Walsh Family Universe V2

Chapter 3
The Last Night

Jordan's apartment was exactly as Ash remembered—which is to say, a disaster. Clothes draped over furniture, empty takeout containers forming pyramids on every flat surface, the particular smell of stale bong water and cheap incense that never quite covered what it was meant to cover.

Three people Ash vaguely recognized were sprawled across the living room. Music played from someone's phone, bass-heavy and distorted. A girl named Maya—or was it Mia?—looked up when they entered.

"Yo, Ash! Heard you got out."

"Something like that," Ash said, staying near the door.

Jordan tossed his keys on the counter and headed for the kitchen. "Want a beer?"

"I'm good."

"Come on, man. One beer. You're not gonna turn into a pumpkin."

"I'm seriously good."

Jordan emerged with two beers anyway, cracked one open and pressed it into Ash's hand. "Live a little. You've been locked up for like a month."

Ash held the beer but didn't drink it. Set it down on the coffee table when Jordan turned away to greet someone else who'd just arrived.

The apartment filled up over the next hour. People Ash used to know, people he'd partied with, people who'd been there during the worst of it. They clapped him on the back, asked where he'd been, acted like the past month had been a vacation instead of court-mandated house arrest.

"Good to see you, man."

"Thought you'd gone straight-edge on us."

"Your parents still being psycho?"

Ash deflected, made noncommittal sounds, tried to figure out when it would be reasonable to leave without looking like he was running away. Which he was. He was definitely running away.

Jordan kept circulating, getting progressively looser, pupils getting wider. Ash watched him and felt that familiar anxiety creeping up his spine. This had been a mistake. He knew it had been a mistake when he climbed out his window, knew it when he got in the car, knew it every second since.

Around 1 AM, people started filtering out. Maya-or-Mia left with some guy Ash didn't know. Two others headed to another party across town. The apartment emptied until it was just Ash and Jordan and one other guy passed out on the couch.

"Finally," Jordan said, flopping down next to Ash. "Thought they'd never leave."

"Yeah." Ash pulled out his phone. 1:17 AM. Shit. "I should probably head out too. Got a long walk back."

"Walk? Dude, I'll drive you."

"You've been drinking."

"So? I'm fine."

"Jordan—"

"Or you could just crash here. Like old times." Jordan grinned, that loose, too-wide grin that Ash used to think was charming. Now it just looked desperate. "Come on. Stay. We barely got to hang out."

"I really need to get back before my parents wake up."

"They're not gonna wake up. It's like 1 AM. Nobody wakes up at 1 AM."

Ash stood. "I'm gonna call a ride."

"With what money? You're broke as shit."

It was true. Ash had exactly seventeen dollars in his bank account. Everything else was controlled by his parents—"for your own protection," they'd said.

"I'll walk," Ash said. "It's fine."

"It's like five miles."

"I've walked farther."

Jordan grabbed his arm. "Dude. Seriously. Just stay. Crash on the couch. I'll drive you back first thing in the morning, before your parents are even up."

Ash looked at Jordan's hand on his arm. At Jordan's dilated pupils. At the mess of the apartment, the evidence of a life Ash had been trying so hard to leave behind.

He should leave. He should leave right now. Walk the five miles if he had to. Show up at home exhausted and in trouble but at least having made the choice to extract himself.

But he was so tired. Bone-tired in a way that had nothing to do with the hour and everything to do with the past month of constant vigilance, constant performance, constant proving himself.

"Okay," he heard himself say. "Just for a few hours. You drive me back at like six, before they wake up."

"Deal." Jordan let go of his arm, already moving toward his bedroom. "I'll set an alarm."

"Jordan. I'm serious. Six AM."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it. Six AM. Scout's honor."

Jordan disappeared into his room. Ash heard the door close, the creak of bedsprings. Within minutes, snoring.

Ash stood in the living room, looking at the guy passed out on the couch—the only sleeping surface besides the floor. He grabbed a hoodie someone had left draped over a chair, balled it up as a pillow, and lay down on the carpet.

The ceiling had water stains. Ash stared at them and tried not to think about what his parents would say if they knew where he was. What Shannon's face would look like. What Patrick would do.

He'd be home before they woke up. Jordan would drive him back. Everything would be fine.

