Chapter 25. Ethan
I spend five days at the hospital, and I don't want to admit to myself how good those five days are.
During the day, I work my shifts. At night, I stay with Tyler, who has a room like any other patient.
Nobody asks questions about why he's there.
The hospital staff are professional and treat him like anyone else who needs care.
That's an enormous relief. I always expect the worst from people.
But I'm trying to change that. If not now, at least when I get out.
Tyler is responding well. By the third day, he's no longer passing out. He can talk again—too much, actually—and we make jokes like:
"You're having to help me pee. What a loser."
"Who's the loser? The loser is the one who can't pee by himself."
He laughs. It feels like we're eight years old again.
It's been so long that I barely remember what our life looked like before.
I only remember that we used to have to invent things just to get through living with our parents.
Pretend we were on an alien mission, that none of it was real, while we hid under a blanket fort I'd built for us.
The only thing I don't like is being away from Liam.
I miss being close to him all the time. There isn't much to do at Aspire except hold each other, sleep tangled together, even spar badly in MMA.
I can hardly wait to get back and spend some time alone with him.
We could even skip a class. I'd come up with some excuse, use my leader privileges so we could be alone, maybe in my office.
I miss his body, that lost-puppy look he gets when he's silently asking me to take care of him.
There's something strange about those five days that I keep turning over.
I'm walking through a hospital like a person with a job.
I eat in the cafeteria. I say goodnight to colleagues.
I take the elevator alone. Nobody asks where I'm going.
Nobody checks. For four years, the smallest movement has required permission.
The bathroom, the courtyard, the phone room.
And here I can just walk down a hallway without accounting for it, and the feeling is so unfamiliar it almost makes me dizzy.
I don't know what to do with that.
I don't let myself think about it too hard. Tyler needs me present, and the patients need me present.
But Liam is there every time I try to put one of those thoughts away.
He's the answer to most questions I don't want to ask out loud.
What's the point of any of this without someone to come home to?
What's a kitchen table if nobody's across from it?
I've been building toward something for four years, and I realize, somewhere in the middle of the third night watching Tyler sleep, that the thing I've been building toward has a face.
Blue eyes. Black hair. A laugh that makes everyone in the room turn around.
Two more days. I can do two more days.
On the fifth day, Nouha says, "Tyler's doing so much better. Soon he'll be able to continue treatment back at Aspire. You don't have to keep sleeping in that hard chair if you don't want to. Though if you're not ready to go back yet, I can let you stay a bit longer."
"Actually, I am ready," I say, and smile.
She looks mildly confused. It's a correctional facility, whatever anyone wants to call it. But she doesn't push it.
"If you want, I can ask Griff to send the transport for you today."
"That works. Perfect."
At seven that evening, when the shift ends, I tell Tyler I'm going back.
He laughs in my face. "You miss your boy, don't you."
I nod. No point lying, not with that grin. He's not hooked up to an IV constantly anymore, which makes everything from bathroom trips onward significantly easier—a blessing for both of us.
The ride takes forever because the traffic is brutal, but when I arrive I figure Liam will probably be at dinner.
I go straight to the cafeteria, even though I've already eaten at the hospital.
After four years of eating food from the same institution, I never pass up the chance to eat somewhere else.
But the first thing I see makes me feel like the world's biggest idiot for being so happy to be back.
Liam isn't at our usual table with Jack, Miles, and Harry. He's at Reed's table.
And Reed has his arm around his shoulders.
They're sitting close, and Liam is laughing at something, that full laugh that crinkles the corners of his eyes, the one that's supposed to be mine.
My heart drops.
My rational mind shuts off completely.
I stand in the doorway for a second that feels much longer than a second.
I watch Reed lean in and say something, and I watch Liam's face do something I can't read from here, and every single good feeling from the last five days just evaporates.
Tyler recovering. Nouha's hug. The shift ending and knowing I was coming home.
Gone. All of it gone, replaced by something white-hot and stupid.
I can't believe he's doing this to me.
I walk straight over. I know I can't make a scene—not in a room full of residents, not with guards at the door, not with my name on a leader badge—but knowing that and actually controlling myself are two different things, and right now I am not controlling myself at all.
My hands are shaking. I can feel my jaw tightening.
I pull Reed's arm off Liam's shoulder.
Not gently.
They both turn at once. Neither of them noticed me come in, and the surprise on Liam's face would almost be funny if I weren't so far gone.
"Hey, what the hell is your problem?" Reed says, irritated, already squaring up the way he does, that reflex he has of filling every room with his body.
"With me. Now," I say to Liam. Not Reed. I don't look at Reed again, even though I can feel him there, even though every instinct is telling me to deal with him first.
He's not the problem.
"Oh, look! Daddy's back until the next time he disappears," Reed says, pouring gasoline on it, and I hear the satisfaction in his voice.
That bastard.
Liam stands up, and the look he gives me is pure fire. He doesn't look guilty. He looks furious, and something about that only makes everything worse, because it means he's been waiting to be furious. He's been storing it up.
We walk out in silence. He's ahead of me, steps hard and deliberate, and I follow. Neither of us says anything until we're in my office with the door closed.
He turns around immediately and faces me. He's so much shorter than me—a fact that has never once stopped him from squaring up as if he forgets it entirely—and right now his chin is up and his arms are crossed and his blue eyes are blazing.
