I wake up on Sunday morning to hammering at the front door. For a while, I just lie in bed, waiting for someone else to get it. When it eventually occurs to me that Bill had mentioned something last night at dinner about going to New York to meet with Marian – Bree had demanded to come along, Mom had refused to go, saying she had work – I roll out of bed and patter downstairs. The second the door is open, Alex is gripping the front of my t-shirt and shoving me back against the wall. “Where is he?”

            “Who, Garen? We still haven’t found him. Bill’s going to—”

            “Not Garen! Ben. I’m talking about Ben. Where is he?” Alex demands. Somewhere in my gut, I go cold.

            “What do you mean?”

            Alex lets me go and gives a sharp little bark of laughter. “You expect me to believe that you don’t have the faintest idea where he went? He’s your boyfriend, Travis, of course he told you.”

            Okay, that hurts. I shake my head slowly. “He broke up with me, right after you dropped me off at his house. And he wouldn’t return my calls last night. I figured he was just… I don’t know. I figured he didn’t want to deal with me.”

            Alex stills, staring at me with a slightly dazed expression. “He broke up with you?”

            “Yeah,” I say, leading him over to the couch to sit down. He trails after me like he’s stuck in a trance, and when he finally slumps down next to me, he seems to come to life once more.

            “He’s still gone, you know,” he says. “I’ve got no idea where he is. His mom called me this morning, freaking out. She said that Ben hadn’t been home for dinner last night, and that he wasn’t there in the morning. Said she was going to be calling Jeremy and Mason right after me.”

            I slouch down in my seat, covering my face with my hands. This can’t be happening. I refuse to believe that both of my ex-boyfriends – God, please let it get easier to think of Ben as my ex-boyfriend – could disappear within twenty-four hours. “Have you tried calling him on his cell phone?”

            “Of course,” Alex says flatly. “He doesn’t pick up. He responded to one of my text messages, but it was just… all it said was ‘Can’t answer the phone now. Driving. Will call you when I have news.’ The fuck does that mean? When he has news about what?”

            “He must have gone after Garen,” I say. He must’ve gone after Garen for me. I finally drop my hands away from my face, only to find that Alex is staring at me with a look that is simultaneously blank and enraged.

            “Of course,” he says for the second time. “Of fucking course, it makes so much sense. Really, why didn’t I think of it sooner? Of course Ben would go running off to find Garen, of course the boyfriend you cheat on and treat like shit would do everything in his power to find the boyfriend you won’t even agree to date.”

            I stand shakily and head for the kitchen. He does not want to play this game with me right now, he does not want to start this fight. “Shut up, Alex.”

            “Listen to me!” Alex practically screams at the back of my head. “Ben is my best friend, and you have been nothing but horrible to him since the first second you two laid eyes on each other! You were so sweet and caring and what the fuck ever, at least until Garen came back. And then you kept making ‘mistakes’ like kissing your ex. You can’t kiss someone by mistake, Travis. Every kiss means something.”

            “Yeah?” I cut across him, yanking open one of the cupboards to retrieve a drinking glass. I fill it up with water, but my hands are shaking too much for me to raise it to my lips. “So, what about when you and Ben kissed at the party? I guess that one meant something, too.”

            Alex goes white. “I wasn’t talking about that.”

            “I know, because you never want to talk about yourself. But seriously, let’s. Because trust me, man, your life is at least as fucked up as mine. We all saw how you reacted when Ben kissed you that night, but you act like nobody’s allowed to acknowledge what we all figured out ages ago. I mean, what, do you need me to get you a beer out of the fridge before you’re okay to have a conversation about it?”

            “Don’t talk about me like that,” Alex snarls. “You know nothing about me. You’re fucking projecting your pathetic problems onto me, you’re trying to turn me into Garen, just like you tried to turn Ben into him. And now Garen’s turning himself into Ben, so really, your life is just one constant mistake, isn’t it?”