Ash closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

He woke up slowly, consciousness returning in stages. First, the awareness of discomfort—his neck kinked at a bad angle, his shoulder pressed against something hard. Then, the disorientation of wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything.

Then, the nausea.

Ash's eyes snapped open. The room spun. His stomach lurched. Something was very, very wrong.

He tried to sit up and couldn't. His limbs felt like they were made of concrete. His breathing was shallow, labored. The ceiling water stains swam in and out of focus.

"Jordan," he tried to say, but it came out as barely a whisper.

The guy on the couch was still passed out. Jordan's door was still closed.

Ash's heart hammered. This feeling—he knew this feeling. Had felt it before, multiple times. The heavy limbs, the shallow breathing, the way his vision was starting to tunnel.

No. No, he hadn't used. He'd been clean. He'd stayed clean. He'd only had—

He hadn't even finished the beer. He'd set it down. He hadn't touched anything.

Which meant—

Oh God. Oh God, what had Jordan done?

Ash tried to move again. Managed to roll onto his side. His phone was somewhere. In his pocket. If he could just reach it. If he could just call—

His vision blurred. Darkened around the edges.

"Jordan," he tried again, louder this time, but it still came out wrong. Slurred. Distant.

The apartment door was so far away. Miles. Impossible.

Ash's breathing got shallower. The panic was distant now, muffled under layers of pharmaceutical cotton. He was floating. Sinking. Both at once.

This wasn't supposed to happen. He'd been trying. He'd been good. This time was different. This time—

The darkness crept in further. Ash stopped fighting it.

Somewhere far away, a phone was ringing.

Shannon woke at 6:47 AM to a feeling of wrongness. Nothing specific. Just the maternal sixth sense that had kept her waking up at odd hours for the past month, padding down the hall to press her ear to Ash's door and listen for breathing.

Patrick was still asleep beside her. Shannon slipped out of bed quietly, pulled on her robe, and moved down the hallway.

Ash's door was closed. She pressed her ear against it.

Silence.

Complete silence.

Shannon's heart seized. She knocked softly. "Ash?"

Nothing.

"Ash, honey, are you awake?"

Still nothing.

She tried the handle. Unlocked. She pushed it open slowly, already forming the words she'd need—sorry to wake you, I just wanted to check—

The bed was empty. Still made from yesterday. The window was open, screen leaning against the wall.

For a moment, Shannon just stood there, staring. Her brain trying to process what she was seeing, trying to make it make sense.

Then the panic hit.

"Patrick!" Her voice came out as a strangled cry. "Patrick!"

She heard him bolt upright in their room, footsteps pounding down the hall. He appeared in the doorway, hair disheveled, eyes wild.

"What? What's wrong?"

Shannon pointed at the empty bed. The open window. Her hand was shaking.

Patrick crossed the room in three strides, looked out the window at the trellis below. His jaw clenched so tight Shannon could hear his teeth grinding.

"When did you last see him?" he asked, voice deadly calm.

"Last night. He went to bed at 9:30. Patrick, where is he? Where did he—"

Patrick was already pulling out his phone, dialing. He held it to his ear. Waited. His expression darkened.

"Voicemail." He lowered the phone. "It's going straight to voicemail."

Shannon's legs felt weak. She sat on the edge of Ash's bed. "He snuck out. He snuck out and—Patrick, what if—"

"Don't." Patrick's voice was sharp. "Don't go there yet. He could be anywhere. He could be fine."

"Fine? He climbed out his window in the middle of the night and isn't answering his phone and you think he's fine?"

Patrick didn't answer. He was already dialing another number. "This is Patrick Walsh. I need to report—" He paused. "No, not missing. Not yet. My son, he's... he's in recovery, and he left the house last night without telling us, and he's not answering his phone."

Shannon couldn't hear the other end of the conversation. Could only watch her husband's face get progressively grimmer.

"Twenty-four. Yes, I understand he's an adult. But he's under our care, he's in recovery from addiction, and given his history..." Patrick's hand clenched around the phone. "His name is Ash Wilde Walsh. Medium build, about five-eight, brown hair—longer, to his shoulders. Last seen wearing..." He looked at Shannon helplessly.

"Gray hoodie," Shannon whispered. "Black jeans. His Vans."

Patrick repeated it into the phone. Listened. "Yes. Yes, I understand. We'll call if we hear from him."

