“Can we…just not talk about this right now?”
“Anything you want, honey.” She reaches over and turns on the radio.
Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer” starts to beat out into the car. I start to sing along, channeling my pain in the way I know best.
The song is just coming to an end when it’s cut off by my cell ringing through the Bluetooth set in my car.
A glance at my phone screen tells me it’s Aunt Steph calling. I don’t feel up to talking, but I haven’t called her in a while, so she won’t give up until I answer. My Aunt Steph is persistent like that if I go too long without talking to her.
“Hi, I’m just in the car with a friend. Can I call you back?”
“Ly…” she says, her voice breaking.
The sound comes like a hand around my throat.
“It’s Dex. He’s in the hospital. He-he—” She starts to sob.
My pulse hits adrenaline. Panicked, I swerve out of traffic. I vaguely register a horn blaring and then the sound of Shannon cursing low, but none of that matters. I can’t be driving this car right now.
Skidding into an open spot on the side of the road, I hit the brakes. “Dex? Is he okay? Oh God, what happened?”
Aunt Steph takes in a deep breath. “Dex…he took a lot of pills…alcohol. They’re saying…the doctor said he overdosed…but he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t try to…not on purpose—” She breaks down again.
He overdosed?
Dex. Overdose.
No, that can’t be right. He wouldn’t hurt himself like that.
Then, I remember how he sounded that night in San Diego.
Desperate. In pain.
How my mom used to sound.
The last thing he said to me was…I’m sorry.
Oh no.
He tried to kill himself.
It’s my fault. I wouldn’t listen to him. I wouldn’t forgive him.
Guilt overwhelming me, I bury my face in my hands and begin to sob.
Forty Minutes Later—Waiting Area, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, LA
“You want anything to drink, honey?”
I look up into Shannon’s perfectly made-up face. I imagine that I look like a total mess. Not that looking good is really high on my list of priorities right now. I still rub my fingers under my eyes, trying to clean away the mascara I know is there, not wanting to scare people with my panda eyes.
“Hold on. I’ve got some wipes.” Shannon rummages in her bag and pulls out a pack of makeup wipes.
She’s always prepared. She takes one out and tilts my face up toward her. She starts to clear the makeup from underneath my eyes.
“You’ll give me a tic, rubbing at your eyes like that. I’m not having my superstar looking old before her time.” She gives me a gentle smile. “There. All done.” She throws the wipe in the trash.
“Thank you,” I say.
“Not needed. It’s my job to care about your appearance.”
“I didn’t mean just the face clean. I meant, you being here…I really appreciate it.”
She sits beside me and pats my hand. “The face clean is me doing my job. Me waiting here with you…this is me being your friend.”
“I’m glad you’re my friend,” I say, resting my head against her shoulder.
I really need a friend right now. I try not to think about the one person I wish were here.
At that thought, my best friends come bursting through the door.
I called Cale the moment I got off the phone with Aunt Steph. I knew he would want to be here. Sonny was going to be my next call, but after Cale got over the initial shock, he said he would call Sonny. To be honest, I was glad I didn’t have to make the call. The only other call I wanted to make was to Tom. I wanted to speak to him so badly that it hurt me not to.
“How is he?” Cale crouches down before me.
Sonny takes the seat on my right.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. The doctor came out when we got here. They’re treating him right now. He said he’d come back when he had more to tell us.”
Cale takes my hand in his and squeezes it.
I can’t stop the tears from starting again, them spilling down over my cheeks.
“Don’t, Ly…don’t you blame yourself for this,” Cale says.
I bite my lip, trying to stop the tears. “Cale…that night in the club, he was begging me to talk to him, and I wouldn’t listen.”
He cradles my face in his hands. “Listen to me. You had every good reason not to listen. You haven’t done anything wrong. Nothing. Do you hear me?”
“Cale’s right,” Sonny says in a gentle voice.
I meet Sonny’s eyes.
“Don’t put this on yourself,” he adds.
Nodding, I rub the tears from my cheeks.
“Let me get us some drinks since it looks like we’re gonna be here a while,” Shannon says, getting to her feet.
Two Hours Later—Waiting Area, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, LA
It’s been an incredibly long two hours.
The doctor finally appears. He’s a different doctor than the one who came to talk to me when I first arrived. This one is younger. He looks tired, harried.
Rubbing a hand through his curly brown hair, he says, “Dexter Henley’s family?”
Already on my feet, I say, “I’m Dex’s sister. How is he?”
“Miss Henley—”
I don’t bother to correct him. It would only confuse an already confusing situation even more.
“I’m Dr. Lowe. I’ve been treating Dexter. He’s going to be fine.”
I exhale in relief. Feeling Cale’s hand on my back, I smile at him.
“Dexter had taken a significant amount of pills. We were lucky that he’d been found when he had, as his body hadn’t had time to absorb the drug. I administered an activated charcoal, which binds the drug so that the body can’t absorb it, and he’s responding well to the treatment, which means he’ll make a full recovery and there will be no damage to any of his organs.”
“Can we see him?” I ask.
