I jump in the G-Wagon and floor it, peeling out of the parking lot so fast I burn rubber on the way. It takes way too fucking long to get to the hospital, but it’s too soon. I stumble in, bleary eyed and frantic, and find Angel in a chair, surrounded by his family, Heath’s family, all the people who love him. My stomach swoops again, and I have to fight not to go to my knees.
People don’t show up like that for a scratch.
People show up like that for death.
And even then, most people are lucky to draw a handful of mourners. But Heath is different. He’s special. He’s the one we protect, the one we watch over because despite his antics and hedonism and heathenism, we know. Under all that, he’s different from us, not because he’s worse than the rest of us but because he’sgood.
Angel stands when he sees me.
In one sweep, my eyes take in the dozens of people filling the room, in chairs and sitting on the floor, backs to the cinderblock wall.
His parents, who already lost a daughter.
His aunts and their partners. Their kids, his cousins.
His sister and her partner. Their kids, his nieces and nephews.
Even some of their cousins are here, Mad Dog and Maverick and Annabel Lee and Hemingway. And their friends—Manson, a high school friend of Hemingway’s, the blonde high schooler that Maverick’s been bringing around. A few Hellhounds have already arrived, a couple football players, and two or three guys he knows from the racing circuit, along with that asshole Colt Darling, who I still haven’t forgiven for bringing Mercy home with a fucking stab wound.
“Did the whole fucking town show up?” I ask when Angel makes his way over to me and grips my hand, pulling me in close and wrapping his other arm around me.
“Somehow, the heathen convinced all these people he’s worth caring about,” Angel says with an attempt at a laugh. I can hear the strain in his tone under the lighthearted words.
“He is,” I mutter, holding onto Angel a moment longer.
“I know,” Angel says. “I wish he did.”
And then we’re holding each other in a different way, holding each other together like we did back then, like we might fall to pieces if we let each other go. Except then, we were holding Heath between us, cradling him like something fragile, because he was.
“What happened?” I ask quietly.
Angel shakes his head, unable to speak for a minute. At last, he pulls back and wipes his face.
“I don’t know,” he says. “They’re saying he cut himself. Someone found him on their way back from the movie.” His fists clench so hard his arms shake. “I wasn’t fucking there. I sent him after Mercy. I should have gone. I thought he was doing good…”
“What do you mean, cut himself?” I demand, my voice sharper than I meant.
Angel shakes his head miserably, stumbling back to his chair and collapsing into it. His mom rubs his shoulder, then gives me a sympathetic smile and makes an excuse to get up so she can offer me her seat. Normally I’d refuse, but I need to be near Angel, so I don’t argue this time.
My mind is whirling. Heath couldn’t have…
Could he?
I thought he was doing okay with all the Eternity stuff, but I should have made sure. I should have talked to him more, pressed when he said he was fine. He couldn’t have been. If I was in his shoes, and we dug up what we did, I’d have lost my mind. And Heath is far more impulsive than I am. Did he find out something that pushed him over the edge, something he hadn’t told us?
Or…
Is it because of what happened at the movie?
I can’t ask Angel. He wasn’t there. He didn’t see. I’m not even sure he knows, though he jokes about it often enough.
“I don’t think he did it,” Angel says. “However it looks… No way. No way he cut himself like that. No way he was trying to…”
I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “What if he did?”
“No way,” he says again, almost to himself, shaking his head slowly back and forth. “No way.”
I drop my head forward, and my hair tumbles down around me. Shit. I forgot I hadn’t pulled it up. I search my wrists for a tie, but there’s nothing. The threadbare old bracelet I made at church camp with the rest of the Quint is on my nightstand, and I don’t even have an elastic band. I rub my thumb over the tendons inside my wrist, the tattoo I got with Heath and Angel freshman year. I picture Heath’s switchblade sinking through it, between the tendons. The blood welling.