            “Just because you need to get wasted before you’re man enough to kiss another guy, doesn’t mean you’re not as queer as the rest of us!” I say. The second the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. Alex looks like he’s about to throw up, and, without knowing what else to do, I shove the glass of water at him. He takes a sip from it, then dumps the rest down the drain. We stare at each other for nearly a full minute.

            Finally, he stumbles back a few feet to lean against the kitchen table. “At least I’m really in love with him. At least I don’t want him as a substitute for Garen.”

            “I’m really in love with him, too,” I protest, but Alex just shakes his head.

            “No. No, if you were really in love with him, you would’ve never gotten involved with him. But instead, you had to be selfish as fuck, you had to go and make him fall for you, just so you could break his heart the second Garen showed up again. If you loved him half as much as I do, you would’ve let him go.”

            “Is that what you did?” I ask.

            He looks away. For several long moments, he just stares at the floor. I wonder if he didn’t hear my question, but that’s insane. The house is dead silent, except for the two of us. Eventually, though, he sits down in one of the chairs and rests his forehead against the edge of the table. “I’m sleeping with James Goldwyn.”

            Of all the things I expected him to say, that is at the absolute bottom of the list.

            “Um. Excuse me?” I say.

            “Garen’s best friend, James. I had sex with him the day after prom, the day after Garen was admitted to the hospital,” Alex says hoarsely. The words come out quickly, as if he can’t keep them in anymore, not after hiding this for over a month. “When you asked me to bring him his jacket, I went to his hotel, a-and we… it was my first time. He was only in town for a little while longer after that, but we, you know, we met at his hotel room a few more times. Two. Three, maybe. We’ve been texting a lot since then, I guess.”

            “Yeah, I saw,” I say softly. J—garen took / is taking a train 2 nyc. think he’s meeting w/ seth. see if u can find him first? xo alex. Obviously.

            Alex shrugs. “Yeah.”

            “So are you two, uh… are you like, dating?” I ask. This conversation is so surreal. My first ex-boyfriend’s best friend (slash ex-fling) and my most recent ex-boyfriend’s best friend (slash ex-fling) are now suddenly together. My life is a soap opera.

            “No,” Alex says quickly. “No, it’s not like that. We’re not… James dates a lot of people, you know? He’s not like Garen, who usually only has sex with people, never really gets involved on a deeper level. James is more than willing to do the boyfriend thing, he told me he’s had like,  twenty boyfriends so far. But I’m just… I don’t want to get involved with him like that, not yet.”

            “Are you still freaking out about figuring out you’re gay?” I ask. More than anything in the world, I can relate to that.

            “No, not really. And besides, I’m not—”

            “Alex, dude, sex with another guy usually makes you gay,” I interrupt. Isn’t this part of the conversation over?

            He laughs and shakes his head. “What I meant was, I’m bisexual. Not just gay. But that’s not the problem, either. I just don’t want to get into a relationship right now. I’m not ready. Especially because… I’m in love with Ben.”

            I hate hearing that, even if it’s what I’ve been waiting for him to say for months.

            He continues, “That’s kind of my point. You don’t think before you get involved with people, Travis. You didn’t think about the consequences of dating your future stepbrother before you got involved with Garen. You didn’t think about how hurt Ben would be if he realized you still wanted Garen. You didn’t think about how much it would destroy Garen if he ever came back and realized what was going on. It’s really shitty that you do this, okay? It sucks that you just throw yourself into these relationships without thinking about what it’ll do to other people.”

            “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I say. “Ben and I are over. Garen and I are over. I’m alone now. And it’s probably going to stay that way.”

            Alex bobs his head sort of aimlessly for a second, and then he gives a little, unexpected laugh. “Ben is still in love with you, even if he broke up with you. I’ve known him for years, he doesn’t change his feelings that quickly. It’s impossible for him. And, according to you, you still care about him, too. So, I guess it’s possible that you guys are finished, but I doubt it. And, well, you and Garen…”

            He trails off, looking slightly uncomfortable. I have to wonder who I’m talking to now. Is this Ben’s friend, Alex? Garen’s friend, Alex? Mine?

