At that thought, my best friends come bursting through the door.
I called Cale the moment I got off the phone with Aunt Steph. I knew he would want to be here. Sonny was going to be my next call, but after Cale got over the initial shock, he said he would call Sonny. To be honest, I was glad I didn’t have to make the call. The only other call I wanted to make was to Tom. I wanted to speak to him so badly that it hurt me not to.
“How is he?” Cale crouches down before me.
Sonny takes the seat on my right.
I shake my head. “I don’t know. The doctor came out when we got here. They’re treating him right now. He said he’d come back when he had more to tell us.”
Cale takes my hand in his and squeezes it.
I can’t stop the tears from starting again, them spilling down over my cheeks.
“Don’t, Ly…don’t you blame yourself for this,” Cale says.
I bite my lip, trying to stop the tears. “Cale…that night in the club, he was begging me to talk to him, and I wouldn’t listen.”
He cradles my face in his hands. “Listen to me. You had every good reason not to listen. You haven’t done anything wrong. Nothing. Do you hear me?”
“Cale’s right,” Sonny says in a gentle voice.
I meet Sonny’s eyes.
“Don’t put this on yourself,” he adds.
Nodding, I rub the tears from my cheeks.
“Let me get us some drinks since it looks like we’re gonna be here a while,” Shannon says, getting to her feet.
Two Hours Later—Waiting Area, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, LA
It’s been an incredibly long two hours.
The doctor finally appears. He’s a different doctor than the one who came to talk to me when I first arrived. This one is younger. He looks tired, harried.
Rubbing a hand through his curly brown hair, he says, “Dexter Henley’s family?”
Already on my feet, I say, “I’m Dex’s sister. How is he?”
“Miss Henley—”
I don’t bother to correct him. It would only confuse an already confusing situation even more.
“I’m Dr. Lowe. I’ve been treating Dexter. He’s going to be fine.”
I exhale in relief. Feeling Cale’s hand on my back, I smile at him.
“Dexter had taken a significant amount of pills. We were lucky that he’d been found when he had, as his body hadn’t had time to absorb the drug. I administered an activated charcoal, which binds the drug so that the body can’t absorb it, and he’s responding well to the treatment, which means he’ll make a full recovery and there will be no damage to any of his organs.”
“Can we see him?” I ask.
The doctor looks over the four of us. “Only family is allowed to see Dexter at this time.”
“We’ll wait here.” Cale squeezes my shoulder.
“Just tell him we’re here,” Sonny says.
I give Cale and Sonny a soft smile. “I’ll tell him.”
I fall into step beside Dr. Lowe. “Doctor, when my Au—” I falter and correct myself to avoid confusing the doctor. “When our mother called, she said that Dex had…tried to commit suicide. Is that true?”
He stops walking and turns to me. “The pills Dexter overdosed on were a prescribed anti-depressant. He took a lot of those pills and combined them with alcohol. He might not have meant to attempt suicide…but in my professional experience, when a patient combines the amount of pills Dexter had with alcohol then one would assume an attempt on life, yes.”
I close my eyes on the pain crushing my insides.
Exactly how my mother died.
A tear runs down my cheek, and I brush it away.
“Dexter is going to need a lot of help and support. Because of the nature of what’s happened, I had to contact the psychiatric department. A counselor will be here in a few hours to evaluate Dexter and see if he is a danger to himself. Even though Dexter seems to be doing okay at the moment, it’s standard protocol.”
“I understand.” I give a brisk nod.
We start walking again until Dr. Lowe stops outside a door.
“This will have to be a quick visit,” Dr. Lowe tells me.
“Okay.”
Heart pumping, I press down on the handle. I step inside the low-lit room. Immediately, I see Dex laying on the bed, his face turned away from me. A machine attached to him is beeping. A drip is running in his arm.
Unsure if he’s sleeping, I take a quiet step closer.
“Dex,” I speak softly.
Slowly, his head turns, eyes meeting mine.
His eyes are dark, sunken. His skin sallow. He looks a shadow of his former self.
Seeing him like this—my big brother—my eyes fill with tears. I bite my lip to stop it from trembling.
“You’re here,” he says, his voice rough.
“I’m here.” I take a small step closer. Part of me wants to be close to him, and the other part of me holds back.
He looks away from me. “I’m sorry you had to come here,” he rasps out, his tone emotionless.
“Stop it.” My voice is sharp, but I can’t help it. So many emotions are roiling inside of me, and it’s hard to control them.
Dex’s eyes slowly come back to mine.
I walk up to the end of the bed, curling my fingers around the metal frame. “Why?” It feels like the hardest question in the world to ask, but the most important.
I need to understand why he did this.
He lets out a sigh, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
His stops rubbing at his face, and he brings his eyes to mine.
I see it all in there—the pain, the loss.
“I just wanted it all to stop,” he says in a whisper.
“You wanted what to stop?”
He exhales softly. “The regret. The guilt. The loneliness. The silence eating me alive. I made the biggest mistake of my life. I hurt and lost the most important person to me, all for someone who didn’t matter when it came down to it.”
“What happened…with you and Chad?” I’ve never asked him this question. Truth be told, I never wanted to know because him being with Chad, or not, wouldn’t have changed anything for me.
“It didn’t continue past that night.”
I take a deep breath, processing that information. “Why?”
“How could it?” He shakes his head, regret swimming in his eyes. “The fact is, I love you more than I would ever love him.”