to ask for help when you need it,” Doctor Henning had said earlier.
Considering what had happened tonight, maybe he was right.
Didn’t meant he had to like it.
“He said he needed to go home,” Theo said.
Home. Grumbling under his breath, Ethan swiped a hand over his face, trying to clear away the exhaustion. “He didn’t go back to the dorms. He went home home.”
Theo stared at him. “To Lighthouse Bay?”
“I hope he found somewhere to gas up,” Harkrader mumbled. “Pretty sure I was running on empty.”
A call to Casey’s phone went unanswered, so he called his mom instead to give her a heads up.
“He’s on his way now?” Mrs. Preston said. “It’s nearly midnight.”
“Yeah. He left, what?” He caught Harkrader’s eye. “An hour ago?”
Harkrader nodded.
“So he’s still two hours out,” he told Casey’s mom. “At least.”
“What on Earth? Did something happen?”
He winced. “I got injured in tonight’s game. It scared him.”
Of course Casey was going home to hide after Ethan had scared the shit out of him by getting hurt. He should’ve realized that right away when he couldn’t find Casey once Coach had finally let him out of the exam room.
No wonder April was pissed. At Casey, it turned out, for leaving him behind.
Ethan wanted to be pissed too, but he couldn’t. Because he understood where Casey was coming from. He was hurt, though, that Casey hadn’t stayed to talk to him about his fears, and he dug the base of his palm between his eyes.
“Oh, sweetie, are you okay?” Mrs. Preston asked, and it was nice and familiar, and god, it made him ache for his own mom. She would’ve known what to do. About his RA, about his injury, about the classes he was struggling in, about Casey. About life.
Sure, he could call his dad, and would—tomorrow—but he wasn’t expecting much.
“Yeah,” he managed through the tightness in his throat. “I’m going to be fine. Can you text me when he gets there? Just so I know he made it okay?”
“Of course. I can’t believe he’s running home with his tail between his legs,” she muttered, sounding wholly unimpressed.
He did not envy Casey right now.
Once he’d hung up, he said, “I need one of you to drive me to Lighthouse Bay.”
They both blinked at him.
“Casey has my car, dude,” Harkrader said.
“We can take mine.” Ethan just couldn’t drive it, not in his current condition.
“No.”
Goddamn it. Here he was, asking for help, and he wasn’t going to get it? He turned to Theo.
“Don’t look at me,” Theo said. “I don’t even drive.”
Momentarily sidetracked, Ethan gaped at him. “Wait, for real?”
“Uh-huh.” Theo pushed a plate toward him. He’d given Ethan veggies and hummus, last night’s leftover baked salmon, and a small handful of couscous. “Eat up.” He’d also made a plate for himself and Harkrader, and they sat on the stools on either side of him.
Before he dug in, he texted April. I need you to drive me home. Come pick me up.
Yeah, not happening. Go to sleep and we’ll talk tomorrow.
Ugh. Sisters were the worst.
He didn’t want to eat. He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to track Casey down to show him he was okay. Because what if he waited too long and Casey convinced himself that he was better off alone?
Everything felt wrong and incomplete, and he rubbed the Casey-sized hole over his chest as he picked at his veggies.
He’d done this to himself, hadn’t he? By refusing to take it easy. By refusing to acknowledge how much pain he was in. By refusing to, as Coach put it, take care of himself.
By refusing to let anyone in. Let anyone help.
He’d gotten hurt because he hadn’t listened to his body—or to his coach and doctors—and now Casey was gone.
He didn’t believe that bullshit about there being one person for everyone—otherwise no one would ever get remarried after a divorce or when their partner died. If Casey chose a safer path and left him, Ethan would probably find somebody else one day.
That wasn’t the point.
The point was that he didn’t want to want anybody else. For better or worse, it was Casey, Casey, always Casey.
From his right, Theo grumbled, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us.”
Stupidly, Ethan said, “About what?”
“The arthritis, dumbass,” came Harkrader on his left.
Ethan froze with his water bottle halfway to his mouth. “Casey told you?”
“No. April did. Casey wasn’t happy about it either.”
Ah god, Casey.
“Question is, why didn’t you tell us?”
“It’s my cross to bear,” Ethan said absentmindedly, pulling out his phone.
“You’re a moron” was