if a year from now, Noah was in another accident? What if a year from now, Noah hadn’t donated blood even once? Because he was banned. Because of Alex.
How fucking stupid of him to think things would be so easy and he and Noah could just live and love and be happy. When had things ever been that easy for the two of them?
Alex got up and stalked to the window. He pressed his forehead against the glass and tried to gather himself. It was hard to concentrate on anything through the storm that was brewing in his mind. Thoughts were spinning, hurled around by the tornado of a revelation, and Alex was unable to catch them and rearrange them to some semblance of order.
“It’s a lot to take in,” Helen said diplomatically from somewhere behind him.
Alex snorted, a hysterical bout of laughter making its way out of his throat. “You think?”
“But you see now why I had to intervene back then when Noah wanted to throw it all away and just be with you? He was eighteen, for God’s sakes, and he was so determined that he’d risk everything for you. Risk his life for you. I had to make him rethink that decision. There was too much at stake. Accidents happen every day. Blood transfusions are needed every few seconds. It’s traumatic enough of an experience for people who have the most common types of blood, but for Noah? It could end up costing him his life. I just… I couldn’t let him take a risk like that. I can’t lose him. I can’t lose my son.”
Alex tapped his forehead against the glass. Helen kept talking, trying to explain, but all Alex wanted was for her to just shut up and go away so that he could crawl back into bed with Noah and pretend everything was okay.
Alex didn’t know how long he stood there, but when he finally straightened himself and turned away from the window, Helen was gone. She’d cleaned the kitchen and washed their coffee cups, erasing all signs that she’d ever been there.
On autopilot, Alex went to the bedroom. He stood in the doorway and watched his sleeping boyfriend, heart and mind in chaos. Whatever way he spun the situation, there just didn’t seem to be a solution.
Eventually, Alex dragged himself back to bed, but he didn’t fall asleep for a long time.
23
The days that directly followed Noah’s accident were hell. Noah had never broken any bones before, but based on his experience so far, he did not recommend it. It’d been a week, and only now he could start to move his upper body without feeling the need to yell from the stabbing, fiery pain that spread through his torso and arms every time he even so much as yawned.
And he yawned a lot because in addition to the broken collarbone, he had to deal with the concussion and all its side effects. He took numerous naps over the course of the day, but he still felt tired all the time.
Even the simplest of tasks seemed to demand too much brainpower. Reading, TV, and working were out of the question. Looking at a screen made his head ache, and he couldn’t really concentrate on what was going on in the movies or TV shows he’d tried to have on as background noise.
Holding a conversation was okay if it was just Alex. He couldn’t focus on anything more complicated. Following several conversations at once seemed impossible. Hell, even adding a radio or the noise of a garbage truck into the equation proved to be too much to handle for Noah’s rattled brain. According to his doctor, it was all normal and would start to get better soon.
Trying to be positive about the whole ordeal was proving to be a real challenge, especially since his emotions were all out of whack. Noah was usually a calm person, rational to a fault, but now he found it exceedingly difficult not to get pissed off at the most minuscule of things. It was a real feat not to chuck his phone out the window when he found that he couldn’t remember the passcode.
It was hard not to feel bitter about the way things were going in his life. He couldn’t work, and listening to Hannah’s reports about clinic-related issues only made Noah feel like shit because Hannah was taking on a lot of work trying to run things without Noah, but most of the time, Noah felt