“Like what?”

“So much of it made no sense. For example, he rattled on about wanting to put birdseed in the birdhouses in the yard, and then he started to talk about random memories of his brother. Apparently Jayce’s birthday is coming up. I honestly had no idea he’d committed suicide. I guess I never pushed Derek to talk about it much because he was close with both Hunter and Jayce. I knew Jayce had died young, and when I asked how he died, Derek had said he had a genetic disorder and was sick for a long time. Last night, after Hunter passed out on our couch, I questioned Derek about why he’d lied.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he hadn’t really lied. That Jayce was sick, and that he chose to remember that as why he died, even if it wasn’t technically the way his life ended.”

Jesus. “So he was sick and took his own life?”

“Yes. And Hunter never fully moved on from it. They were close.”

Anna was quiet for a while, both of us taking in the enormity of her words. “He’d hung himself, Nat. In his bathroom.”

My chest began to shudder with tears. Losing a loved one to illness was tough enough, but adding the tragedy of suicide…the people left behind often felt so much guilt.

“You okay?” Anna asked. I knew from the shake in her voice that she was crying, too.

“No.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s awful to think about. I couldn’t even be pissed off at Derek for keeping it from me. Because once he told me the truth, I felt sick and wished he hadn’t. Now I can’t stop imagining it.”

Anna and I talked for two more hours after that. I made her tell me every detail she could remember from the entire night—three times. I had a rip-roaring headache by the time we hung up, but the ache in my skull dimmed in comparison to the ache inside my chest.

I wanted to fly out to California and hold Hunter while he grieved for his brother. It didn’t even matter that we weren’t a we anymore—I just wanted to be there for him.

That night I tossed and turned in my bed for hours. My mind raced over so many thoughts. Was Hunter’s loss related to why he didn’t want to have a relationship with me? Could he have attachment fears after such a trauma? He’d lost his mother and his brother at such a young age. Maybe the losses had left traumatic battle scars that made him afraid to go to war for his heart anymore?

Even though Anna had cast a bright light on the psyche of Hunter Delucia, I felt more in the dark about the man than ever. It was almost midnight when I grabbed my cell off the bedside table. My fingers hovered over Hunter’s name. Only nine on the west coast—not too late to call him. If I did, he’d definitely put two and two together and know that Anna had called to tell me about last night. If I didn’t, I’d never be able to sleep.

Deciding to text, rather than call, I figured I’d crack the communication door open and he could either chose to talk to me or shut it in my face once again. After another ten minutes of deliberating the right words to send, I went with simple.

Natalia: Thinking of you. Up to talk?

My pulse raced as I hit send and waited for a response. Immediately the text showed as delivered. After another ten seconds, it changed from delivered to read. I held my breath when the dots started to jump around. Anticipation throbbed in my veins as I waited for a response. After a few seconds, the dots stopped moving, and I let out an audible breath. I stayed frozen, staring at my screen and assuming the dots had stopped moving because he’d finished typing and the words were racing through the air on their way to my phone. I waited for them to arrive.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

A half an hour.

An entire hour of waiting.

But the words never came.

It would’ve been easier to accept that he didn’t respond if my text had gone unopened, or if I’d never seen those dots jumping around as he considered writing back. Then I could’ve always wondered if he’d received my text—clung to a morsel of hope that was the case. But there was no wondering. Hunter had read my text and decided not to bother responding.

Chapter 33

Hunter

7 years ago

“Come on, Jayce. Pick up the damn phone.” My leg bounced up and down as I counted the rings. After the fourth, it went to voicemail. I disconnected and immediately hit redial.

No answer again.

Something was off. I grabbed my laptop and the files I needed to work on and stopped at my boss’s office on the way out.

“I need to do research down at the building department,” I lied. “Be back in a few hours.”

In my car, I turned on some music in an attempt to relax for the thirty-minute drive to Jayce’s. But it did the exact opposite. Every song that came on, every mile I drove toward my brother’s house, intensified the shitty feeling I had.

Jayce had been depressed lately. I couldn’t blame him. He struggled to do simple things now—speaking and sitting up were hard work. Somehow he managed to get himself into and out of bed each day, and he even walked around some still, but by the end of the day, he was exhausted and dependent on the wheelchair he despised. The involuntary jerking in his arms and shoulders had intensified so much that it woke him up at night, so he rarely slept more than an hour or two straight. Other than doctors’ appointments, he hadn’t left the house in months. Most of his days consisted of watching TV and waiting for the different visiting nurses to come by so he could shave or move to the yard for some scenery.

We tried to get him to move back in with Uncle Joe and Aunt Elizabeth or come live with me. But he refused, preferring to stay in his depressing rental house by himself, rather than be surrounded by family who wanted to help. I visited him a few nights a week after work, and so did our uncle, but not even that cheered him up anymore. I used to think the worst thing in the world was death. But these days, I’m pretty sure sitting around waiting to die is much worse.

Still twenty minutes out, I hit redial on my cell as I drove. No fucking answer again. I’d been in a meeting when he called and left a message this morning, so my ringer was off. A sick feeling twisted in my gut as I hit play to listen to the message he’d left again.

“Bro (Quiet for ten seconds) I was never mad about Summer. (A few deep breaths as he struggled to speak.) I just wanted to make sure you knew that. (Another long pause) Love you, man.”

Huntington’s had affected his mind—the way he thought, the things he thought of. Manic ups and downs had developed in his personality. I’d read enough to know everything he was going through was the norm, but something in his voicemail told me his message was more than just a random thought during a downswing. I hadn’t spoken to Summer in years. Even though I’d come clean to Jayce about my relationship with her, I’d ended things not long after he got out of the hospital. Why was he thinking about it now? It felt like he wanted to make sure I didn’t carry that weight with me after he was gone. I prayed I was wrong.

Every mile added to my bad feeling, and my foot pressed the pedal a little harder. By the time I hit his exit off the freeway, I realized I was going ninety-five miles an hour. I’d made the half-hour drive to Jayce’s in twenty minutes.

My brother didn’t answer the front door—not that I gave him much of a chance before I used the key he’d given me last year.

“Jayce!”

No answer.

“Jayce!”

No answer.

I flexed my hands open and shut a few times. So cold. My hands were so cold.

Not in the kitchen.

Not in the living room or small dining room.

The bedroom door was wide open.

Nothing.

There weren’t many more places to look in the small house.

Not in the yard.

I walked down the hall that led from the back door to the kitchen and found the bathroom door closed. Facing it, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Fuck. I’m making myself crazy.

I took a deep breath and knocked. “Jayce. You in there?”

No answer.

I knocked one more time, and the door pushed open as I did.

I froze.

My breathing halted.

The earth shifted, and a fault line ran up my heart.

No.

No.

“Nooooo!” I screamed.

I rushed toward my brother’s limp body hanging from a rope tied to the ceiling fixture. He’d removed the light to reach up to the beams in the rafters.

Panicked, I lifted his body to give the rope slack.

His eyes were open and bulged from their sockets.

His lips and face were blue.

Dried blood stained the corners of his mouth.

But I refused to believe it was too late.

“No!”

“No!”

“You can’t...”

I held him for the longest time, not wanting the rope to tighten around his neck.

I couldn’t let go to get something to cut him down.

I couldn’t let go to call someone to help.

I couldn’t let go to check if he had a pulse.

I couldn’t let go.

I just couldn’t let go…

Chapter 34

Hunter

Present day – two weeks later