“Nothing?” Trent asks, nodding to my phone, his own in his hand. I shake my head quickly, my eyes wide on my blank screen. Why is my screen blank? Why no ringing or message?

“I’m sure he’s on his way,” he says, sitting on the end of the bed near my feet. I nod yes, but I don’t believe it. Something is wrong—I feel it in my gut.

The two minutes comes and goes, and as soon as my phone reads 7:01, I let the tear I’ve been holding in for hours fall down my cheek.

“We have to find him,” I say.

“I know,” Trent says, standing and walking from the room. “I’ll get my keys.”

I kick away the useless books on his bed, running to the restroom to pull my hair into a tie and shove my feet into my running shoes. I swallow my nightly round of meds with the feeling that I won’t be home in time to take them, then I rush around the corner, still pulling my arms into the sleeves of one of Andrew’s sweatshirts when I run into Trent. He’s holding a hand up to me, his phone pressed to his ear with his other hand, and his face is completely blank.

“Yes, I’ll call them. Yes, yes. Thank you. I’ll be there soon, too,” Trent says. I reach for his hand, grabbing onto his fingers, threading mine with his and holding his fist hostage. I have a sense that I’m going to need it to stand soon.

“Was that him?” I ask. He shakes his head no.

“Hospital,” he says, his eyes wide, not looking at anything. “Someone…shot him, Emma. He’s in critical…”

My lungs collapse and everything blurs. I fall down Trent’s leg, my grasp on his hand too weak, and his the same as he stands limply, in shock.

“I…I have to call his mom. I…I don’t think I can drive, Em. I…” Trent’s eyes fall to mine, and we both look into each other. We should have tried harder. We could have stopped this. Andrew…I might lose Andrew!

“I’ll call a cab. Where is he?” I fumble with my phone, dropping it on the floor and cracking a corner of the screen. Shit! I hope it still works. I click it on, and breathe out hard when it lights up.

“Mercy,” Trent says, falling into one of the stools in his kitchen, his eyes forward on his phone as he chews at the inside of his mouth.

I manage to speak clearly enough to request our cab, and I listen as Trent delivers the painful news to a family that’s had so much of it over the years. He ends his phone call, unable to give them many answers, just as our cab pulls up, and we both drag ourselves to it. As I close the door, I glance up and realize that we left the front door completely open, and I motion to Trent.

He shrugs, so I let the driver pull away. There’s nothing worth anything in that apartment, anyhow. The only thing that matters is fighting for his life seventeen miles away.

“Hold on, Andrew,” I murmur to myself. “Please, just…hold on.”

Chapter 22

Emma

The beeping sound haunts me. I wait for irregularities. Though, I’ve learned now that even those sounds are meaningless. Andrew is being kept alive by a tangled mess of tubes and wires and liquids all working together. His body repaired as best as doctors could, the worry now is how long until he wakes on his own, and what state his brain was in after he was left to die in some back lot only miles away from our home.

Our home.

His family showed up minutes behind Trent and me, and his brother came in this morning. He looks so much like Andrew; it’s hard to look at him. He’s been kind, but very quiet. He rarely leaves Andrew’s side. He lets me stay, too. I told him who I was, that staying here was important, and he just nodded once, never questioning that my need to be present was just as great as his.

He stepped out to grab coffee and call his girlfriend. They weren’t able to both make the flight from Germany. I don’t think they could afford it. It must have cost thousands as it was. I can tell Owen misses her, though, and I can tell she loves Andrew like her own flesh and blood. I heard her crying through the phone earlier.

She sounds like me.

“Here, I made it black, but brought a little of everything,” Owen says, handing me a small cardboard box filled with sugars and creams along with a Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee. I nod thanks, then slide it onto the table next to me. He stares at it for a moment quietly.

“I’m not very hungry,” I say.

“Yeah,” he sighs, setting his cup down, no intention of drinking it either. “There’s a girl here for you,” he says, his eyes on his brother as he slides one of the tubes over Andrew’s chest and away from his neck, wanting him to be comfortable even in this state. “She said her name’s Nicole or Lesley or something like that.”