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“The friend thing. I need friends. I’m sorry?—”

“Jazz! Hey, you ready?” Marcus interrupted, staring at Alex, me, and back again.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

I followed Marcus into the medical room, and when the door shut on Alex outside, I felt the restriction in my breathing ease.

I miss him being my friend, but it was selfish to want him back.

I miss Alex.

Chapter Twelve

Alex

Marcus foundme in the yard, a place I often retreated to when the walls of Guardian Hall felt too close. The cold air meant wrapping up, but at least I could breathe out here. He approached quietly, a cup of coffee in hand, and settled on the bench in the far corner under our cherry tree's stark, empty branches. Come spring, it would be white with blossom, but it was icy with snow right now.

“Jazz’s hands are doing well, his chest too,” he said but didn’t expand. I smiled at him in gratitude for that little piece of information. “You’ve been dangerously quiet,” he observed as he handed me the coffee. His voice was soft and cautious, as if he were navigating a minefield, which he was. We’d met in rehab, me just about to leave, him just about to start, my poison drink and drugs, his… well, everything really. He’d been wilder than I was, which was saying something.

And now look at us, a registered counselor and a fully-fledged doctor.

I accepted the cup, the warmth seeping into my hands and easing the chill that had settled in my heart since the group meeting and then, the flyer incident, when I’d started to say how sorry I was.

“I guess I am quiet, but not dangerously. I went to a meeting a couple of nights ago, and I called Abbie, and we talked. I’m good.” I finally glanced up. “You?”

“Good,” he said and tapped his temple, same as he always did when he recalled his early twenties. He’d never shared things with me, and hell, things had happened to me I’d never shared with him.

Maybe that was stupid because he was my best friend, and after what we’d been through together, he wouldn’t judge me.

Or maybe he would, and then, I’d lose the only person I had in my life.

Well, the only person who knew the real me, anyway.

“You ready to talk to me? Tell me what happened with Jazz?” he asked, his tone gentle, giving me the out if I needed it.

I winced. I knew that was why he was out here, but part of me thought maybe he’d just sit quietly, and I could drink my coffee in silence. The stupid part, probably, was the part that refused to see how I was closing down on him.

“I’m asking as a friend, and someone who cares about you, and worries about Jazz.”

“I told you; it’s his story to tell.”

“No. You see, I want to knowyourstory first. Because you need a friend, and I’m your best friend, and… jeez…I want to help.”

The words hung in the air between us, and I stared into the dark liquid in my cup, thinking about the past I’d tried to outrun, the decisions that haunted me, a love lost in greed, and the crossfire of familial expectations and all the shit that came with it.

Taking a deep breath, I realized the silence wasn’t doing any good, that perhaps sharing the burden might lighten it. “I get caught up in Jazz,” I began, the words feeling foreign, yet necessary. “And…everything that happened before. My dad, the inheritance, the decisions I made.”

“A before-and-after thing,” Marcus summarized.

I nodded, and he kept his gaze steady, encouraging me to continue.

Reflecting on the dividing line in my life, the before and after, always came down to the day my father discovered I was gay and planning not just to forgo college, but to elope with the scholarship boy from school I’d fallen in love with—Jasper.

Jazz.

“Jazz always had dreams of becoming a soldier.” Wait. Was it right to tell Marcus that? I’d said it was Jazz’s story to tell, and then, I’d blurted out crap about Jazz’s dreams. I bit the inside of my lip. “I mean…”

“It’s part of your story,” Marcus encouraged.