He isn't afraid of me. He never has been, and he shouldn't be, because I would never hurt him no matter how angry I got, no matter what I said or felt.
I know that absolutely. And I still admire it, the way he'll plant his feet and face me like this, this boy who flinches at loud noises sometimes, who curls small when he's scared.
He doesn't flinch now.
"So you came back to reclaim your property? Until the next time you decide to disappear."
"Shut up," I say, irritated. "You know I was with my brother."
I reach for him, not to hurt him, just to hold him, to feel him solid under my hands and remind myself he's actually here and he's still mine.
But the last time I did that he couldn't pull free, and this time he comes prepared. He shoves me hard, both hands flat on my chest, before I can get close.
I stumble back a couple of steps. The back of my knee catches the edge of the desk and I catch myself. I'm not thinking straight anymore. I haven't been thinking straight since I walked into that cafeteria and saw Reed's arm around his shoulders, and something in me just refuses to let this go.
I grab his arm and pull him back toward me.
He fights. He's not strong enough to actually break free when I don't want him to, and we both know it, but he fights anyway, twisting his wrist in my grip, shoving at my forearm, his breath coming fast and angry.
"Let go of me."
I do.
Immediately. My hand drops away like I've been burned.
For a second neither of us moves.
I stare at him, at the red mark my fingers left on his arm, and something cold cuts straight through the anger.
What the fuck am I doing?
The rational version of myself would be disgusted by this one. I am disgusted. But underneath all the anger there's something else entirely.
I'm terrified.
I'm terrified that five days away was enough time for the thing I've always been afraid of to happen. That he got tired of waiting. That Reed was just there and I wasn't and that's how simple it is, how simple it's always been.
That I am eventually, inevitably, going to lose him the way I've lost everything.
I want to tell him he's being an idiot. I want to tell him he isn't going anywhere. That I'm not letting him. That he isn't Reed's, he isn't anyone else's.
He's mine.
Except he isn't.
Not if he doesn't want to be.
And that's when I realize I've fully lost control of myself, because I feel hot drops running down my face.
I haven't cried in a long time. It isn't something I do easily. I wouldn't have survived my parents' house if I broke down every time things got bad. But right now I keep seeing Tyler in that hospital bed, skin yellowed, and I keep seeing Reed's arm around Liam, and it's all just too much.
The tears come and won't stop.
Liam goes completely still. His expression changes instantly. His blue eyes fill too.
"You don't understand, Liam," I say. "You're everything to me.
And if you want to leave, of course you can.
You're not mine if you don't want to be, no matter what I say.
But I don't want that. I love you. All I want is to be with you.
I promise I'm going to try as hard as I can to be here for you, even with the shifts, even with Tyler. I'm sorry I left you alone."
And then he starts crying too.
This time, he's the one who comes to me.
He hugs me tightly. I wrap my arms around him and hold him back, careful now, feeling his tears against me.
"I'm so sorry too, Daddy," he murmurs. "I was feeling so alone."
"I know."
"I know you don't like Reed."
"Forget Reed," I say. "I trust you. And I don't want you to feel so alone. I know you'd never do anything to actually hurt me."
"I'd never cheat on you," he says.
"I know that, baby." And I do. "I know Reed is an idiot who doesn't understand boundaries."
"You're right," he admits, voice a little rough. "I shouldn't have let him put his arm around me like that. I did it on purpose because I knew you were coming back and I wanted you to see it. I was angry at you."
"I deserved it," I say.
He shakes his head.
"You were with your brother. You were working. I'm just angry because I don't want to lose you. I don't want this to end."
"I don't want it to end either!" I say, too loud. Someone in the hallway probably heard. "All I want is to be with you forever. I would marry you today. But I understand if you need time, if you want to explore other—"
He laughs.
"Absolutely not. I may be young, but I've unfortunately been with guys since I was twelve, and all I want is to be with you forever."
I'm quiet for a second.
He keeps going, slower.
"My dad said he's not coming anymore because he has a new girlfriend. He abandoned me again."
And then everything makes sense.
Liam is always abandoned by the people he loves. He never abandons anyone—and I'm doing the same thing to him, even without meaning to.
That's what he's feeling.
I pull him in tighter, my forehead against his hair, and he holds on just as hard.
"We're going to stay together no matter what," I say. "Okay, pup?"
"Okay, Daddy," he says.
"Whether I get out or I don't. Whether I keep working at the hospital or not. I'm not going to abandon you. Do you trust me, or do you think I'm a liar?"
He lets out a small laugh. "I trust you more than anything."
"Then we do this as a team, don't we?"
"Of course." He pauses. "But what if—"
"There's no what-if. You're my family, Liam."
When I say that, he goes completely still.
Like he hasn't let himself think it until just then.
He looks at me with his lips slightly parted, face open with surprise.
"You're my family too," he murmurs, eyes full. "You're all I have."
We're both just two jealous idiots who took way too long to say the right things.
"Promise you'll stay with me forever, then?" he asks.
"I swear on everything I love."
"If you're lying, you're going to have a stomachache for a month straight."
I laugh, loud and real.
He's so ridiculous.
And then I kiss him.
He kisses me back, warm and sure, tasting like home.