The doctor looks over the four of us. “Only family is allowed to see Dexter at this time.”
“We’ll wait here.” Cale squeezes my shoulder.
“Just tell him we’re here,” Sonny says.
I give Cale and Sonny a soft smile. “I’ll tell him.”
I fall into step beside Dr. Lowe. “Doctor, when my Au—” I falter and correct myself to avoid confusing the doctor. “When our mother called, she said that Dex had…tried to commit suicide. Is that true?”
He stops walking and turns to me. “The pills Dexter overdosed on were a prescribed anti-depressant. He took a lot of those pills and combined them with alcohol. He might not have meant to attempt suicide…but in my professional experience, when a patient combines the amount of pills Dexter had with alcohol then one would assume an attempt on life, yes.”
I close my eyes on the pain crushing my insides.
Exactly how my mother died.
A tear runs down my cheek, and I brush it away.
“Dexter is going to need a lot of help and support. Because of the nature of what’s happened, I had to contact the psychiatric department. A counselor will be here in a few hours to evaluate Dexter and see if he is a danger to himself. Even though Dexter seems to be doing okay at the moment, it’s standard protocol.”
“I understand.” I give a brisk nod.
We start walking again until Dr. Lowe stops outside a door.
“This will have to be a quick visit,” Dr. Lowe tells me.
“Okay.”
Heart pumping, I press down on the handle. I step inside the low-lit room. Immediately, I see Dex laying on the bed, his face turned away from me. A machine attached to him is beeping. A drip is running in his arm.
Unsure if he’s sleeping, I take a quiet step closer.
“Dex,” I speak softly.
Slowly, his head turns, eyes meeting mine.
His ey
es are dark, sunken. His skin sallow. He looks a shadow of his former self.
Seeing him like this—my big brother—my eyes fill with tears. I bite my lip to stop it from trembling.
“You’re here,” he says, his voice rough.
“I’m here.” I take a small step closer. Part of me wants to be close to him, and the other part of me holds back.
He looks away from me. “I’m sorry you had to come here,” he rasps out, his tone emotionless.
“Stop it.” My voice is sharp, but I can’t help it. So many emotions are roiling inside of me, and it’s hard to control them.
Dex’s eyes slowly come back to mine.
I walk up to the end of the bed, curling my fingers around the metal frame. “Why?” It feels like the hardest question in the world to ask, but the most important.
I need to understand why he did this.
He lets out a sigh, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
His stops rubbing at his face, and he brings his eyes to mine.
I see it all in there—the pain, the loss.
“I just wanted it all to stop,” he says in a whisper.
“You wanted what to stop?”
He exhales softly. “The regret. The guilt. The loneliness. The silence eating me alive. I made the biggest mistake of my life. I hurt and lost the most important person to me, all for someone who didn’t matter when it came down to it.”
“What happened…with you and Chad?” I’ve never asked him this question. Truth be told, I never wanted to know because him being with Chad, or not, wouldn’t have changed anything for me.
“It didn’t continue past that night.”
I take a deep breath, processing that information. “Why?”
“How could it?” He shakes his head, regret swimming in his eyes. “The fact is, I love you more than I would ever love him.”
“But that didn’t stop you from screwing him—” I cut off, knowing this isn’t the time. My breath is coming in heavy. I can feel myself starting to panic.
My fingers slip from the bed frame. I’m ready to leave, and Dex knows it.
“Ly, don’t go, please.”
The panic in his eyes and voice makes me stay. I hold on to the metal frame again, needing it for balance.
“I wish I could give you a reason why I did what I did,” he says in a low voice. “The only one I have is…I was weak. Chad pursued me, and I couldn’t seem to say no. Every time it happened, I would tell myself that time was the last, and I wasn’t going to let it happen again. Then, I would find myself right back in that same situation with him.” His eyes meet mine. “I was in love with him…or I thought I was. I want you to know that I didn’t have an affair with him as some sort of challenge.” He lets out a defeated sigh. “Whatever it was I felt for Chad though…in the end, it didn’t matter.”
“Why did you move to LA?”
“To be closer to you. I thought if I was closer to you, I might stand a chance at repairing what I’d done. I couldn’t do that when you were on the other side of the country. Then, I got here and found out that you were going on tour for six weeks. I have the worst timing ever.” He lets out a self-deprecating laugh. “But I stayed, knowing you’d be back. I thought if I could just get to see you, talk to you, then it’d be okay…we’d be okay. I just needed to get you to listen to me. If that happened, then, I thought everything would be okay.
“Then, I finally got my chance in San Diego, and after what happened that night…it truly hit me that I’d lost you for good. There was no going back. In that moment, it was worse than thinking you were dead. You were still living your life, but I just couldn’t be a part of it, and it was my own doing. The best part of my life was us. You and me. And Cale and Sonny. The band.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I guess…things just spiraled after that night. The depression got worse. I wasn’t turning up for practice. I was drinking more, getting high. The guys in my band were getting pissed off with me. Then, I missed an important gig because I’d was out partying, and the next day they pulled me in and told me I was out.
