Half of My Heart ✔️

31 | a broken dream

I pull up to the athletic dorm right as I end the call with my parents. I brought two pizzas for us and thought I'd hang out with Archer for a while. I'm still trying to repair the small cracks I made in our relationship, and if there's one thing he can't resist, it's food.

Plus, Archer told me Jack wouldn't be here, so it's the perfect time to come by.

I let myself into the dorm and find Archer sitting on their small couch, playing Minecraft. I set down the pizza boxes and just sit down on Archer's bed, watching my brother play video games. My mind drifts to the two hours I just spent with Levi watching The Haunting of Bly Manor. I try not to get too hung up on the fact that he didn't share anything new about himself or his past.

I try to relax, telling myself that he'll open up when he's ready.

"Hey," Archer says casually. "You good?"

"I brought pizza," I answer, ignoring the question. Levi is probably one of the last topics of conversation that I would like to bring up with Archer.

"If it's anything but Hawaiian, I'm kicking you out," he says, a bit preoccupied with building some sort of moat.

"You're barbaric," I say, feigning disgust at the thought of pineapple on pizza. "But yes, one of them is Hawaiian. The other is just pepperoni."

I look around and see homework spread out on Jack's desk—flash cards, notebooks, an open anatomy textbook. Even though he's not here, I feel a jolt of pain in my heart looking at it.

When we were together, I would fall asleep on his lap while he studied. Or sometimes I'd just nap on his bed while he worked. I just enjoyed being close to him even while he was doing something else, and Jack never complained.

I liked when Jack would study for his Anatomy and Physiology course. He'd point out certain body parts on me and explain how exactly they functioned. Most of the time, I couldn't understand the majority of his rapid-fire scholarly spiels, but I liked watching the way his face would light up when he talked about something that interested him. And I loved that he wanted to share those things with me.

Thinking back to those times when everything else felt quieter and warmer while I was wrapped around him, I regret not savoring those moments when I had them.

If I think too long about the fact that they are gone, the world begins to feel like it's shrinking around me. Suffocating.

"So how's it going?" Archer says, and jolting me back into the present moment, and I realize I've been staring at Jack's desk.

I shake myself back into reality. "I just got off the phone with Mom," I say to Archer.

"Yeah? What'd she say?"

"Just that Dani's fine." It takes considerable effort to keep my mind on Archer when every piece of Jack in this room is capturing my attention. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. "I got her to tell me a bit more this time. But all she said was that Dani refuses to tell them where she got the pills this time. Dani claims that she didn't even take any," I say.

"Do they believe her?"

I shake my head. "Mom didn't say anything about that. I hope they do, but at the same time . . . she'd taken a lot. And it wasn't even Oxycodone this time, it was something stronger. That's why she crashed so hard."

Archer pauses his game and looks up at me. "Probably the harder stuff that kids at school sell. Scar, you know it's all part of addiction. It isn't uncommon for addicts to relapse," Archer says. "I love her just as much as you do, but you have to look at this logically. It's not a reflection on Dani. Drugs distort everything."