Page 35 of Until You Found Me

“Hey, you um…you wanna have those cocoa bomb things tomorrow? Supposed to snow,” he says later, after walking her back to her dome and stuffing his calloused hands deep in his pockets on her doorstep.

“Yes. Let’s have cocoa while it snows.”

He nods, moving off the porch and tripping a step because he hasn’t taken his eyes off her. “Tomorrow.”

She watches him disappear across the field before shutting her door and flattening her back to it, grinning from ear toear with a bounce on the balls of her feet.

Maybe she hasn’t been completely wrong about everything after all.

* * *

‘Tessa.’

She picks up the radio at her bedside. “I’m here.”

Nothing but static comes through from the other end.

“Logan?”

She sits up in bed and stares down at the receiver. A full minute ticks by without any reply to her many attempts and her excitement at hearing his voice shifts into worry. He wouldn’t have said her name if it was a mistake. His tone was low and scratchy, but she attributed it to the odd evening they shared earlier. Or how tired he must be after working a full day. Now she isn’t so sure.

She dresses quickly, dismissing her attempts at talking herself out of going over there. At least she has an excuse if it turns out to be nothing. He passed out before when he was late to pick her up at the shelter and she’s terrified it might happen again.

“It’s nothing. It’s nothing,” she mutters, wrapping her hoodie tight around her body. He’ll be standing there perfectly fine, looking at her like she’s hearing things. Hell, she could be haunted for all she knows and that person on the radio wasn’t him. Somehow that sounds a lot better than what she fears she’ll find inside the trailer.

The dog greets her when she enters his unlocked door with a wagging tail, but a quick scan shows it empty. That’s whenher already frazzled nerves begin to unravel. He has to be close if he used the radio, he couldn’t have gotten far…she pauses at the sight of his foot peeking out from the half-closed bedroom door. Her breath catches tight in her lungs as she races over to reveal Logan on the floor, wedged between the bed and the wall.

She crouches beside him, tapping his cheek with a gentle hand. “Logan? Wake up, you need to wake up.”

He doesn’t rouse and she panics. Something in her cracks at seeing him passed out and unresponsive and a sob wrenches from her throat as if he’s already dead. She sucks it back down, forcing herself to ignore the lightheaded fuzziness an overload of stress has triggered. She shakes him harder a second time, her voice firm as she calls out his name at double the decibels only to be denied any relief.

Tessa searches the room for a phone and finds nothing. She’ll have to leave to call an ambulance, but he grabs her ankle when she stands, his words slurred.

“Need something to eat.”

She shakes her head. “I’m calling nine one one.”

“No!” he barks, with what must be his last ounce of strength. She leans close, her ear by his mouth, struggling to catch even the faintest sound. “Need one of the bars in the drawer and some peanut butter. Don’t call anyone, please don’t fucking call anyone. Can’t afford it. Not that serious. Please, please.”

Everything in her screams to call a doctor before he dies in her arms, but he’s using what could be his last words to tell her not to. He’s dealt with this his whole life. If he says he needs to eat then she needs to listen. She abandons him on the floor before overthinking it costs them precious time. Grabs two bars from the drawer in his nightstand and rifles throughhis kitchen cabinets to pull down a jar of peanut butter before bringing it back to where he’s splayed out on the ground.

She props him up in her lap, struggling with the weight of him when he’s unable to help her. She forgot a spoon but doesn’t hesitate to scoop out a dollop of peanut butter on her fingers and press it to his lips, where he weakly sucks it off.

“You’re gonna be okay,” she repeats over and over like a useless mantra, breaking off little pieces of candy to feed him.

She has to jostle him awake a few times, her heart in her throat and her hands shaking where they cradle him against her.

“M’sorry,” he mumbles.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“Not always like this. Won’t be all the time.” He curls a hand around her upper arm, holding onto her while she holds onto him.

“I’m just glad you called me or I wouldn’t have known.”

“You came…”

“Of course I did.”

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