“You heard?”
“I only know Wes was here. Anna came to tell me before our department meeting. It’s bad, right?”
“At first I thought Hannah had miscarried.”
“Oh fuck. Is she okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine. The baby is fine. Hayley appears to have left Wes.”
“Wait, what? Are you sure?”
“Dylan, I’m not sure of anything anymore. What I know right now is that the three people closest to me are in some kind of pain, and I can’t do a goddamn thing for them.”
“Eli, look at me.”
I take two more steps toward him before he turns around. “I may be sidelined but I’m okay. You know this. I hate it, but I’m okay. You don’t need to fix it or fix me. Wes and Hayley… well… they will either be Wes and Hayley, or they won’t. We all knew the risk involved of them being more than friends.”
“How can you be so calm about this? Hayley is hurting physically and mentally. She packed everything and moved back in with my parents. Wes looks like he’s been drunk for days, and he hasn’t been without her for even twelve hours. They can’t self-destruct. They can’t.”
“I’m not calm. Not even a little, but you can’t control this, Eli. We can’t. We can be there for them. We can talk to them. Tell me what you want to do. How did you find out she went to your parents’ house?”
“I talked to my mother. I’m going there after work today to see what I can find out.”
“Do you need me to come with you?”
“I don’t want to overwhelm Hayley more than she already is. Not that I’m saying you’d do that. I want to see if she will talk to me, the way she used to, if there’s no one listening.”
“I get it. Do you want me to go over and check on Wes? We have a special way of dealing with each other. Maybe I can make sure he doesn’t go off the rails. That would make Hayley feel worse if he did. I know he’s not thinking that way right now.”
Eli closes the gap between us. He cradles my face in his hands and gives me a gentle kiss. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Dylan.”
“Keep kissing me like that and you’ll never find out.”
***
I’ve run the scenarios over and over in my head about how I should approach Wes. The soft approach generally doesn’t work with him. If we fight it out, it takes less time and is more effective. When my cab pulls up to the curb, after I close the door I get this sinking feeling though. Maybe he doesn’t understand. Maybe I need to take a pulse on the room before I go in like normal.
Luckily the doorman recognizes me and opens the door without having to buzz for Wes to let me up. I ask the doorman if he’s seen him today. He said earlier this morning and Wes was not his usual self. That’s both good and bad in the same breath. I hobble off the elevator on his floor and peg my way down to the end. I knock on the door the first time, no answer. I knock harder the second time, still no answer. I pound on the door a third time and holler through the door, “Listen Taylor, I’m not going away so you’d better open this damn door, so I don’t have to tell your best friend you left his injured wife ignored in the hallway.”
That’s what does it. He greets me at the door with a scowl. “That was dirty pool, Viper.”
“It got you to open the door, didn’t it? Are you going to let me in? I need to ice this thing.”
“Fine, but I’m not in a talking mood, Dylan.”
Wes pulls the door wide and walks away. Once I’m clear of the doorway, I push it closed with my crutch. I slowly turn around and see three empty beer bottles on his island, another two on his coffee table, and what looks like a fresh one in his hand. “At least you’re hydrated.”
“What do you want, Dylan? I just want to be alone.”
“No you don’t, and that’s what the problem is. I know you were at AnSa today. Anna came and told me then I saw Eli. He’s wrecked for you, for her, for both of you.”
“I knew it would be tough when we got home, but I never saw this coming. I’m so stupid. So fucking stupid.” I finally make it to the couch and sit down beside him. I ball up the sweatshirt he so not neatly deposited on the rug to put beneath my knee. Wes rips it out from under me. “Don’t touch that. Don’t ever touch that.”
“Whoa. Chill. Give me the pillow next to you then.”
When he doesn’t move, I stretch across him to grab it myself. Just as I’m about to place the pillow where the sweatshirt was, he grabs me and pulls me in for a hug. I’m not talking about just an ordinary hug. It’s one like I’m some sort of floatation device and he’s in the middle of an endless body of water drifting away. “Don’t let go,” he whispers.
Shit.
“I won’t. I won’t.” His arms hold me so tight sometimes I can’t breathe. I hold tight around his neck. “You’ll get through this. You will.”
“How could she just give up? She left in the middle of the night and then I wake up to an empty apartment and a text.”
“I need you to let go of me so we can talk. You might not like some of what I have to say.”
After a minute or two, his grip lessens. His eyes cast to the floor and to that same sweatshirt. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m sorry. Hayley was wearing this last night. It still smells like her. I don’t want to lose that.”
“You just asked me how she could just leave in the middle of the night. Didn’t you basically do the same to her? You wrote her a note, she sent you a text.”
“It’s not the same thing, Dylan. Not the same thing at all.”
“Isn’t it? I don’t want to argue with you. I want to help, but the only way I know how to do that is for you to see it from her side of things. You couldn’t listen to the doctors. You want to ignore what is going on. I get it, I do. We can’t though.”
“What am I ignoring? Tell me.”
“Everything. Literally everything. Where do you think this all started?”
“Oh, I already know this is my fault. Your husband made that very clear to me on the flight home.”
“Let me ask you, if the roles were reversed, if Hayley had a baby with some other man and she wouldn’t let you two meet or talk about important decisions regarding the baby, in essence leave you on the sideline, how would that make you feel?”
“I’d want to kill him. I’d hate him.”
“Extreme much?”
“The thought of another man near her has always bothered me. Now it would be untempered rage.”
“Would you be willing to fight for her?”
“That had better be a rhetorical question. Viper. I’m in no mood.”
“Shut up and listen. I don’t have firsthand knowledge of what Hayley is going through, but I know she is scared. She’s likely more scared than she’s ever been in her life. She doesn’t know what to do so she’s going for safe. That might not be what she wants.”