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Thirty minutes later, I walked out to the ambulance bay to find Mick sitting in the back of the bus with everything cleaned and restocked. I opened my mouth to apologize, but he held up his hand.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “I just want to go home.”

I drove back to the firehouse while he dozed beside me. I felt like shit when I saw how tired he was, and even worse when he offered me a ride home. By the roll of his eyes when I refused, I knew it was going to take a truckload of doughnuts before he’d forgive me.

I walked home with heavy legs that matched my heart. I was exhausted and cold, but even when I opened the front door and trudged through the apartment to bed, I knew no amount of sleep would change anything. I tossed and turned for a few hours before I did what I’d done every day since Ash left—I gave up and took my pillow to the couch.

The TV kept me company for a while, but the respite was all too brief. I curled up in front of the news channel and tried desperately to keep my mind off him, but it was impossible. He was everywhere, especially on the damn couch. In the early days, long before anything developed between us, I’d often come home to find him huddled up in front of the TV. When he couldn’t sleep—which was all the time back then—he used to turn all the lights off and watch some aquatic show until the sun came up. I just thought he liked fish. It took me a shamefully long time to realize he was so fucked up he was too scared to sleep alone in his bed. But he got better. So much better that over time, I became complacent. Even when his nightmares came back, I managed to convince myself that everything was still okay.

Looking back at the months leading up to his relapse, I knew I’d missed the signs. I’d taken the easy way out and made excuses for his low moods and erratic behavior without bothering to look closer. Perhaps I’d been subconsciously scared of what I’d find, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did. Things had become so messed up it was hard see how they could ever be fixed.

I sat up and switched the TV off. Darkness enveloped the room. I welcomed it; it matched my mood as I flopped back on the couch and pulled Maggie’s old afghan around me. The blanket was threadbare and old, but it was the only thing I had from the house I grew up in, and pathetically, I always found myself huddled beneath it when shit went bad.

And shit had definitely gone bad.

My eyes drifted shut and, like the masochist I was, I let my mind take me on a painful trip down memory lane. I’d spent less than two years with Ash, but it felt like every moment with him had been defining. I remembered everything—the first time he kissed me, the first night he slept in my bed. Damn it, I even remembered the first time he looked at me… the first time he
really
held my gaze. We’d been in a diner at 4:00 a.m. I’d showed him the tattoo I got after my dad died, he met my eyes, and I knew without a doubt that no one would ever know me better than him.

I remembered the first time I fucked him. It was terrifying. The surge of panic I’d felt in the seconds before I’d eased into his body had scared the crap out of me. Suddenly,
he
was talking
me
down. In a moment that took every scrap of courage he’d ever had, he’d found the strength to comfort me. It was moments like those that made me forget everything else, made me forget every haunted stare and strange fear. Made me forget everything except how much I loved him.

God, I loved him.

Eventually, I fell asleep, and the next thing I knew, I was being roused by an impatient banging at the front door. I stumbled to the front door and wrenched it open, rubbing my face and ready to yell at whatever fucktard was on the other side.

Typically, Mick ignored my malevolence and walked straight past me. “Why are you still in your clothes?”

I looked down at my sweats and hoodie. “Because it’s cold, asshole.”

Mick looked between me and the couch, turned on his heel, and headed down the hallway. A few seconds later, he was back, looking decidedly friendlier than he had just moments before. “Where’s Ash?”

“Not here.”

“Since when?”

“What do you care?”

Mick grumbled, “Don’t give me that shit. Is that what’s been going on?”

I sighed and walked back to the couch. “Nothing’s going on.”

Mick came and sat on the coffee table in front of me. He was so close his knees touched mine. “Bullshit,” he said. “Is he gone for good?”

I tore my eyes from the floor, startled by his bluntness. “I don’t know.”

There was silence while he stared me down. He waited for me to elaborate, but it didn’t happen. I just couldn’t find the words.

Frustrated, he sighed. “Fine. Have it your way. You know you can stay with us if you don’t want to be here, right?”

