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Zoe saw my face and dropped to her knees. “Oh, Cam, what happened?”

I lost it.

I’d barely been clinging onto my self-control but seeing her, hearing her ask, and it became real. Her arms came around me, and I sobbed against her chest. Someone was talking, Zoe replied, then she was lifting me to my feet, and we walked somewhere with a door to close off the outside world. But I didn’t want to be there. I had to go home.

She didn’t ask what had happened anymore. Just handed me some tissues and sat with me.

“I have to go back to my apartment,” I mumbled.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea on your own.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

“I’m fine, Zoe. I just need a minute alone.” I tried to smile around it, but the hurt was too big and the smile fell right off my face.

“Alright. I can’t stop you. Can I walk you back?”

“Sure.”

She walked beside me, back out into the cold. I didn’t talk. I didn’t have it in me. Just kept my head down and my hands stuffed in my coat pockets and walked.

Saga and me? We’d been friends forever. I knew he’d had his struggles, like I’d had. But we got through it. Usually with beers and getting high, but not so much of the getting high lately. Not for me anyway. I’d pulled back since the Meridian. I’d needed time to heal, and time off the drugs too, since I’d been addicted to painkillers. And maybe I’d shut him out, because he was the dance studio, the party, the fun, but he wasn’t the serious side of skating. He wasn’t what I’d needed to win. So I’d left him alone. I’d shut him out because I was selfish. Every call had been about me, my life, my struggles. Me and Ren and my bullshit. He’d never said a single thing about what was going on with him.

Now, I’d lost my best friend.

Zoe left me at my door, typing out a message on her phone to someone.

I stood inside, lights off, staring at the boring pictures on the apartment wall.

I had to go back. I hadn’t been there for him when he’d needed me. I had to go back now. It was the least I could do.

I grabbed my bags and dumped them on the bed.

Then pulled out my phone and started checking flights.

I had to go now, tonight.

I had to.

TWENTY-SIX

REN

My phone buzzed in my pocket as I walked toward the riverside café where the sounds of party music and chatter spilled out from.

Camden’s upset. Can you go see him? Zoe.

I stopped on the cleared path, my breath fogging in front of me. Some partygoers chatted and laughed as they brushed by.

A second text came through.

He’s at his place. He won’t let me stay.

Then another, fast.

I hope this is okay. I saw your number in Cam’s contacts. Didn’t know who else to contact.