It was New Year's Eve, and Leilani and I were planning a quiet night at home with Tristan—no matter how hard I tried, it seemed I could never spend enough time with my family. Until Ian called.
"He wants us to spend the night with Josh, in the hospital," I said after hanging up.
"But, Mike—" Leilani started.
"I know," I sighed, cutting her off. "But he doesn't deserve to be alone, on tonight of all nights. We can spend some time with him and then come home before the countdown. How does that sound?"
"Fine," Leilani said reluctantly. "But we can't take Tristan with us..." Once, two weeks before, we had attempted to take Tristan with us to visit Josh. He had started screaming the moment we took him into the building, and wouldn't stop until we brought him back out.
"I'm sure Jani would be willing to take him for a couple of hours." Jani had been as solid as a rock over the past weeks, and he'd already taken care of Tristan for us several times while Leilani and I visited Josh.
Jani, as always, was willing to babysit Tristan for the night. "I think the little man is starting to think of me as his dad instead of you," he joked as we dropped him off. I smiled, but still felt guilty; I was fully aware I hadn't spent enough time around my son lately. It was something I fully intended to fix once things settled back down to normal.
We were the last to arrive, and there was a strange tension in the room, far from the celebratory mood I'd been expecting. Matt was standing in a corner, his eyes on the ground; Amanda was on the other side of the room, staring out the window, a look I didn't quite know how to read on her face. Ian and Lily were standing off to the side, holding hands, but neither of them were smiling. Everyone looked up as we entered, except for Josh, who was focused on a phone in his hands.
"Why isn't she answering?" he asked, looking consternated. He looked up at Lily expectantly. "Do you know where she might be?"
"No," Lily sighed. "I haven't spoken to her much lately. She's been coming home late, and leaving early—"
Josh's face fell. "She has to come," he said, and, dialling the phone, held it up to his ear. It was obvious a moment later that he still wasn't getting an answer when he slammed the phone down. "Fuck," he muttered.
"I don't know why she needs to be here," Amanda said irritably, still not looking at him.
"I don't know why you need to be here," Josh replied, just as petulantly.
Now Amanda turned to face him, her eyes flashing. "Because I thought that maybe we could try to be friends, but if all you're going to do is talk about her—"
"Well, isn't this fun," Ian said to the room at large, and I noticed Lily squeeze his hand. At least they had worked things out.
"Uh," I said, trying to think of something light-hearted to say to break the tension.
Josh ignored both of us. "I can talk about her all I want," he said coldly. "In case you haven't noticed, you're not my girlfriend anymore."
"I didn't think I was!" Amanda said heatedly.
"I would hope not, considering all the time you've been spending running around with—"
"That's enough!" Ian said loudly, just as Matt started forward angrily. "Can you please not be at each other's throats for just an hour? It's New Year's Eve, for fuck's sake."
I shared a look with Leilani. She looked uncomfortable, and I couldn't blame her; this wasn't exactly what I had imagined when Ian had told me we were having a New Year's party in Josh's room.
Silence fell; Amanda went back to gazing out the dark window and Josh stared longingly at the phone, as if willing it to ring.
"What's up with them?" I muttered to Matt, who was closest.
"Dunno," he shrugged, and I knew immediately he was lying. "Still haven't gotten over the fight they had before all this happened, I guess." Matt's face, upon closer inspection, was tight, and anger lingered behind his eyes. Something was going on, and he knew what it was, but I decided not to question him right now.
"Well," Lily said lightly, "we have drinks and chips...they wouldn't let us bring in alcohol, for obvious reasons..."
"I don't want to start until Alexa gets here," Josh said resolutely.
"Maybe you should go find her, then," Amanda shot at him. "Then we wouldn't have to listen to your fucking whining all night."
"If you didn't notice, I'm confined to this stupid fucking hospital bed," Josh sneered, "and I don't see the rest of you doing shit."
"What's with you, man?" Matt said, his voice barely under control.
"Well, let's see," Josh said mockingly. "My ex-girlfriend won't leave me alone, my best friend has been going behind my back, no one tells me anything, I spent two weeks in a fucking coma, and now every part of my fucking body hurts."
"You could be dead!"
"Maybe I rather would be!"
A poignant silence followed this appalling statement.
"Fuck, Josh," Ian whispered. "You don't actually mean that, do you?"
"Yes. No. I don't fucking know, okay?" To my shock, tears were springing into Josh's eyes, and he turned his head away. "I want to see Alexa," he said, his voice muffled by his pillow.