“I know,” I said honestly, because it was the one thing I did know. Until Ash came along, Mick had been the best friend I’d ever had. When my dad’s family turned on my mom, I found it hard to trust people, and hiding my personal life at work just made that worse. Over time, Mick had ground me down and forced his way in, but I couldn’t talk to him about Ash. I couldn’t talk to
anyone
about Ash.

Defeated, Mick got to his feet. “Okay, just thought I’d check in. You had me worried last night. Get some sleep, asshole. I’ll see you tonight.”

The front door slammed shut. I lay back down, but sleep didn’t come again. I needed it; we were on graveyard shifts, starting at eleven and working through the night, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Maggie was worried, and I should’ve gone to see her, but I didn’t do that either. Instead, I sulked on the couch all day until it was time to haul my ass into the shower and go back to work.

That evening, Mick took one look at me and shook his head. “This isn’t a long-term plan, dude. You’ll have to deal with it eventually.”

I flipped him off, but later that night, when both of us started to flag, I let my guard slip and began to talk.

Mick listened—the way he would have done if I’d told him in the first place—only interrupting when he didn’t understand something. “Ash is an addict? I had no idea. You never told me.”

I shook my head slightly and stared out at the lake. “No, it was never like that. He used to get by when he was a street kid. He never had any trouble giving it up. Not really, anyway.”

Mick was understandably skeptical. “If that’s the case, why did he go back to it?”

I didn’t have an answer. When Ash was on the streets, the logic behind his drug use made sense. Life was hard; drugs made it easier. When things were as bad as they’d been for him back then, who could argue with that? But I didn’t have the first idea what had made him unhappy enough to relapse, and there was little chance of Mick figuring it out for me.

“I knew there was something about him,” Mick said after a while. “Kate always said it was like he was waiting for someone to tell him you weren’t real.”

“That went away,” I said absently. Ash had only met Mick’s wife once, but like all women over a certain age, she’d loved him instantly.

Mick leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, ready to take a much needed nap. “I guess. I suppose now you have to figure out what happened to make it come back.”

When I failed to respond, he cracked an eye open and shoved me slightly. “Don’t even pretend you don’t want to. That dude’s everything to you, whether you admit it or not. There’s more to this than the drugs; there has to be.”

I rolled my eyes. “When did you get so wise?”

Mick yawned. “When I got old, but don’t change the subject. I know he’s let you down, but you’ve got to see past that if you want to help him.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but I was cut off by the radio calling. Groaning, Mick reached for it while I turned the ignition. The ambulance rumbled to life, and moments later, we were on our way to the first in a series of calls that kept us busy all through the night until dawn broke.

L
IFE
went on and another week went by. Mick didn’t say any more about Ash, but I pondered his words a lot. I considered again going over to Ellie’s place to try and convince him to come home. I didn’t, though, because in addition to the fact that I still wasn’t sure I wanted him to, I honestly didn’t know what to say to him. There was so much I didn’t understand, and it was hard not to resent him for it.

None of that stopped me from worrying, though. He was on my mind every moment I wasn’t distracted by work. I picked up and put down my phone so many times, I lost count. My brain went round in circles, but in the end, it came down to one thing: he’d gotten so fucked up he’d gone back to using drugs, and the one person he should’ve been able to trust had turned their back on him.

The realization hit me like a kick to the chest. I was driving the bus down a busy side street in the city at the time, so distracted by the epiphany that Mick had to shout to get my attention.

I pulled over. Mick sighed and let go of the steering wheel. In my haze, I hadn’t realized he’d grabbed it. “This can’t go on,” he said. “You need to take some time off.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You miss Ash and you’re worried out of your mind for him. Pete, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Take some time and deal with it properly. Working like this is killing you, not to mention the risk you pose to anyone else.”

I opened my mouth, although to say what, I’d probably never know, as for the second time that week, I was saved by a patient in need of help.

We weren’t supposed to accept street calls, but in practice they were impossible to avoid. I spotted the woman running toward us and, ignoring Mick’s protests, got out to intercept her. “Whoa, there, ma’am. Can I help you?”

