Page 21 of Before We Break Again
I blink, trying to shake the haze from my mind, trying to process what I’m seeing in front of me.It’s probably the drugs clouding my judgment.This isn’t real.It can’t be real.But then I look again, my heart thudding painfully in my chest.
She’s right beside him, her face so familiar, just like the photo I have in my room.The one Dustin gave me last Christmas, somehow managing to get his hands on it and I never asked him how.
She looks different—her hair’s shorter, just grazing her shoulders in loose waves instead of the wild curls I remember.There’s something more polished about her now, more refined.But those eyes?Those hazel eyes are still the same.Bright.Alive.Filled with something I could never fully name but always felt.
My breath catches.I wasn’t ready for this.For her.Fuck, I doubt I’ll ever be ready.Just seeing her face makes my pulse race, while the rest of me feels like it’s frozen solid.
“Hals,” I finally manage to get out, my voice strained.
“Hey, Santos,” she says softly, hesitantly.Her voice, after all these years, sends a shock wave through me, like I’ve been struck by lightning.It’s impossible to explain how just hearing her again makes my heart jolt, and memories flood in all at once.
For a moment, I’m frozen, words trapped in my throat.All I can do is stare at her face on the screen, my mind reeling.
The memories hit like a punch I never saw coming—unexpected, brutal.The lake, the way we’d skate for hours through those freezing winters, cheeks red from the cold but never wanting to stop.Summers filled with her laughter, her smile that made everything feel lighter.The three of us, inseparable until that day.
The day they took her away.
The day everything changed.
We were sent to the principal’s office, but they only called her parents because she was the one who had really done something wrong.Boys will be boys, after all, and all that shit.She, though—she was a girl, and girls are supposed to know better.A girl who should know how to behave, not to be a temptress, not to act like a slut.After that, they dragged her out of school before the rumors could fully spread.
And just like that, she was gone.
The way they whisked her away from Blissful Meadows—without a word, without a single goodbye—was a wound that never really healed.Gone.Just like that.Her parents pulled her from our lives as if she were something to be hidden, something broken.All because they caught her kissing two boys.
The silence that followed her absence felt like a black hole, swallowing up everything good, everything warm.And now, after all this time, she’s here—she’s right here.But I’m struggling to find my voice, struggling to even breathe.
I was left numb, hollow, with only Dustin keeping me from sinking completely.He was my lifeline, the only thing that made sense, until Dad tore me away from him.After that, it was just more people like my father—cold, controlling, breaking me down until I barely recognized myself anymore.
“Dude, stop staring at her like she’s a ghost and say something.”Dustin’s voice cuts through the fog, but I’m still frozen, rooted in place.
“Halsey,” I manage to choke out, my voice thick with an emotion I can’t even name.It’s like everything I’ve been burying all these years is clawing its way to the surface, desperate to break free.
My mind is spinning, the memories crashing into the present.“What ...Why are you dragging her into this?”The words tumble out, shaky, as I try to make sense of the sight in front of me, the pieces refusing to fit.
“Are you even paying attention?”Dustin says, grinning like he’s pulled off the greatest trick in the world.“She’s the doctor I’ve been telling you about.”
“A doctor?”I repeat, skeptical.The word feels foreign when it comes to her.It’s like I’ve missed entire chapters of her life.
And then he starts rattling off her credentials—Stanford, Johns Hopkins, her work with international athletes—and it’s like she’s been training for this exact moment, like she was made for it.But all I want to do is ask her why she chose medicine, how it all started.Still, there are so many other questions I should be asking, things I should say.But the words don’t come.
Dustin leans back into the frame, grinning like he’s just solved everything.“She’s one of the best, San.She’s the one who can get you back in the game—no conversion shit, no dealing with your father.This is it.”
I can hear him talking, and I can tell he’s working hard to convince me this time.That this idea is the one that’ll save me.Not like the others, which were total disasters.But I’m not listening to him anymore.
All I can focus on is her.
Halsey.
She’s here, after all these years, and it feels like the world’s tilted on its axis.Part of me wants to dive into a hundred questions, but none of them feel right.I don’t care about her résumé.Reciting her achievements feels like hearing the specials at a restaurant—detached and impersonal.I want to know where she’s been.Why she never came back to us.Why she never even tried.
How did Dustin find her?Why now?Why is she even here when we’re so fucking broken?
“Shouldn’t your team be the one coming up with your recovery plan?”Halsey’s voice cuts through my haze, pulling me back to the present.Her tone is clinical, professional, like she’s trying to keep her distance.
“That’s not the point,” Dustin says, brushing her off.“The point is to keep him away from Jean-Luc.His team?They worship good ol’ Jean-Luc.I bet the team physician would follow whatever the hell he says without thinking twice.”
My father said the team agreed to send me somewhere else for treatment.He mentioned the team physician signing off on my transfer to another specialist’s care.Once I’m fully recovered, I’d return to the team’s doctor.But that’s not really the issue.The real problem is that everything feels more complicated—I don’t have a support system, and I’m not even sure where I want to be for my recovery.
