, and all of my responses were nasty and mean, but as he stands at the side of the hospital bed looking down at me, I don’t see resentment or lingering anger. I just see concern and understanding.
I can’t bear it, so I avert my gaze, looking at the white sheets.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Rae called me.” The mention of her name has hope bubbling in my chest, but when I look up at Nate, and he shakes his head, it dies. “She’s gone. She went back to New York. She just wanted to make sure you had the support you needed to get through this.”
To get through this.
I turn the words over in my mind, knowing that ‘this’ doesn’t just refer to my relapse. It also refers to losing her because she hasn’t just gone back to New York.
She hasn’t just left New Haven.
She’s left me.
The realization sets something free inside my chest, and I put my head in my hands, trying to muffle the sound of the broken sob that comes to destroy everything. To lay waste to my anger, heartache, and self-loathing, to leave behind nothing but acceptance.