The woman paused to catch her breath. “My colleague’s collapsed inside. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

I read the name tag on the woman’s jacket and noted that she worked for the bank I’d thrown the bus in front of. “Ms. Jennings? Can you tell me a bit more?”

Behind me, Mick radioed the call in and tossed me the bag I needed. I caught it and followed the woman into the building. She led me though the corporate bustle, up the elevator to the third floor, where her colleague was lying on the floor by her desk. A crowd of coworkers had gathered around her, but I shooed them away as politely as I could. Earnest as they were, they were bound to get in my way.

It didn’t take long to work out the cause of the woman’s collapse. We spent more time reviving diabetics than almost anything else, and I could spot the signs of an insulin imbalance a mile away. The woman was severely hypoglycemic. Even if we pumped her full of sugar to wake her up, she’d still need hospital treatment. I called Mick on the radio, and a few minutes later, he was there with all the stuff we’d need to transport her. I turned to the woman who’d flagged us down. “What’s her name?”

“Angela,” the woman said. “Angela Wilson.”

The name rang a bell, but it was distant, and I didn’t have time to figure it out. I was shitty with names, and we came across so many people, it was possible we’d picked her up before. We scooped her up and got her down to the bus. Surprisingly, none of her coworkers wanted to accompany her, but that suited me just fine. Having another body in the back was a pain in the ass.

Mick’s pointed glare told me I was done driving for the day, so I got in the back and set about trying to stabilize the woman’s blood sugar while he hit the gas. A few minutes into the journey, the woman began to come round. I took her hand as she reached for me. “Ms. Wilson, can you hear me? My name’s Pete. I’m a paramedic, and we’re taking you to the hospital. Do you remember what happened?”

The woman blinked a few times. “Did my sugars go bad?”

I leaned over the gurney to check the monitors. “Yep, but don’t worry, we’ll get you fixed up. When did you last eat?”

“I don’t know,” the woman said uncertainly. “This morning, maybe?”

“Maybe, huh? That’s no good, ma’am. You need to eat regularly.”

The woman frowned and tightened her grip on my arm. “I know you,” she said. “I’m sure I do.”

I looked down at her. “Do you?”

“Mmm, you’re Ash’s boyfriend.”

I stared at her, instantly on my guard. How the hell did she know that? There were very few people who knew the nature of my relationship with Ash. Luckily, considering my current location, Mick was one of them. “Do I know you?”

The woman nodded. “We’ve met a few times. I used to live with Ellie. I live next door now.”

The familiar name suddenly made sense. I looked closer and saw that the woman on the gurney was indeed Angela, the plump and slightly crazy woman Ellie had lived with until her parents bought her the apartment next door. “I remember you,” I said, though being fat and slightly nuts were the only remarkable characteristics I could recall. “How’s Ellie doing? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

Angela attempted a weak shrug. “I don’t know. Her grandmother died and the whole family went back to England.”

I froze in the action of injecting vital medication into her IV. “Ellie’s in England?”

Angela mumbled something. I shook her gently to rouse her. “Say that again, sugar.”

She took a deep breath and focused on me. “I think so. Her place has been empty for weeks.”

I absorbed her words, and the implications, as the ambulance slowed to a stop. “Are you sure? There’s definitely no one there?”

Angela nodded as she drifted back into unconsciousness, and there was no time to shake her again. I stood from the seat next to her just as Mick pulled the doors open. He gave me a strange look as we unloaded the gurney, but as we pushed through the hospital doors we had no opportunity to speak.

It wasn’t until Angela was long gone and we were back in the bus that he got the chance to fix his shrewd gaze on me. “What’s the matter? Do you know that chick or something?”

I glanced up from the long-ass form I was filling out. “She lives next door to Ellie.”

Mick raised an eyebrow. “And?”

I sighed and scrawled my initials at the bottom of the page. “She said Ellie’s in England, and she has been for weeks.”

Mick’s face remained blank. “What difference does that make to you?”