Chapter 4

I grip my cane and tap it to the rug over and over. Days are long and empty. My only pleasure is the single morphine pill Thirteen will give me when she comes home. It's 8:41PM. I watch the minutes slowly tick on the digital clock hanging above the TV. She's not back yet. Why am I letting her ration me like this? Why not just score my own solution?

CAC comes out of her studio, heading my way.

"So," I call out from the couch. She stops just at the archway to the kitchen, meeting my gaze. "Which one of you is the top?"

Her mouth curves into a tiny smile. "Wouldn't you like to know," she says, then disappears into the kitchen.

Wow. Wasn't expecting that. First reply from her and I've been prodding at every chance. Actually, the pill isn't the only pleasure. This qualifies as one; making ridiculous comments to this girl and watching her face for any hint of reaction.

"It's Thirteen, isn't it?" I call. "Gotta be."

No answer.

The front door pops open. I turn around, craning my neck over the back of the couch. Speak of the devil. Finally. Her hair's a bit tousled. She pulls the bottle from her right jacket pocket and comes closer. Her eyeliner is all but wiped away again. It's not hard to guess why. She wouldn't have this problem if she carried a purse like most girls.

Her hand is steady as she opens the bottle and pours out the pill. "Here."

I take it and pop it in my mouth, force it down with a hard swallow.

"Cocoa Puffs hasn't fired you, then?" I ask. "I had a betting pool going."

Her brows draw tight, eyes wide.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm not hallucinating. I'm the only one in the pool."

She looks relieved.

"And since I don't have any money left... I was betting these peanut butter M&Ms." I grab the bag beside me and hold it up. "Pretty pointless, actually. Just like one-player Monopoly." I fish out a handful of candy.

"Besides I was just going to eat them, anyway." I pop one in, as if it's another pill.

She sits down next to me, flashing me a look of pity.

"M&M?" I extend the bag to her.

She takes some.

"Hey, I said M&M, not M&Ms."

She gives a half-hearted smile. "You know I'm the one who bought them, right?"

The microwave beeps. I don't need to see into the kitchen to know that CAC is reheating dinner for Thirteen. Must be nice, having someone like her. Someone who's always thinking of you.

"So... how goes the case?"

She fills me in, tells me it's concluded, but I somehow doubt that's really the final piece of the puzzle. These things have a pattern to them, after all, and it's hardly ever so simple.


It comes back when I close my eyes. That cheap motel room just outside some town I can't recall the name of. After a while they all blurred together, but I'll never forget that room.

The peeling beige paint and brown shag carpet, the twenty-year-old television set atop a battered dresser, the cracked yellow tiles of the cramped bathroom reeking of over-used disinfectants, the pair of single beds with itchy sheets you'd rather not have against your skin and the burgundy drapes that blocked out the sun that last day.

I can hear his voice.

"Promise me," he says between ragged breaths. His cheeks are hollow, his eyes sunken and dark. Sweat glistens off his pale skin. "Promise me." He reaches his hand out towards me.

"No." I stay on my own bed, sat uncomfortably on the edge.

"House... please..."

"There's enough for both of us." My eyes flick to the bedside table, to the Zip-Loc bag filled with white powder beside a spoon, a glass of water, a lighter, a tourniquet, a batch of cotton swabs and two syringes.

"That's... not the point."

"Then what is?"

"I'm too tired for games... just promise me."

"No." I grab the Zip-Loc bag and pour as much as will fit onto the spoon.

"You're an ass..." he sighs, straining to find a better position for his head in his flat pillow.

"I need you." I don't look at him as I say that. I can't. Instead, I stare at the wavering shadows of trees pouring in through the gap between the drapes and adding to the darkness.

"And I need you to live... to go on. I need to know you're going to be okay."

I mix the powder with water and hold the lighter underneath the spoon. "Well, I won't be."

"Please..." A tear snakes slowly down his face. "...if our friendship has ever meant anything to you... just do this one thing for me."

"We've had this conversation before." I squeeze the spoon handle as the flame casts flickers throughout the room and melts the powder into liquid.

"That's... why I need you to listen this time." His voice breaks into a sob. "Please... let me go."

I draw the cooked solution through a cotton swab into each of the syringes, my eyes filling with wet. I fight as hard as I can to keep it from spilling over and down my face.

