No Tomorrow

“You just left a little boy in a situation like that?”

“I did, and I’ve always regretted it, but I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid of them.”

“You should have gotten him help. The state would have taken him and put him in foster care, wouldn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Reece agrees. “They would have.”

“I didn’t want him to be taken away. I know that’s selfish and I know now it was wrong, but I didn’t want him taken away. I loved him. I thought he would be okay. I thought he’d be like me and just get through it and leave when he could.”

I want to strangle this woman. I don’t care if she was just a teenager, she knew right from wrong and she should have helped her little brother—not left him with parents who couldn’t take care of him.

“Well obviously he wasn’t okay!” I say. “You were older, you should have done something.”

She nods, not breaking eye contact with me

“We can’t go back in time and change it, Piper,” Reece says softly. “Ellie’s not a bad person. She was just a kid herself.”

“I know that but—”

She cuts in. “Believe me, I’ve felt horrible about it my whole life. I tried to help him as he got older. By then, I knew he was messed up. Every time I tried to talk to him he either told me to fuck off or he acted like he didn’t know who I was. Then he moved out of the house and into the shed, and then he lived with friends and again, I thought he would be okay. Later our father took off, never to be heard from again, and our mother passed away and she left him that house and he just let it go. I lived nearby, I’d see him in town walking around with the dog all the time, and playing that guitar for money, and I’d try so hard to help him, to get him to come home with me, but I couldn’t get through to him. He would tell me he had a headache and that he had to walk from the voices and listen to the rain and the birds, and some days he seemed perfectly normal and we’d have a nice chat and play with the dog. I never knew if he was high, or sick like our mother, and I couldn’t convince him to go to a doctor. I tried many, many times. I don’t know why he chose to live on the streets like he did. He had a home, he had money, he had me. He just wanted to be alone.”

“Wait,” I interrupt. “Are you saying that house with the porch in Amherst—with the shed in the backyard—is his?”

She nods. “Yes. It’s been his for years. It’s just sitting there, falling apart. He had quite a bit of money left for him that our mother had from her own parents that she left for both of us, and as far as I know, he never touched it. I thought for sure once he got his life together, and made this amazing career for himself, that he’d either restore the house or sell it, but it’s still sitting there.”

The whole time he lived in that old dirty shed, Blue was home.

“I feel sick,” I say, putting my hands up in surrender. “I really don’t know if I can handle all this.”

Reece stands and comes over to kneel next to my chair. He puts his arms around me and holds me as I cry, and I just want to disappear. My head is swimming with confusion and fear. Is Blue really crazy? Has he been crazy the entire time I’ve known him? I just can’t believe that.

I pull away and wipe my face with a napkin Ellie hands me. “What about Lyric?” I ask, trembling. “Is this hereditary? Could she be sick?”

“No,” Reece says quickly. “No. Lyric is fine.”

He has to be right. Lyric has never acted strange. She’s intelligent, and creative, and caring, social, and completely normal.

The door to the waiting room swings open and Blue’s doctor enters.

Finally.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

I’m fuming.

Fuming.

The doctor only allowed Ellie to go in to see Blue, because she’s family. Not me—the woman who’s loved him forever and has stood by him no matter what and who’s been crying and going crazy with worry and who is the mother of his child.

“I can’t believe this,” I say to Reece as I pace the small room. “We should be in there with him. Not her. Does he even like her?”

“Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t like her.”

I stop pacing to stare at him as if he’s lost his mind. “What does that mean?”

“He’s probably not ready to see us, because he cares about us and he knows we care about him. I’d guess we’d be pretty hard for him to face. Especially you.”