            “Yeah?” I prompt.

            He shakes his head. “You and Garen aren’t over, either. You and Garen will never be over. You guys are still ridiculously, inexplicably in love with each other, and everyone knows. Seriously. Everyone.”

            That declaration provokes a brief image of all my friends and family, shaking their heads, rolling their eyes, demanding to know what the hell is wrong with me. The whole thought is probably a lot closer to reality than I want it to be.

            I intend to say, I’m not still in love with him, but it comes out as, “I don’t want to still be in love with him.”

            Fuck everything.

            “Yeah, well, I don’t want to be in love with a guy who’s constantly telling me I’m like a brother to him,” Alex says, scowling. “I guess we’re both fucked.”

            “Pretty much,” I agree. The tension between us seems to have passed, for the most part, and I am suddenly so unwilling to continue this discussion, so I add, “Do you want to watch a movie or something?”

            He pauses, seems to mull it over for a while before saying, “Alright, sure. But try not to molest me or anything, okay? I know your crisis mode seems to involve finding yourself a new boyfriend, and I’m not into you like that—”

            I shove him off the chair, and we retreat to the living room to watch whatever fantastically mindless action movie is playing on tv. It’s sort of nice to have a chance to just hang out with somebody, without having to worry that he’s going to leave any second now. But it’s also sort of horrible, because we both keep digging into our pockets to check for missed calls, voicemails, text messages. Anything that will tell us where the same two boys are. But we are both left unsatisfied, and by the time late afternoon comes around, we are both just restless.

            And then the front door bangs open, and they tumble in.

            Both of them.

            Clearly, Ben was not expecting to see Alex and I sprawled out on the couch together, because he freezes, even though he’s practically collapsing under the weight of Garen—fuck, Garen. My heart drops right out of my chest, through the floor, into the dirt under the foundations of this house.

            Garen looks like a zombie. His skin is pale – bordering on pasty, actually – except for the dark circles under his eyes, which could be either from not sleeping or from getting punched. There’s a bit of dried blood on his face, which lends itself to the “getting punched” idea. The black dye seems to already be mostly faded from his hair, but surprisingly, neither of his lip rings seems to be infected. His glassy eyes seem incapable of focusing on anything, and he can’t manage to keep himself upright. The sweatshirt – my track hoodie – he was wearing the last time I saw him is gone, and the blue t-shirt he’s wearing now is dirty and torn.

            For a long moment, none of us move. Finally, I stand and move to Garen’s other side to help Ben settle him on the couch. The second Ben is upright, Alex flings an arm around him, dragging him into a bone-crushing hug that paints an expression of shock across Ben’s face.

            “Don’t leave without telling me again,” Alex orders. “Next time, I go with you.”

            “Hopefully there won’t be a next time,” I say. “C-Can one of you call my stepdad? Please?”

            “Of course,” Ben says, carefully extracting himself from Alex’s grip. I am disturbed to finally notice that he’s got a split lip. Christ, did Garen do that to him? As he passes me on his way to the house phone in the kitchen, I snag his arm. It’s supposed to be a hug – at least, that’s what I intend to do, when I wrap an arm around his waist. But somewhere in the movement, intentions get blurred, and then I’m brushing a brief, soft kiss to his mouth. It lasts half a second, and then I’m whispering, “Thank you.”

            He nods shortly. “Of course.”

            Alex meets my eyes as Ben leaves, and I open my mouth to apologize, but he just waves his hand, as if to say, I’m used to it by now. On the couch, Garen gives a little bit of a groan. Without really meaning to move, I drop to my knees in front of him and catch his face between my hands. “Garen, what happened to you?”

            “Fucking… fucking midget should’ve just left me alone… shouldn’t have fuckin’ followed me,” he grumbles.

            “Where did you go, G?” Alex asks, joining him on the couch.

