“Haven’t you done enough damage?” Gary yelled. “Look at him! Look at what you’ve done!”

Stunned, I opened my mouth to speak. This was all too much.

“Lorrie,” Hunter mumbled.

Both our gazes flew down to Hunter. His eyes were open but he wasn’t all there. He looked between me and Gary, mumbling incoherently under his breath.

“We need to get out of here,” Nick said. He and his partner hefted Hunter up into the ambulance before he turned back to us. “Both of you are welcome to visit him in the hospital during visiting hours. Is one of you riding with us or not?”

“I’m coming,” Gary said. Nick looked at me briefly then nodded and climbed into the back of the vehicle. Gary turned to me. “I’ve known Hunter for a few years now. He has plenty of his own issues, but at least he was working on them. You came along and he got totally obsessed with you. At first it seemed like you made him better, but then he just got worse. A lot worse. He missed training, flipped out at that party, skipped classes, all kinds of stuff. Then you pulled the rug out from under him, and I haven’t seen anyone fall that hard. Ever. Listen, Lorrie, I know you didn’t mean for all this to happen, but you’re no good for each other.”

Gary’s words hit me hard. I felt like I was the one who had just been punched in the face. I had suspicions that even when Hunter and I were holed up in his apartment, lost in our own little world, that our relationship wasn’t entirely healthy, but hearing it from Gary felt like a stake through my heart.

Gary hopped into the back of the ambulance as I stood there stunned and still processing what he’d said to me. He turned back to me with his lips pursed and sighed. “I’ll tell him you came to talk to him,” he said. “If he wants to talk, he’ll come find you. If he doesn’t, please stay away. I don’t want to do this again.”

I nodded limply and he shut the door. The ambulance drove off, sirens fading into the distance, leaving me feeling like an empty husk.

Gary was right. We weren’t good for each other.

Chapter Thirty

WRECKED

I sat on the bus back to Indiana and watched the streetlights fly by. They were the only breaks in darkness for miles as we rolled through Illinois farm country. My head pressed up against the glass, I thought about the last few days, trying to hold all my emotions in.

How had it all happened? It was the nightmare I’d been trying to avoid: a messy breakup. Yet again, I’d proven I couldn’t trust myself to ride out the twists and turns my life presented. Letting myself get so attached to someone had been a huge mistake. I’d dragged us both down, and now one of us was in the hospital. Sorrow clenched in my chest.

I curled up in my seat and hoped for the hundredth time since the bus left the station that Nick the medic was right and Hunter would be okay. He had seemed pretty confident and I believed him in the heat of the moment, but now I was having second thoughts. I’d never seen someone look so beat up. What was going to happen to him? What had led to a breakdown like that?

A dull ache throbbed in my heart. Whatever Hunter had been dealing with over the past week, he hadn’t wanted my help. I looked around the bus at my fellow passengers. Many were sleeping. The man and woman across the aisle from me were nestled together lovingly. The peaceful expression on the woman’s face as she lay her head on his chest painfully reminded me of the way I did that with Hunter. She looked like she was claiming that spot for life.

Sighing, I threw myself back in my seat and stared out the window some more, thankful I didn’t have someone sitting next to me. I needed space to myself right now. The hurt inside was too much to bear.

If Hunter didn’t end up being okay I would never forgive myself. I closed my eyes, letting a tear roll down my cheek. I was never going to see him again. There would be no tearful reunion, no working stuff out. The world wouldn’t be that kind to us. Our brief time of happiness together was over.

I began to cry harder, doing my best to stay quiet and not embarrass myself. The tears rolling down my cheeks became warm, salty streams. What was going to happen to Hunter? Did he hate me now? Would he think that I abandoned him? Even when I tried to live a normal life, something always came to drag me back. Dad had been wrong. I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t rolling a giant boulder up a hill every day, I was caught under it.

And I couldn’t break free.

Chapter Thirty-one

WAKE

Hunter

My head felt like someone was jabbing a knife into my temple. The second thing I noticed was the unpleasant smell of the hospital and I knew where I was without even opening my eyes. How had I gotten back here? What had happened? I wasn’t sure what my last memory was; I couldn’t separate my fevered dreams from reality.

I felt pressure on my eyes as I tried to open them. This was a familiar feeling. I’d clearly just had my ass kicked. My entire face felt like shit.

“You there, bud?” a man’s voice asked.

It was Gary. He must have come with me to the hospital.

I craned my neck over toward his voice. He was blurry at first, but eventually his face came into focus. “Yeah, I’m here,” I croaked, discovering that my throat was bone dry.

He watched me for several seconds, deep concern marring his expression. “Do you remember anything?”

“If you’re asking me whether I remember how my face got so f**ked up, the answer is no.”

He sighed and his jaw worked silently. “Okay. Figured as much, but thought I should ask.”

“What happened?”

His eyes narrowed. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

My mind was fuzzy, but slowly, it was coming back.

“Lorrie,” I rasped quietly.

Gary’s expression was a mix of pain and relief. “Yeah.”

I took several deep breaths. There it was. We were done. She was on a bus taking her far away from Studsen, to deal with her own pain. I had saved her that cold winter day when I pulled her out of the lake, but I couldn’t save her from what she was dealing with now. Goddammit.

Clenching my fists, I tried to sit up, but was stopped by the IV hanging from my left arm. I used my right hand to grab the needle so I could yank it out.

Gary grabbed my wrist fiercely. “Whoa, dude, settle down! Where do you think you’re going?”

“Get off me,” I growled softly.

His grip remained strong. “Stop trying to rip your IV out and I will.”

My muscles tensed. I tried to contain my anger, but it was no use. My whole body began to shake. The way Gary was trying to physically restrain me from going after Lorrie seriously pissed me off.




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