Page 52 of Lovesick Gods (Lovesick #1)
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Andre asked more seriously again. “When you ran out of here last night…”
Thinking back on the evening’s events—on his outburst at Joey, Stella, and John; on how he’d acted with Cho before he snapped out of his anger—Danny’s gaze drifted until he focused on the mended glass again, ready with the usual canned response of I’m fine.
I’ll be fine. But he was so tired of lying.
“I’m not. I’m not okay. I’m trying…but I think I’ve kept some things in for so long, I don’t know how to let them out without exploding.
It’s like every resentment and insecurity I’ve ever felt is right under the surface all the time.
And god, that must sound so selfish when I’m Zeus ,” Danny laughed—falsely, miserably.
“The local superhero, who the whole city loves, and I’m complaining about bad moods.
I don’t have the right to be this messed up when other people have had it so much worse. ”
“ Dude ,” Andre broke in, “there are no rulebooks out there that say only people who look miserable and have a tough life deserve to be depressed. It doesn’t work that way.
Just because you have a good job, and a crazy night job, and friends and family who seriously, seriously, man, love you —and ya know, being marginally attractive helps, I’m sure,”—Danny snorted—“that doesn’t mean you can’t be unhappy.
If everything was black and white, we wouldn’t need superheroes. ”
That was what Danny always wanted to believe, but most days it was hard to see himself as anything but a disappointment. Feeling the lump of sorrow in his throat, he was getting choked up and couldn’t stop it.
He tried to turn away, to brush aside the tears without making it too obvious, but Andre was already on his feet, pulling Danny into a hug.
Half of him wanted to resist because everyone was always taking care of him when he was supposed to be the one saving them , but it felt so nice to have his friend hold him.
For so long he’d thought that only Rick and Stella could ever truly understand him, but his circle of friends was wider now. He had Andre. He had Lynn. He had…
Choking on a sob into Andre’s shoulder, Danny wished this was easier, wished everything was easier. “I’m sorry…”
“You can apologize as many times as you need to, man, but my reply is always gonna be the same. I’m here. Whenever you need me. It’ll be okay, Danny.”
Someday. Someday it will. Danny just had to believe that.
Holding on for several moments longer, he finally sniffled as he pulled away. “Thanks. I, uhh…better check my phone. I made a mess of things last night before I left home.”
“Go. Do what ya gotta do,” Andre said, dropping back into his chair. “Just change first and I’ll take care of…” He grimaced as he looked at The Invisible Man still clinging to Danny’s form. “Do I need to sanitize that thing?”
Danny took a moment to consider the question. “Maybe just to be safe?”
“Urg, you so owe me for this. Sparky ,” he added teasingly, and somehow it made things better. A little of the truth being out in the open wasn’t as disastrous as Danny had feared.
Once he was dressed, he walked the hallways aimlessly, still inside the safety net of the locked section of the basement nobody knew existed.
He prepared himself for the worst as he checked his messages, expecting some twenty odd texts from his dad or maybe more, but there were none.
Only a single voicemail blinked at him. It was from Stella.
Moving on autopilot, Danny held the phone to his ear and played her message.
“Hey, Danny. I hope you listen to this. I hope you’re not so angry that you delete it. But if you do…I’ll just have to leave another one.
“Wherever you are tonight, whatever you think we’re feeling right now, please know that you can always come home. You are always welcome home, Danny.
“When you run out like that, you make me think I’m never going to see you again, and you…you don’t get to do that, okay? You don’t get to leave and never come back. Because you are family, and we love you so much. I love you so much…”
The tears present in her words made Danny’s own spring up again.
“We’ll give you time, Danny, we know you need time, some space, but please…
please talk to me when you’re ready. I’m not giving up on you.
I’ll never give up on you. I’m not letting you suffer again for six months, pretending you’re okay.
You’re my best friend. You have a place in my heart that’s all yours, and it has nothing to do with obligation.
“This past year felt like I already lost you and I only just got you back. Please don’t make me lose you again. Please…”
He waited for her to say something else, for some obvious sign-off, but she just let her words trail, breathed out shakily, and hung up.
Sinking to the floor, Danny sat cross-legged against the wall of the corridor with his phone in his lap. Then he shifted, because something in his jeans pocket was poking him, and when he pulled it out to inspect it, he found the bottle of pills from Lynn.
She said to take one whenever he hit a low point; now definitely counted.
Without any water to wash it down, he swallowed the pill thickly, then set the bottle aside and stared at his phone.
Sitting there, alone in the hallway, he eventually summoned the nerve to hit redial on Stella’s number. She picked up after the first ring.
“Danny?”
“I’m so sorry, Stella.” It felt like that was all he’d been saying to everyone he cared about for weeks— months —but he had to say it again.
“Talk to me, Danny. Don’t shut me out. Let me help you.”
Stella did this for a living—helped people to find their place.
Danny needed to remind himself that just because she was a professional didn’t mean she didn’t care or want to help him as a friend and sister.
But he felt like such a burden. On her. On his father.
On Joey with all the baggage he’d thrown at him.
Danny didn’t know how to save himself from the muck he’d gotten stuck in.
“You’re not a burden, Danny. And you don’t have to save yourself alone. Even superheroes need to ask for help sometimes.”
He knew she was right, but he had trouble believing that most days.
They talked for what must have been hours before the crick in his back grew too bad to ignore and he felt the need for food and a shower.
This time he’d told Stella everything— other than about Cho.
That tidbit was just for him. And Andre, but Danny knew his secret was safe with his friend.
Once he decided what to do about Cho, then he’d tell Stella.
For now, it was enough to simply talk and to not try to hide any of the things that had erupted out of him at dinner.
Between his friends and family, no one knew every piece to the puzzle of Danny’s misery, but now Stella knew about the pills, about the chasm of pain and loneliness that had been growing inside of him since his mother died. Since Rick died. Since he’d allowed himself to become a murderer.
“Danny, you’re not—”
“But that’s how I feel, no matter how dangerous Thanatos was or what he might have done to me if I hadn’t lashed out. I didn’t just kill him, Stella, I destroyed him.”
“Okay,” she’d said without judgement or further arguing.
What helped more than Danny expected was when she shared her pain and loneliness in return.
How hard it had been to go to work after losing a mother for the second time.
How, when it happened, she’d wished she and Danny weren’t siblings so she could vent to him like she had when she was first welcomed into their family, but she couldn’t—he was grieving this time too.
How her solace had finally come from helping Joey, both a reflection of her and of Danny.
He was something Stella could fix, because of her job and her stubborn determination.
She couldn’t bring his mother back, but she could give him a family like she’d been given one.
“We all have our own ways of coping, Danny. Helping Joey was mine. I hated seeing that yours kept being to tear him down.”
“I don’t want to tear him down.”
“I know that. But tearing yourself down isn’t any better.”
This time, when Danny promised he wouldn’t run anymore, he swore to himself that he’d do everything in his power to make sure he followed through.
He honestly couldn’t say if it was the pill he’d taken, Stella’s kind ear, the night he’d spent with Cho, or all of the above combined that did it, but when he finally ended the call and got up to leave the precinct, he felt lighter than he had since before he became Zeus.