Garen slumps sideways against him. “Two one six.” He’s gotta be high, because that makes absolutely no sense. Seeing our blank faces, he adds. “Five, five, five, eighteen, sixty-seven.” A phone number, which’d make two one six an area code… to where? When neither Alex nor I says anything to that, he rolls his bloodshot eyes and says, “I went home, you morons. Back to Cleveland.”

“Garen, you don’t live in Ohio anymore. You live here,” Alex says. He shifts off the couch and helps Garen carefully lie down across it.

Garen buries his face in his hands and mutters, “I wish I were dead.”

Neither Alex nor I know what to say to that. Thankfully, Ben comes back out of the kitchen. “I got Bill’s number from the notepad by the phone. The train back from New York got in about half an hour ago. They should be here sometime soon.”

Garen whimpers and throws himself into a sitting position. “Fuck that. Fuck no, my dad’s not gonna see me like this, he can’t see me like this, all strung out, all fucked up. Fuck this, I’m getting out of here.”

Alex and I manage to restrain him for long enough for Ben to join Garen on the couch. He hooks an arm around the green-eyed boy’s shoulders and wrenches him flat so that Garen’s head is pillowed in Ben’s lap. Then he says simply, “We’re not letting you leave.”

There isn’t enough fight left in Garen, I guess, because he just lies there after that. Sometimes he makes awkward eye contact with Alex, but mostly he just stares up at Ben. Anywhere but at me. He is almost calm again by the time the door is thrown open for a second time. In fact, when Bill steps forwards, followed by my sister, all Garen does is blink once. After a too-long hesitation he whispers, “Hey, Dad.”

“Garen,” Bill breathes, “how did you get like this? Where have you been? Why did you—”

“I can answer most of those questions,” Ben interrupts quietly, “you know, if it’ll make things easier for Garen.” When no one objects, he begins, “Yesterday, Travis told me that he and Alex had found proof that Garen had been in the music room at the high school. I went to go see what they’d found. The computer was on a page that showed trains to New York City, but I didn’t think he was going there to see James, since it sounded like he was trying to disappear for real this time. So, I assumed that he was going to see that guy, Seth. The one who uh…”

The story falters there. Obviously Garen is on drugs right now, but it’s a whole new matter to discuss it casually with Bill sitting right there. This isn’t a problem, though, because suddenly, Garen sits up and says, “Seth is the guy who has been dealing me drugs for the past few years.”

“Christ,” Bill grinds out through clenched teeth.

“When I left Lakewood, sometime really early on Saturday morning, I took a train to New York. I wasn’t planning to stay long, because I knew people would find me if I hung around Patton for too long. I bought a bus ticket, then took a cab to Patton to see Seth. Between my train ticket, the cabs I’d taken, and the bus ticket, I had practically no money left. But, you know, I-I had to… coke’s not free, okay? It’s not, and I needed it, but I couldn’t a-afford it. So, you know, Seth and me, we worked out a deal—”

I can feel my stomach rolling; I wonder how much longer I’ll be able to listen before I throw up.

“—and then I got scared, because I knew people would figure out where I was, and I had already bought a ticket to Cleveland, so I went, and I got on the bus. And I was fucked up, so the ride must’ve been a few hours, but it felt like it was a lot faster, it felt like it was like, half an hour, tops. But, you know, between the detour to New York and the time I spent at Patton, I guess it balanced out, because I got off the bus at the station in Cleveland, and Ben was just standing there, waiting for me.”

“I knew that Cleveland was the only place besides Patton and Lakewood where he had any real ties, so I sort of took a gamble on it,” Ben explains. “Since he’d left his car in the Lakewood High lot, I knew he’d have to take the bus in, so I just drove to the station – it was only about an eight hour drive, maybe less. I stayed there all night, I was practically about to pass out by the time he showed up.”

“That was around two in the morning,” Garen says flatly. “We were both dead tired, so I called one of my old friends. He let us crash at his apartment for a few hours, just to get some sleep.”

