Page 158 of John + Siena: The Complete Duet

Time was passing.

Time was moving.

John felt suspended.

Unmoved.

Frozen.

It was only when Andino sat at the other side of the table did John finally look at his cousin. How many days had it been since he last saw Andino? A few, maybe. Or could have been only one.

John had no clue.

Andino said nothing, simply stared at John for a long while. He didn’t press John to talk.

For that, he was grateful. At the moment, he didn’t know exactly what he would say anyway.

He remembered that over the last several months, Andino had been the one who stepped in time and time again to try and help John. He did so at the risk of himself, and without asking for anything in return.

Even after everything that happened between Andino and John years ago, his cousin was still one of the only people John could count on. No matter what.

And how had he repaid his cousin for that kind of loyalty?

John pushed Andino away. He dropped the ball, and left Andino holding it. His cousin had cleaned up his messes over and over.

The guilt growing inside John’s chest only compounded at those thoughts. It darkened his mind, and grew like tendrils inside of him to clench around his heart and squeeze tight. Those brief moments of lucidity and clear thoughts were quickly interrupted by something else entirely.

It was easy then for words like worthless and useless to whisper through his mind. Those black, dark thoughts should have been a clue to John as to what he was now edging towards, but like everything else in his life, it was difficult to recognize.

Spread out on the table were all the medications that had been prescribed to John over the last several months. He hadn’t realized just how many medications it actually was until his father dumped them out on the table.

It damn near filled the whole thing.

Three different mood stabilizers. Antidepressants. Antianxiety meds. A different dosage of Lithium for every month that he had been seeing Amelia.

Andino was right.

It did look like a pharmacy.

“What is all this?” Andino asked.

He gestured at the bottles of pills.

John shrugged. “My meds.”

Andino’s eyes widened at the admittance, but otherwise he gave nothing away as to how he felt. “You take all of them?”

“No, maybe one or if it’s going badly—a lot of shit happening, you know what I mean?—then I might add another just to settle it out.”

“Then why is there so many?”

“Somebody thought I was a guinea pig.”

Andino nodded. “Well, as long as it’s settled now.”

“Something like that.”

John could see that Andino wanted to ask more. He probably wasn’t satisfied with the lack of responses, or John’s unwillingness to talk.