"No, I... I don't want to be here without you, dammit. I can't..." A warm drop touches my cheek. Then my nose. Then my other cheek. I stand, set down the second syringe and close the gap to his bed in a single limp.

He reaches for me again. This time I hold out my hand and he clutches it, his palm cool and clammy.

"I... I love you," I say harsh and quick, clenching my teeth at those ridiculous words.

He smiles weakly, tears filling to the brim, flowing down in a river.

"There. You finally got me to say it. Happy now?"

He just holds my hand tighter.

My eyes stay locked with his."So let me go with you." 」

"Where to?" He arches a brow. "You don't believe in—"

I cut him off. "You know that's not what I mean."

"No, just hold on," he says. "Hold on for me, please..."

"Why?"

"Because you can go on... you might not know it yet, but you can. I know you can. And I want you to."

"But why?" A spark of anger rises up inside me. "What the hell for? If you're so sure there's something after this, what do you care if I check out too?"

"Because you should go back to Cuddy. She loves you."

"No, she doesn't."

"Why do you think she didn't show up at your funeral?"

"Oh, I see," I scoff. "Not showing up means she really, really loves me? Wow, I must be even worse at these emotional things than I thought."

"Says someone who's spent his whole life running away from the people he cares most about." He coughs. "Just listen to me. You know I'm right. I'm always right about these things." He strains to smile again.

Somewhere deep inside, I know the truth. A painful heat erupts in my throat and pushes out a sound I didn't know I could make. "You are..." That comes out muffled by my faltering vocal cords. "That's why you can't... you can't leave me now..."

"You know I can't stay, no matter how badly I want to." His words tremble. "It's not in my power."

"I know." I force a hard swallow and grab one of the syringes. Thirteen's voice floods into my head. The stuff she said about respecting Wilson's wishes, about loyalty, about how I set her free in an act of selflessness and didn't even like her that much.

It's sad, but that's pretty much the only reason I'm here right now five months later, in this shitty motel room, watching him slip away from me instead of just knocking him out and forcibly dosing him with chemotherapy drugs like I wanted.

"Don't..." He stretches and grabs my wrist.

It's all I can do to push my voice out. "I won't."

"Promise me," he says again.

I close my eyes in a long blink that squeezes out two more giant tears, then meet his gaze. "I promise," I say, unable to hold my voice or my body steady.

I tie the tourniquet around his arm, tap the barrel of the syringe, then aim for his exposed vein. The needle tip slides under his skin.

"Thank you." He squeezes my hand. Those two simple words somehow convey all his love.

I push the plunger down, my heart sinking along with it.

"I know you don't believe, but... but... this isn't the end... we'll see each other again."

I can't mock him. I can't. No matter how stupid it sounds. All I can do is watch his face turn from agony to peace as my breath catches with uncontrollable sobs.

In the space of a few seconds, his fingers loosen their grip on my hand, his chest stops rising and falling. His eyes go empty, but a faint smile stays with him.

I fall over his body. There's no heartbeat. He's gone. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

Hours pass and I'm just sitting on the floor by his bed, salty streaks burning my face until I can't cry any more, until there's not a single tear left and I'm exhausted and dead inside, and wanting nothing more than to use the second syringe. But I can't. I have to go.

I pull myself up and throw on my motorcycle jacket, take the photo of him and Amber and the last fifty from his wallet and tuck it into mine. I want to keep his whole wallet, but it's best to leave him with ID. I wipe my prints clean from everything, then grab my cane and limp towards the door. They'll find him soon enough.

The evening sun bounces off the asphalt of the parking lot and glares in my eyes. It's so harsh and orange after hiding away in that dark room for days. Somehow, the nerves in my leg are dead without narcotics. Instead my entire body is heavy with a different sort of pain. It's hard to breathe.

I hop on my bike and start down the lonely, tree-lined road, a robot with no idea where I'm headed. The prognosis was five months and it was more or less on time. It was fun. Maybe more fun than we've ever had. Until he started getting sick. This last week was the worst. I'd agreed soon after we took off to shoot him full of heroin when it got too bad. I'd planned to do the same for myself. But, in the end, he made that impossible.

Now I'm alone. More alone than I've ever been.