“Then we came back,” Ben finishes with a shrug that’s too tense to mean he’s telling the truth.

And of course, Garen shakes his head and says flatly, “No. Then we started to come back, stopped for coffee at a rest stop, I blew a guy for drugs in the parking lot, and Ben beat the shit out of said guy.”

“Garen,” Ben snaps, but Garen just shrugs.

“What? It was impressive. He was a foot taller than you. You should be proud.”

“Ben,” Bill says, reaching out and grasping Ben’s shoulder, “thank you. There are no words I can use to express how grateful I am for this. You… you saved my son. You brought him back.”

Ben just looks uncomfortable. I ache for the flush creeping into his cheeks. “It’s nothing, Mr. Anderson. But um… I feel like Alex and I should go? This is more of a… I don’t know. Family thing, I guess.”

Before Bill can protest – not that he seems inclined to—Ben and Alex both stand and head quickly towards the door. It only takes me a second to convince myself that it’s okay to follow them. Ben is halfway down the driveway before I catch him. He doesn’t seem terribly surprised when I throw my arms around him, crushing him to my chest. “Thank you. Thank you so much. God.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was leaving,” he mumbles from somewhere around my collarbone. I want to kiss him again, want to knot my fingers in his hair and drag him up to my bedroom to show him just how much this means to me. I want to tell him that I don’t care if this is a totally inappropriate time to have this conversation, because I want him to take me back. But then I hear Alex’s car peeling out of the driveway, and the voices in the house are starting to get too loud for comfort.

I let go of Ben.

“Call me later and let me know how everything works out, okay?” he says.

“Will you pick up this time, or will you be halfway to fucking… Oklahoma or something?” I ask, and he laughs a little. Laughing is good. I need to know that any of us are still capable of it.

“I’ll pick up,” he promises. “Bye, Travis.”

I wait until he has driven out of sight before I go back inside. From the tail end of the conversation that I’ve walked into, Garen is pleading for the opportunity to go take a shower and get some fresh clothes on before this discussion goes any further. “Please, Dad. I feel disgusting, I feel like shit. I’ll tell you everything, I promise we’ll talk this all out, but I just… please let me get out of these clothes.”

He looks like he wants to get out of his skin. There’s a prickle of rage boiling under my skin, and I briefly allow myself to wonder what really happened between him and Seth when he went up to Patton yesterday. Bill seems to be thinking along the same lines, because he softens a little and finally concedes, “Alright. Go shower, put on some clean clothes. I’ll make a pot of coffee. And then we talk, Garen. About everything.”

Garen nods shortly, and I duck back into the kitchen so I won’t have to watch him stagger up the stairs. Bree is sitting at the kitchen table, hugging her knees to her chest. I sit down across from her.

“He’s really messed up,” she says quietly.

I don’t really know a way I can deny it and seem sane, so I settle for nodding slowly. “I guess so, yeah.”

            None of us speak much after that. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything that can be said. Bill makes the coffee, as promised, and we each have a cup. Even Bree, who usually hates coffee. The pot is emptied too quickly, so Bill sets about making another. The seconds tick by.

The thing is, I have taken too many showers with Garen to believe that he's really still in there. It takes him about five minutes, on a slow day. Something is wrong. I excuse myself quietly and slip upstairs. Sure enough, the bathroom door is open, and the shower, though running, is empty. I check his bedroom, then mine, then Bree's. All of them are empty. I check Mom and Bill's room as a sort of last resort - empty - and then find myself facing the last door on the floor. Bill's study. I push open the door.

Garen is sitting at the desk, a glass of whiskey in one hand, a Glock in the other. Every drop of blood in my body turns to ice. "What are you doing?"

"Sitting," he says. He takes a sip of the whiskey and adds, "And drinking."

"I meant the gun, Garen. Why do you have a gun?" I ask, my voice hitching.

"This is my father's Glock 36," he says, turning it over to admire it from another angle, "and in approximately three to five minutes, I am going to shoot myself in the head with it."