“So, I didn’t have you, and then I had no band. I just felt lost…angry at myself, and I wanted to stop hurting. I took some of my pills, knowing they’d dull the pain. I washed them down with vodka. I guess I took too many.”
Anger bursts inside me like an erupting volcano.
“You took too many? Are you fucking kidding me right now? You could have died. If your roommate hadn’t found you, I’d be standing over your dead body right now!” My chest is pounding, head hurting. “How the hell do you think your mom and dad would feel if they lost you? If you’d died exactly the same way my mom had, how do you think your mom would feel from losing her son the same way she had her sister? How the hell do you think I would feel?” I beat my fist against my chest.
Sad eyes meet mine. “Relieved…I thought you would feel relieved, Ly.”
His words me like a wrecking ball.
“Screw you!” I yell at him. I head for the door, my body shaking hard with every emotion I’m feeling right now.
“Lyla, wait!” he cries.
I spin on the spot. My hands are clenched into fists at my sides. I feel like I could punch a hole through the wall.
He’s sitting up in bed, his face anxious. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just thought your life would be easier without me around.”
My nails dig into my palms. “I would rather have a hard life than you be dead. Don’t you get that? I might be angry and hurt, but you’re still my family. My flesh and blood. I don’t get to stop loving you, Dex, just because you hurt me.”
His head lowers. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking when I took those pills. I just wanted to stop feeling. And I know you have every right to be angry with me, but please, not right now.” He slumps back, rubbing at his eyes. “Not right now.”
I take a few deep breaths. “I shouldn’t have yelled.” I move back to the bed. Grabbing the chair near the bed, I sit in it. “We can’t keep doing this,” I say quietly, “hurting each other like this.”
His eyes lift to mine. “I know.”
I blow out a breath, flexing my hands on my thighs. “You did an unforgiveable thing. You hurt me badly. Worse than Rally ever did.” My lip quivers. “All the shit with him, I expected. I expected Rally to let me down. But not you. You were the one person I trusted above everyone, and you betrayed me.”
“God, I’m so sorry.” His voice breaks on a sob. He wraps his arm over his stomach like he’s in pain. “If I could take it back, I would. I’d give anything to go back and do it differently. I wouldn’t go near Chad. I would tell you upfront how I was feeling about him before anything could happen. I wouldn’t do what I did.” Tears are streaming down his face.
“The betrayal wrecked me so badly—not because it was Chad—but, because it was you. You were my fucking hero, Dex. I adored you. I never thought you would hurt me like that.”
“Neither did I,” he says sadly. Using the sleeve of the hospital gown he’s wearing, he wipes his tears from his face.
He lowers his hand to the bed, and tentatively, he reaches for mine. I let him take it.
“Ly, I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness or to have you back in my life…but will you to consider trying…”
My eyes lift to his and I see them shining with fresh tears. I let out a breath. “When I got that call from your mom, for a split second…I feared the worst.” I rub my eye with the heel of my hand. “It made me realize that no matter how mad or hurt or betrayed I feel by you…nothing would be worse than not having you here, alive and well. I knew if you were gone, and we hadn’t fixed the broken between us, then, regret would eat me alive. I’m not saying we can go back to how we were because we can’t. But I’m saying, I’ll try and work toward something…forgiveness. But you need to promise me that you’ll go to counseling, and get real help.”
A soft smile touches his lips. “I will
. I promise.” He squeezes my hand.
“You get help, and then you and I can start talking…with someone’s assistance. Knowing you and me, I think we’re gonna need a mediator in this.” My lips lift at the corner, attempting a smile.
“Anything. As long as I get to have my sister back in my life, I’ll do whatever it takes.”
I see a shadow by the door, and I lift my eyes to see Dr. Lowe there. He lifts his wrist and taps his watch, letting me know that it’s time to go.
“I have to go.” I nod in the direction of the door.
Dex looks at the doctor and then back to me. He gives me a joyless smile.
“You’ll see me again.” I squeeze his hand before letting go. I get up from the chair and start to leave. I stop when I remember something. “Sonny asked me to tell you that he’s here, him and Cale.”
Surprise touches Dex’s face.
“Sonny and…Cale? They’re here?”
“Yeah.” I smile lightly. “Came as soon as I called. They wanted to come in and see you, but the doctor said family only.”
He nods in understanding. “Will you tell them I said thanks…for coming?”
“I will.”
I’m at the door when his voice pulls me back.
“Ly…I know you said I have to get help first before you and me can start to work on things…but I was wondering…if I can maybe…call you tomorrow? Just to say hi.”
I pause for a moment. I turn to him and shake my head. “You don’t need to call. I’ll come back in the morning. Your mom and dad will be here. I’ll pick them up from the airport and come in with them. I’ve got a feeling that you might need the support.”
He smiles. “Tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow.”
I close the door to his room behind me, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding all night before making my way back down the hall.
Cale, Sonny, and Shannon are all sitting where I left them, sipping on machine coffee.
Sonny gets to his feet. “How’s he doing?”
I lift my shoulders. “He’s doing okay, considering what happened. We talked. He’s real happy that you guys came to the hospital.”