The doctors had told us that Josh had been off his depression medication for a while, but I didn't know that this was the result. "I'm sorry, Josh," I said softly.
He ignored me. "Bring me Alexa," he said, his face still turned away, "or, I swear, I'll go find her myself." When no one moved, he sighed and picked up the phone again. "Fuck," he muttered into the receiver. "Pick up."
Lily was looking a little worried now. "This isn't like her at all," she murmured. "I hope she's not..." she trailed off.
Again, Josh threw the phone down. A few tears were running down his cheeks, and they seemed to make him more angry than anything. "This is all your fault," he said to Amanda.
"What?" she said incredulously. "How is this my fault?"
"Because you were here when she—"
"You know what?" Amanda cut him off, "I don't want to hear it. Fuck this. I'm done." She spun around and left the room, slamming the door behind her.
"Fuck you, Josh," Matt told him, his voice shaking.
"What, aren't you going to chase after her, like you always do?"
Matt was silent, his face set into hard lines.
"Are you okay?" I asked him. It was unusual for Matt to act this way, although he'd been acting strange for the past few weeks.
"Yeah," Matt said, but I had a suspicion that he was lying again. "I just...want to leave."
"Maybe we should leave, too," I suggested. The tension in the room was thicker than ever, and I could tell that Leilani was regretting that we had come here. "Uh...have a happy New Year, everyone."
"Yeah," Ian said, looking glumly at the unopened food and drinks he and Lily had brought into the room. I could distinctly here Lily say, "Is it so hard for you to be nice for once?" as we left the room.
Matt strode off down the hallway ahead of us. There was something wrong with him, and I fully intended on finding out what. "Give me a second," I told Leilani, before running to catch up with him.
"What's up, man?" I asked him. "And don't tell me 'nothing.'"
Matt forced a small smile. "I don't know what else to tell you, then."
"Look, why don't we go somewhere for drinks? It's New Year's Eve, we should at least try to have some fun."
"Yeah, okay," Matt said, brightening up at the prospect of alcohol.
"We're going out," I told Leilani apologetically, handing her the keys to the car. "I'm sorry, I know I said—"
"It's okay," she said with a wan smile, "I understand. I'll see you later, then?"
I hugged her tight and kissed her for her understanding. "I'm sorry," I said again.
Matt and I left in his car, with me driving. It didn't take us long to get to our favourite bar, and I pushed him into a seat and ordered him a drink.
"Now, tell me what's up," I ordered sternly.
Drink by drink, the story came out of him.
"I'm falling for Amanda," he said miserably, point-blank.
I was surprised, but maybe not as surprised as I should have been. After all, enough clues had been dropped lately. "And she likes you too?" I guessed.
Matt nodded, staring into the depths of his fourth beer. "Except she still loves Josh, and I still love Jessica...or at least, I think I do." His brow wrinkled.
"Amanda didn't sound like she loved Josh earlier," I said lightly.
"Yeah, funny how that works," Matt said moodily.
He seemed unwilling to offer up more information on his own, so I asked, "How are things between you and Jessica?"
"They're not. She broke up with me."
"What?" Last time I checked, Jess had been completely enraptured by Matt—although that would explain her absence lately. "Why?"
Matt glanced up at me quickly before returning his gaze to his cup and muttering something under his breath.
"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that."
Matt took a large swig of his beer, as if it could give him courage, before blurting, "She saw me kissing Amanda."
"Oh," I said, rocking back in my seat. That wasn't what I expected to hear; I never thought Matt would do something like that, behind his girlfriend's back.
"Amanda kissed me first," he said quickly, as if to redeem himself. "And..." He waved his hand helplessly, almost knocking over his drink.
"I see."
Now that Matt had started talking, it seemed he didn't want to stop. "She asked me if we could try being together, a couple of days ago, but I turned her down, and I've been feeling miserable ever since." He looked up at me earnestly. "Do you think that was the right thing to do?"
"I don't know," I said honestly. At last I could understand the difficulty of the situation Matt found himself in.
For the next couple of hours, Matt rambled on, steadily becoming more and more drunk. "Have you seen her eyes?" he said. "They're so beautiful...and her hair...it's so soft..." He fell into a brooding silence, staring into his drink—which one he was on, I had lost count. Behind us, the countdown started.
I sighed, and took a sip of my water. "Happy fucking New Year," I muttered, as midnight struck and the bar erupted into cheers.