I’m not family. I’m nobody. I don’t have a right to know.
The woman’s eyes scan the rest of Tyler’s loft. When they land on the stack of tabloids on the coffee table, her expression shifts with recognition. She knows who Tyler is.
Swank turns to me, but instead of asking about Tyler, she sees my bandaged wrist, the cloth flecked with Tyler’s blood. “What happened to you?”
“Fresh tattoo,” I confess, rolling my wrist to her view. “Not exactly an injury.”
Swank nods. “Get cleaned up. Take a breath—this can be scary and you need a moment to calm down. When you’re ready, you can meet us at the hospital. OK?”
Her eyes are gentle with concern. I let out a deep, shuddering breath.
I follow Tyler and the paramedics into the elevator, which takes a creaky, agonizingly slow trip down. I squeeze next to his hip and grip his hand. Tyler’s face is sallow and damp, his eyes closed.
“You’re going to be fine,” I tell him fiercely, as much for him as for me. I have no idea if he hears me.
I lean over and press my lips to his forehead, practically the only part of his face that isn’t smeared in blood. “I love you,” I whisper. “I’ll be there for you as soon as I can.”
The elevator grinds to a halt at the ground floor and a paramedic throws open the heavy metal grate, bump-bumping Tyler over the gap and up to the warehouse door.
I turn the lock and pause, fearful of what’s on the other side. I want to cover Tyler from the cameras but he’s strapped down and I don’t have anything to protect him.
When I swing open the door, the reporters explode with shouted questions. Their number has swelled to more than a dozen, including at least three video cameras that swoop over him like carrion birds.
“Get back! Get back!” I hear one of the paramedics yell, and I’m grateful for their brawn as they roll Tyler across the asphalt and hustle him into the ambulance. I’m frozen in place as the ambulance doors slam and then the cameras turn back to me, reporters demanding answers and cameras recording my blood-spattered chest.
I yank the door closed against them, hearing questions about drug overdoses and domestic violence and ugly speculations that squeeze my heart. When the locks are securely in place, I heave choking breaths just this side of retching.
I feel sick that they’re attacking him. Sick that at one point, I was supposed to be one of them.
No. I made a choice. I threw that career away as surely as I threw the mugs at Heath’s office wall. I am not one of them.
TWENTY-NINE
I do what I have to: call his family, go to the hospital, and wait. I strip off my bloody shirt and pants and step beneath the spray of Tyler’s shower to get the sticky feel of blood off me, then rebandage my wrist that still throbs from the fresh tattoo.
I repack my purse with the litter of stuff I dumped on my bed, including my dead cell phone and its charger. I look for Tyler’s phone downstairs but it’s not on the kitchen counter, in the practice space, or under the tabloids by the couches.
Upstairs, Tyler’s bedroom is a nightmare, his bed covered in bloody, rumpled sheets. I pull them back but don’t see a phone, and it’s not on the bedside table or his dresser. I can’t call it because my phone’s dead, and I don’t want to wait to charge my phone, so I keep looking, in the bedside table drawer and the pockets of shorts left on the floor.
From that angle, I spot his phone on the floor, a corner just peeking out from under the bed. I slide open the lock screen: twelve missed calls.
Most are from the band and I debate whom to call first, but one name screams at me, mocking me.
Kim Archer. Her name is saved in his contacts? There’s no other way it could appear on his phone. I die a little more inside; their connection is stronger than I thought. She has his number. He saved hers. I feel my name fading from the picture that is Tyler’s life.
I force myself to push these thoughts out of my brain and focus on what Tyler needs from me right now: his family. I scroll through his contacts and find the only name that makes sense: Cheryl Walsh. This must be his mother.
The phone rings and I tuck it under my ear, opening a backpack that leans against Tyler’s dresser, emptying it of gym clothes and refilling it with fresh clothes, shoes, and his blood sugar test kit.
Just when I expect to leave a voicemail, I hear a light-hearted woman’s voice answer. “Hey Ty, sweetie.”
I cherish the warmth in his mother’s tone but I’m about to ruin her day. “Um, hi, Mrs. Walsh? This is Stella, Tyler’s, um, roommate.”
I hear a full-throated laugh and Cheryl counters, “Oh, honey, I know better than that. The way Tyler talks, you’re the love of his life. I’m glad to hear from you.”
My mouth gapes and I struggle to find the words. The love of his life? This is the man I walked out on less than an hour ago.
“Mrs. Walsh, Tyler’s in the hospital. They think he had a diabetic seizure. He’s unconscious.”
I hear her suck in a breath and the surge of emotions I felt while the paramedics were here hits me like a tidal wave.
I try desperately to stuff down the sobs in my chest and explain, but tears choke out my words. I have no right to feel this way, this deeply for him, when I’m talking to the woman who raised him. She must be terrified.
“Stella, take your time. If Tyler’s at the hospital, he’s going to be OK. Just tell me what happened.”
“I, uh, he, couldn’t breathe and he, blood, and he was choking.” Waves of guilt crash through me. Jayce warned me. Tyler even warned me, and when it mattered, I didn’t see the signs, too wrapped up in my own problems.
“Stella, I’ve been there. It’s scary and horrible but it’s not the end of the world.” Cheryl’s voice is soft and warm like a hug, and I wish she were here. I wish she was my mom and could comfort me the way I never felt when I was in the hospital.
Cheryl calls me Tyler’s guardian angel for being there for him.
I don’t feel like a guardian angel. I feel helpless, like nothing I can do will fix all that’s broken in Tyler’s life. I feel like I’m only adding complications. I’m blubbering this to Cheryl, but she asks me short, simple questions about where he is and what else the paramedics told me.
“I’ll try to get on a flight tonight,” she promises. “In the meantime, just chin up and go be with him. Tell him I love him. And tell him you love him.” She pauses. “You do, don’t you?”
“With all my heart.”
“Good. Tyler understands people. He sees them better than they see themselves. When he told me he loved you, I knew there had to be something special about you.”
“Oh.” It’s all I can manage without setting off a fresh round of tears.
“I’m looking forward to meeting you, Stella. Now go be with my boy.”
I hang up and swallow hard. I grab Tyler’s backpack and as I run downstairs, Tyler’s phone rings in my hand.
Gavin’s photo appears on the caller ID. I answer immediately and hear a rough growl.
“Stella? What the hell is happening over there?”
“Tyler. They took him to the hospital.” My breath comes in short pants.
Gavin fires questions, just like the reporters. Why is Tyler unconscious? Why is he bloody? Why was I bloody? Which hospital are they taking him to?
Gavin must have seen something on the news but his questions feel like angry jabs, like he already assumes the worst of me.