Knight: My mom is in a coma.

Her answer came not even a minute later.

Luna: On my way.

A bottle of whiskey.

Two more Xanax.

One Adderall because I needed to concentrate on shit in class. (See? Responsible adult.)

That was basically my menu for Monday, as Dad hurled me into Vaughn’s car and insisted I go to school. I fought him on it. Of course I did. What kid goes to school when his mom is in a coma?

“This one does.” Dad slammed the passenger door in my face, ignoring Vaughn, and Hunter in the back seat. “It’s chemically induced. We have the situation under control. Show up to class, do your best, come back here, and we’ll see her together.”

I opened my mouth to argue again, but clamped it shut when Hunter, behind me, said, “We’ll take good care of him, sir.”

“Hunter…” Dad dug his fingers into his eye sockets. “No offense, but I wouldn’t trust you with an ant. Unfortunately, I have my plate full right now. Just go.”

The entire way to school, Vaughn stole glances at me with his slanted, icy-blue eyes. I realized things were dire when even he was on his best behavior. Dude didn’t do pity and didn’t cut corners. He had a mean streak a mile long and never missed an opportunity to kick you while you were down.

“Not sure drinking yourself into liver failure is the best course of action right now.” He moved his gum from side to side in his mouth.

“Not sure I asked for your fucking medical opinion,” I snapped, leaning my head against the window and closing my eyes.

Hunter sucked in a charged breath behind us. Someone pounded their fists from the inside of my head to my eyes.

I was pretty sure it was Dixie.

Hunter pulled my head off of a toilet in the school’s bathroom. My face was wet. My hair dripped down my Armani shirt. I knew it was Hunter because I heard his voice growling, but I couldn’t for the life of me open my eyes.

“This is even more pathetic than dying on the toilet seat. Fuckboy literally almost drowned inside a toilet.”

Vaughn’s voice came next.

“I need to give Mr. Astalis my application. You have to deal with this mess.”

“You asshole. What am I supposed to do with him?”

“Just put him in my car.”

“You’re seriously going to have him wait like this?” Hunter shrieked.

“He did that to himself.” I could hear the shrug in Vaughn’s voice. “Call it a hard-earned lesson.”

“Can I just call you a cunt?” I wanted to say, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t move my lips at all.

I heard Vaughn tossing Hunter his car keys, and Hunter catching them and hauling me up. I was dragged, pushed, tucked inside a car, and buckled.

And by the time I knew what was happening, I’d passed out again.

“You smell like shit, and you’re making my car smell like it, too.”

I didn’t answer Vaughn.

“Passing out inside a public toilet bowl. Real classy, Knight. Hit rock bottom yet?”

“Not yet,” I groaned, gaining consciousness. Everything hurt. Most of all? Living through this nightmare.

“I’m telling your parents.”

“They know.” I grinned, closing my eyes. “And they don’t have time for this crap. But go ahead. Make things more difficult for them. Oh, wait, my dad is flailing to keep himself going, and my mom is in a fucking coma. Good luck getting a response from either.”

Vaughn shook his head.

I laughed, even though nothing was funny anymore.

If I’d thought getting into Mom’s room and seeing her hooked up to chirping machines that sounded like freight trains and were programmed to help her breathe would soothe my aching ass, I was gravely mistaken. Dad held my hand on one side, Lev’s on the other. The three of us stood there, staring. Staring. Staring.

The notion that it was the end was so strong you could feel it in the air.

Not just the end for her, but for all of us.

I used to get this idea that the end of the world was happening right in front of me, since I’d learned about Mom’s disease at a young age. Sometimes I’d climb up the forest’s mountain, look at the nothingness surrounding me, and think—this is it. The end of the world. Right here. Or it was when thunder cracked, and fog descended over the roads, misting the car windows. Or when I concentrated on that thin line between the skyline and the ocean, imagining myself sliding into it and letting it suck me into another dimension.

That was how it felt right now: Like there was nothing to come after this.

No graduation.

No football.

No more kisses from Luna under her covers.

This was where I ended, and nothing else began.

This was when I lost the person who’d built my life—the person who’d claimed me when the woman who gave birth to me couldn’t.

Who was going to claim me now?

Where did I belong?

“Can I touch her?” Levy’s voice was hoarse.

He wasn’t so short anymore. He was fourteen now. I imagined it was even more difficult for him, to lose her when he was still so young.

Who’d tell him it was okay to screw up his first kiss when she was gone?

That there was such a thing as too much saliva?

Who’d give him female advice?

Take him suit shopping for prom?

Wipe his tears when Bailey broke his heart—and she was going to, I had no doubt. They were too tight not to hurt each other.

Me. That’s who. That’s what I decided, anyway. I was going to up my big brother game. I had to.

“Gently,” Dad clipped, his tone like a whip lash, making my baby brother wince.

Lev disconnected from Dad. He took restrained steps toward Mom—like if he walked too fast, he’d shatter her. Her eyes were closed, her skin pale. Purple veins ran through her eyelids like spider webs. She looked peaceful, the blanket rolled all the way up to her neck. I thought Lev was going to touch her cheek, her face. Maybe her hair. To my surprise, his fingers curled around the edge of the blanket, pulling it slowly, moving it down to her waist.

“She hates to sleep with the blanket all the way up,” he choked, looking away, at the wall. A sob ripped from his mouth, coming out harsh, like thunder.

Dad stood like a statue, refusing to cope with the shit life had thrown at us, and stared at both of them—mainly at Mom.

I snapped out of it, shook off the headache and nausea, and gripped Lev’s shoulder from behind.

“You’re right, Levy-boy. She really does.”

I wished I could rewrite our last moment, the way I could in my little notebook.

The last, first moment I saw him again, after Boon.

The boy I fell in love with, the guy I fell in lust with, the man who’d be my downfall.

When I finally got to the hospital, my first vision of Knight was him gliding through the corridor with a death glare, rubbing a crying Lev’s back, walking away from his father, who was shouting at both of them to come back.

Knight stopped when we came face to face, his expression unmoved. I didn’t expect a kiss, or a grand declaration of love, considering the circumstances, but when I opened my arms to hug them, he ignored the gesture, opting to jerk Levy closer to his side, like he was protecting him from the entire world, me included.