Page 32 of Open Water
I didn't answer. I was staring at the wall and all my brain kept doing was circling back to Alex. Somewhere right now dealing with whatever had happened and I wasn't there.
"I gotta call him, hold on."
I opened my contact and hit Alex's name. The phone rang. No answer.
"He there?" Noah asked.
The phone ran twice more and went to voicemail.
"No answer. Fuck!"
I stood up and started pacing, my heart went with it, anxiety filling my chest. Worry about Alex. Fear about losing everything.
That was the part that scared me. Not the photo orthe group chat. Alex always answered. Always.
"He's okay," Noah said. Not because he knew. Because he knew I needed to hear it.
My phone buzzed. Remy.
Remy
Alex still not answering. Ethan says there was some kind of incident at the Kingswell library. People heard yelling.
My stomach dropped.
"Something happened at the library," I said. "People heard yelling."
Three knocks on the door.
Fast. Not polite. Urgent.
Noah opened it.
Alex was standing in the hallway. Jacket open. Hair disheveled. Eyes wild in a way I'd never seen from him. It was not the controlled Alex panic, not the calculated crisis management. Something raw and barely held together.
Blood on his knuckles. Blood on his lip.
He saw me and his face just broke. Not crumpled. Broke. Like everything he'd been holding together on the walk across the bridge let go the second he saw my face.
He crossed the room in three steps and pulled me into him. Arms around my neck, face buried in my shoulder, his whole body shaking.
"I'm sorry," he said into my shoulder. Muffled. "Liam, I'm so sorry."
I held him. One hand on the back of his head, the other across his shoulders.
"I'm here," I said. "I've got you."
"I tried to stop him and I couldn't and he sent it and I—" His voice broke. The sound of a person who'd been performing composure for twenty years finally running out of material. "I ruined everything. I ruined your life."
"Stop."
"Everyone's going to know and it's my fault—"
"Alex. Stop."
He pulled back. Just enough to look at me. Red-eyed. Tear-streaked. A bruise already forming along his jaw. Blood smeared from his lip to his chin. His knuckles split and swollen and trembling.
"I ruined your life," he whispered.
