34. Weston

Hunter is in the hospital.

Okay. I can deal with that.

Hunter is in the hospital because he almost died of an overdose.

Alright. Less easy to deal with.

But I have to deal. As much as I want to give in to the full tilt of emotions going through me, I know I have to keep some of my shit together.

They said it was fentanyl. Because of course it was. People can”t stick to shit like morphine these days. They gotta go for those heavy hitters.

Well, this one almost hit a little too heavy. Hunter”s lucky to be alive.

I could have lost him—to a problem I only just realized was a problem. Some friend I am.

Then there”s the twin elephant in the room. Now, I know beyond any doubt that he’s the one who stole from me.

He”s lying in the hospital bed when I arrive. It”s a fancy room, in a wing where they”re maybe one other patient all the way in Timbuktu down the hall. He looks like a cyborg porcupine, with a hundred tubes and wires running from all kinds of machines and shit and plunging into his skin.

This man doesn”t look like my best friend.

What came first: the addiction or the inclination to use me?

Dude, he almost died. Why do you care?

Answer: because now that I know, I’ve got one of two options. Let this shit go and move on, business as usual. Or, turn him in, get my shit back, and carry a chip on my shoulder for the rest of my days about how two of the only people I”ve trusted in my life have given me a wound so deep there”s no sutures strong enough to close it up.

Say I did turn him in. What the fuck do I do with the years that came before this? We have memories. Our first time shoving our awkward pre-teen feet into a pair of skates that didn”t even fit. Dreaming together about the day we”d be hotshots, out on the ice bulldozing down anyone who got in our way. Picking up chicks, making them fall in love with the idea of us.

Maybe he”d get clean in prison, one voice reasons.

Or maybe he”d get more fucked up,another points out.

I can”t tell which is the devil and which is the angel.

”Fuck, you”re a pain in the ass, Hunt.”

The machines beep, but Hunter doesn”t reply. Something about his silence makes me want to kick something.

Instead, I stand my big ass up—still clad in hockey garb—and slip outside the room. I call the only person who can give me some sense of normal today.

Molly.

More than my mother, I know I can get solid Hunter advice out of her. She cares about him. Sometimes, I think it”s more than even Hunter himself realizes.

She picks up on the third ring. ”Hey, Peston. What”s up?”

There”s a little more pep to her voice than the last time we spoke. Great. I get to be the one to ruin it.

”Listen… Hunter”s in the hospital.”

That”s it. Just rip that fucking Band-Aid off.

”What?” Her immediate high alert drops guilt into my gut.

”Yeah,” I answer lamely. ”He—It was an overdose. Fentanyl.”

Molly doesn”t say a word. I wish I could see her face. I wish she could see mine. Finally, she breathes out, ”Fuck.”

”Yeah.”

”I—fuck. Yeah. Fuck.”

Her whisper is hoarse and broken. I almost wish I had gone to Mom instead. But more than anything, Hunter never has wanted to burden that woman.

So I won”t make that choice for him.

”How is he?” she continues. ”Is he?—”

”He”ll be okay,” I assure her, earning a relieved sigh. ”I”m with him here.”

”What”s he doing?”

”Enjoying being knocked the fuck out for the time being. And then, when he wakes up, I’m gonna knock his ass out again so he can keep on enjoying it.”

She chuckles, just barely. Before she can ask more questions—how long this shit has been going on, who”s supplying him, why he”s doing it—I push forward.

”Moll… I need some advice.”

”Oh? What about?”

”About Hunter.”

I brace myself. It”s one thing to go through the whole song and dance on your own. It’s a completely different one to drag another into the undercooked soup of your fucked-up mind.

”It”s not just the overdose. Hunt is… Hunter”s the one that stole from me, Mols.”

Molly emits a stunned gasp. I can almost imagine her eyes going wide, her jaw dropping. ”No. Hunter wouldn”t?—”

”He”s got all my shit on his own online auction profile. I saw everything. It was him—not Renee.”

”Does she know that you know that?”

I say nothing.

”Weston.”

”… No.”

”Weston!”

I grip the phone as hard as I clench my teeth. ”I just found out. Molly, it”s barely been a day! I haven”t even talked to Hunter about it. He has no idea I know.”

”And he didn”t say anything when you were accusing Renee? When you got her kicked out and fired?—”

”I get it, Mols.”

”Do you? Weston, he let you punish Renee over something that he did.”

I want to defend him. Fuck me—despite everything, I’d still take up arms for that selfish son of a bitch lying in that room at my back. ”He… I mean, yeah, he stuck up for her. Told me there was no way she”d done it.”

”That”s not the same as confessing your crime so an innocent person doesn”t get in trouble! She could have gone to jail!”

But she didn”t. She got something worse. Now, she”s in the arms of some bitch boy nepo baby who thinks his shit don”t stink.

”I didn”t call to talk about Renee,” I deflect. ”I called to talk about Hunter.”

”It”s one and the same at this point,” she retorts.

”What do you think I should do?”

There’s a pause for a while. I can hear her breathing, though, so I know she’s still there. That’s the thing about siblings—the silence is okay because more often than not, you know what the other one’s gonna say before they even start saying it. I know what’s coming.

That won’t make it hurt any less.

Eventually, she sighs. ”You know Hunter”s a good soul. He”s always been there for us, even when maybe we didn”t quite deserve it. Mom loves him. You love him. I—I care about him. But he”s always cared so, so much about what other people think of him. Too much about how the outside world feels about him. It”s always been his Achilles’ heel, you know. It was never his injury; it was always himself. That”s why I—” She stops. ”Well, it doesn”t matter. I can”t tell you what to choose, Weston. I can only tell you that on one hand, you nearly ruined a girl”s life over this—a girl you say you love. And one day, whether you like it or not, whether Hunter likes it or not, he”s going to have to face these demons of his. There’s only so much you can do for him when that time comes.”