Ambrose came down, bits of lint and bed fuzz stuck in his short hair, then Konstanin right afterward. Kate spoke to them. Urgency pierced through his fog. He grabbed the keys from Kate’s hand and ran to his car. He fumbled. The car door wouldn’t open.

Konstantin reached him first. He took the keys and opened the car doors, then shoved Banner into the backseat with Kate. Everyone was talking, but all he could hear was a loud ringing in his ears. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and stared at it, but there were no messages.

His baby brother hadn’t even sent him a text to say good-bye.

***

The smell of the hospital made Banner dizzy. The yellow walls and orange chairs were probably supposed to be cheery, but it felt like the seventh circle of hell.

Meadow sat in the waiting room, her face pale and drawn. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her out of the house in a T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms. When she saw Banner she leapt to her feet, glaring.

“Did you know he was going to do this?” The accusation in her tone caught him off guard, and he just stared at her.

“If he’d known, he would have been there himself and warned the rest of you.” Ambrose patted her and she began to cry huge, gasping sobs. “I know you’re upset, but you can’t blame this on him.”

Banner went to his sister and pulled her into his arms. Some people would have been angry about the accusation, but Meadow was Meadow. She was quirky and not good with people, even on the best of days. They hadn’t been close for years, but the terrified way she hung on to him was reminiscent of when they were kids and had hid on the couch from imaginary floor sharks.

The room went quiet. He was glad no one bothered them with platitudes. No one knew if everything would be alright.

A woman coaxed a teenage boy into the waiting room. Dylan. The boy cried inconsolably. His entire frame trembled, and his teeth chattered. His mother was white with anxiety.

“How is he?” she asked as soon as she saw Banner.

He wished he knew what to tell her. They’d seen each other a lot over the past couple of years when they dropped the boys off at each other’s houses.

“We’re not sure. They let our mom in, but she’s been in there a long time.” Meadow sobbed and turned her face away from Banner’s shirt, but he didn’t let her go.

“Dylan, I have to thank you for calling the house.” Banner nodded to the boy. He wanted to comfort him, but he couldn’t let go of his sister. “Meadow said if you hadn’t called, it would have been too late. How did you know?”

Dylan wiped his face on his sleeve. He almost didn’t look like himself, he was so puffy and red.

“We were texting.” His voice cracked, and he drew a shuddering breath. “He didn’t seem right, and he said some weird things, you know? Then he said good night, and I went to bed. But then I got all creeped out and texted him to see if he was okay. He wouldn’t answer. He never turns off his fucking phone.” A deep, desperate sob escaped him. “Never. I kept trying to get him to answer me, and I thought maybe he was just really sound asleep, but then I got scared.”

“What kind of things was he saying?” Meadow asked.

Dylan looked at his mother.

“I already know, Dylan. It’s okay.” She brushed his long brown hair out of his eyes. “You didn’t seem to want to talk about it, but we’ve known since you were little. Why do you think sleepovers are in the living room?”

He stared at her as if she’d grown an extra head. “You knew? But I’ve always been so careful. Oh God. You knew, and this was all for nothing!”

“Was it the idiots at school?” It had to be. Nothing else in Rook’s life had seemed that bad.

Dylan nodded. “They’ve been threatening . . .” He trailed off, eyeing Kate, Ambrose, Konstantin, Meadow.

“To do what? Hurt him?” Meadow pressed. She tensed in Banner’s arms and looked as if she were ready to march over to the school and wait for the bullies on the front step. With a bat.

“No,” Banner disagreed, wondering how much Meadow knew.

“To out him?” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, for fuck sakes! To who? Who doesn’t know?”

“Mom? I don’t know. Other kids at school?” Banner shook his head in confusion.

Meadow pulled on her hair in exasperation. “Fuck! Mom knows. She’s the one who told me, like, five years ago. Like it was supposed to be a big surprise?”

“No, no.” Dylan shook his head. “They were threatening to tell my parents. One of them has a picture of us . . .”

“A picture?” Dylan’s mother went paler. “Of what, exactly?”

“Us kissing.” Dylan pulled away from his mother and sat in one of the orange plastic chairs. “The kid said he was going to text it to Dad. Last night Rook kept saying he was ruining my life.”

Dylan’s mother, who’d been dabbing at her eyes on and off, started to cry. “This is our fault, then. If we weren’t so worried about messing up the conversation, we wouldn’t have procrastinated. This never crossed our minds.”

The adults in the room reassured her, but she didn’t look convinced.

They waited. Kate was there for him, holding his hand. Her quiet strength kept him from falling apart.

Eventually, Konstantin got to his feet. “Does anyone want anything? I’m going to see if the cafeteria is open. I need coffee.”

“Do you want to drive Kate home? She’s probably exhausted.” Banner looked over at her, sorry she’d been dragged into something so traumatic. Her hair was mussed, and her dress was rumpled, but she was more beautiful than ever.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He thought of insisting she go, just to be polite, but he didn’t want her to leave.

They settled in. Kate was true to her word.

***

The waxy look of Rook’s skin made Banner want to vomit. The IV in his arm and the neat way the hospital sheets were tucked around him gave the whole tableau a surreal feeling—as though he’d just walked onto the set of a bad television hospital drama.

The boy’s eyes flutter open. He looks close to death, small and pale in the bed, like a bundle of sticks. Cue emotional outburst from older brother.

“Hey.” Banner squeezed Rook’s hand.

Either Rook hadn’t heard him, or he was still as out of it as he’d been last time it was Banner’s turn to come in. The doctor had said they’d got him to the hospital before there’d been any serious damage, but the tension in Banner’s gut wouldn’t dissipate.

“I’m sorry.”

“Shh. It’s okay. Don’t worry about apologizing.”

“No, it’s not okay.” The thinness of Rook’s voice tore at Banner. Tears gathered at the corners of the boy’s eyes and gradually spilled over.

Banner wiped at them with his hand, then looked around for a box of tissues. They were the miniscule square ones made from the sandpaper reject pile, so he used the edge of the sheet to dry Rook’s face instead.

“I tried to make myself throw up right after I did it, but I didn’t know how. The finger thing didn’t work.”

For some reason, that was a partial relief. Maybe he’d never do it again. They’d have to be careful and watch him.

“If you had died, I would have strangled you.” Banner wiped his own wet face with the hem of his T-shirt.

Rook squeezed his hand. “I know. I thought of how mad you would be, but only when it was too late. At the time, I kept thinking it would make your life easier.”

All of Banner’s manly reserve gave out. He carefully crushed the boy to him, as if holding him close would erase the past few hours. “If you ever think that again, just call me instead of trying to guess. You’re my best friend, jerkface. Who would I talk to about the meaning of the universe, and art, and our crazy family, and my problems with women if you ditched me?” He bumped Rook’s forehead with his own.

Banner got onto Rook’s bed and laid beside him. They stared at the ceiling in silence. He didn’t know what to say. But more than that, he was afraid of saying the wrong things.