There was something about the way he smiled. It set her stomach in motion; made her hate herself for being so contradictory. "Always trust your head," he told her, but her head was telling her to write him off, to be finished trying to be his friend; to stop trying to fix him, and she couldn't. She wasn't ready.
She never really understood how to flirt. Is it flirting when she makes fun of him, giggles when he counters her statements, or touches his shoulder? Is she obvious; does he know? Is he flirting back, or just being nice?
She feels like her head will never stop being angry with him, and she thinks that her heart will never let him go. She's less worried about the other girl interested than the competition between her head and her heart. He'll date the other girl before he dates her and that's fine. She just wants her whole soul to be on the same page.
Sometimes she hates him. It's not just because he has changed, or because he doesn't understand; it's mostly because of the way he thinks. It's the zen, the open-ended questions; the written pieces that she doesn't really understand. It's that he keeps finding ways to justify his change; changing who he is and who he was so that people will understand the change. It's that he wants her to keep him accountable, even if it means she can't let him go. She's worried about his past; worried that he'll start again and it will really change him. Will it just be nicotine? What about alcohol? Hard drugs? Is it already happening?
She never wants him to know how she feels because she doesn't want him to stop being himself, but she wonders a lot whether he would feel the same way if he knew the truth. (Unless he already knows, she thinks, knowing that could certainly be possible.)
It's 9 pm when she gets the news. It's not a subtle call at all - the person who calls hasn't made a call to her since...forever. She answers the phone confused, and when the voice on the other end cracks she knows something is really wrong.
"An overdose," the woman on the phone says, "We still don't know if he'll wake up." She can barely respond. "Did you know he was doing drugs again?"
"No," she says, her voice coming out much softer than she expected it to be. "But I thought - I had a feeling. I should have said something."
"Don't blame yourself." She wants to say something else but can't, so she just nods, as if the older woman can see her through the phone. "Do you want me to stop by and get you? I'm on my way to the hospital."
"Yes." The rest of the conversation is a blur, and the next thing she knows they are on their way to Mercy, and she is seated in the backseat of a cab, crying in the arms of her mentor, whose tears are not hidden.
"He'll be okay." The older woman runs her fingers through the girl's messy curls and she closes her eyes. "I know you guys were close..."
"I never told him," she rasps, trying to cough away the tears. "I should have told him how I felt."
"You'll still get to." The girl with the brown curls nods, even though neither woman actually knows whether or not the statement is true.
He's awake when they arrive, but just recently. The doctor says he'll be fine and lets her go in to the room by herself. He bursts in to tears when he sees her, and when she tells him she loves him, he repeats the sentiment.
Two weeks later she is driving him in his car to the rehabilitation center that his parents chose, his fingers threaded through her right hand as she drives.
"I'll miss you," he says, and she smiles. "Will you miss me?"
"Yes," he squeezes her hand and she glances over at him. "But the wait will be worth it."
The problem is that it's not worth it. He comes back in love with a girl he met at rehab, and she finds herself watching him walk away just like she always dreaded he would.
She moves away from home, starting a new life with new people, and never sees him again but hears. She hears that he and his sweetheart get married and have children and that just after their second son is born she relapses and overdoes, leaving him with three children and a broken heart.
She determines that he deserves it.