I stumble forward, my hand outstretched, and then suddenly, the muzzle is pressed against my forehead. "Really, Travis? Rush the guy with the gun, that's your brilliant plan?" he demands, sounding more irritated and exhausted than homicidal.

The place where the steel meets my skin is freezing cold, and I'm about ten seconds away from pissing myself. I manage to force out four words. "Please don't kill me."

In an instant, the gun is lying on the desk, and Garen is staring at me, looking like he's about to vomit. "Are you fucking kidding me, Travis? I'm not going to kill you, fuck, I could never do anything to you. Look at what I'm doing. I would, quite literally, rather die than keep hurting you."

"Just stop doing drugs, stop running away! Stop writing me sad songs, stop getting yourself hurt, and then you won't be hurting me anymore. You don't need to kill yourself, you just need to stop being a dick."

He bursts out laughing at that, but there are tears shining in his eyes, so I'm not sure it counts. "You don't get it. It's not just about you. It's me. I'm the problem. Don’t you know how I got Seth to give me drugs before I went to Ohio? Weren’t you listening? I sucked him off for a single line. Seriously. And when I started to come down, I let him fuck me in the ass. That bought me a gram. I have actually started whoring myself out for drugs."

"You're addicted to cocaine," I say through gritted teeth. "That's what addicts do. But we can get you help. You can get clean."

"Getting clean won't help!" he cries. "There's something wrong inside me. Even without the drugs, even forgetting all about you, I am wrong, right down to my soul. It's not something you can fix. All you can do is let me get rid of it--"

He reaches for the gun again, and I know, I just know that if I don't move, he will shoot himself with that gun, and my entire world will end. Without pausing to consider the stupidity of what I'm doing, I dive headlong over the desk, tackling him off the chair and wrestling him to the floor. It's too late, though, the Glock is already in his hand, and we're both screaming at each other. I have no idea what he's saying -- it seems to involve a lot of "Get off of me! Let me go, I hate you!" -- and honestly, I'm not too sure what I'm saying either -- something like, "I'm not letting you go! Drop the gun, Garen, drop it!" He scratches at my skin hard enough to draw blood, trying to claw his way away from me, and I keep banging his wrist against the floor, trying to break his grip on the gun. Even now, thirty pounds lighter than he was when I met him, he is still so much stronger than me, and I know that I'm going to lose this battle soon enough. So, I draw back my fist and punch him in the face as hard as I can. Pain shoots up my arm, but he falls back on the ground, stunned and bleeding from the nose, and the gun goes skittering across the floor. We both scramble after it, and I manage to kick it out of the room, into the hallway. Garen stands and bolts for the door, and I throw myself after him, pinning him to the hallway wall with my full weight.

"Stop it!" I am yelling in his ear. "Stop, Garen, I'm not going to let you do it. I'm not going to let go of you!"

Bill and Bree come sprinting up the stairs. Bree is the first to see the gun, and she points a shaking finger at it, whispering, "Oh my god."

Bill grabs the gun and steps back, clutching it with two white-knuckled hands. "What's happening? What are you two doing?"

"Get off of me," Garen groans. "Just let go of me, Travis. Give me the gun, I need the gun, please, I want to fucking die--"

"No," I say, catching his face between my palms and pushing his hair away from his eyes. "Garen, look at me. I'm not going anywhere, not now. I'm not going to let you hurt yourself. I love you too goddamn much to let you do that. If you die, I will die. We're going to get you clean, we're going to get you help."

He twists away from me to face the wall, and bangs his head against it three times, his eyes squeezed shut like he's trying to stop himself from breaking down in sobs. "I'm so fucked up, Travis."

"Yeah," I say, because who am I kidding? As he sinks to the floor, I drop to my knees so that I can keep my arms around him, and whisper, "Yeah, you are. But we all are. And we're going to get through this together. I promise, okay?"

Unable to speak anymore as the aching, heart-breaking sobs finally take over, he nods.

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