He ended the call and stood there, phone in hand, staring at nothing.

"What did they say?" Shannon asked.

"Twenty-four hours. Unless there's evidence of immediate danger, they can't do anything for twenty-four hours. He's an adult. He has the right to leave."

"But his history—"

"Doesn't matter legally. Not yet." Patrick's voice was hollow. "They took the information. Said to call back if we don't hear from him by tonight, or if we have reason to believe he's in immediate danger."

Shannon felt something break inside her chest. "He's been clean for twenty-six days. He was doing so well. Why would he—"

"I don't know."

"He promised. He said he'd wait."

Patrick sat down beside her on the bed. They stared at the open window together.

"Maybe he just needed some air," Patrick said, not believing it. "Maybe he went for a walk."

"At night? Through the window?"

"Maybe he'll be back soon. Maybe—"

Shannon's phone rang.

They both jumped. Shannon scrambled for it, nearly dropping it in her haste. Unknown number.

"Hello?" Her voice cracked. "Ash?"

"Is this Shannon Walsh?" A woman's voice. Official. Clinical.

"Yes. Who is this?"

"This is St. Mary's Hospital. We have your son here. He was brought in by ambulance approximately twenty minutes ago."

The room tilted. Shannon gripped Patrick's arm hard enough to bruise.

"Is he—" She couldn't finish the sentence.

"He's alive. But you need to come down here right away. He overdosed. They're stabilizing him now, but—"

Shannon didn't hear the rest. The phone slipped from her hand. Patrick caught it, pressed it to his ear.

"This is Patrick Walsh. We're coming. We're coming right now."

He ended the call. Looked at Shannon.

"He's alive," Patrick said, and his voice shook. "He's alive."

Shannon couldn't move. Couldn't think. Could only replay the words he overdosed over and over in her head like a skipping record.

Twenty-six days. Twenty-six days clean. Twenty-six days of doing everything right.

And here they were again.

St. Mary's Emergency Department at 7:30 on a Sunday morning was relatively quiet. Patrick and Shannon ran through the automatic doors still in their pajamas and robes, not caring, not thinking about anything except getting to their son.

The nurse at the desk looked up. "Can I help—"

"Ash Walsh," Patrick interrupted. "Our son. They called us. He overdosed."

The nurse's expression shifted to professional sympathy. "Let me check." She typed something into her computer. "He's in Bay 4. I'll take you back."

They followed her through the double doors into the organized chaos of the ER. Machines beeping, curtains drawn around beds, the antiseptic smell that Shannon had learned to associate with the worst moments of her life.

Bay 4. The nurse pulled back the curtain.

Ash lay on the bed, oxygen mask over his face, IV in his arm, monitors tracking his vitals. His eyes were closed. His skin was too pale, lips slightly blue at the edges.

Shannon made a sound that might have been a sob. Patrick caught her arm.

A doctor appeared, young, female, exhausted-looking. "Mr. and Mrs. Walsh?"

"How is he?" Patrick's lawyer voice, clipped and controlled.

"He's stable. We administered Narcan at the scene and again when he arrived. He's breathing on his own now, which is good. We're monitoring for complications, but I'm cautiously optimistic."

"What did he take?" Shannon asked.

"Toxicology is still processing, but based on presentation and response to Narcan, we're looking at opioids. Likely heroin or fentanyl. His friend said he found him unresponsive around 6 AM."

"Friend?" Patrick's voice went hard.

"Jordan Reeves. He's the one who called 911. He's out in the waiting room if you want to speak with him."

Shannon stared at her son's unconscious form. At the machines keeping track of his too-slow heartbeat. At the evidence of failure written across his body.

"Can we stay with him?" she asked.

"Of course. We'll be moving him to observation once we have a bed ready. He'll need to stay at least until tomorrow for monitoring."

The doctor left. Shannon and Patrick stood on opposite sides of Ash's bed, neither touching him, neither speaking.

Finally, Shannon reached out and took his hand. It was cool. Limp. She squeezed it gently.

"I found you," she whispered. "I found you again."

Patrick's jaw worked. "I'm going to talk to Jordan."

"Patrick—"

"I need to know what happened."

He left before she could argue. Shannon was alone with her son and the steady beep of the heart monitor and the awful, crushing weight of déjà vu.

This was the third overdose. The third time she'd stood in a hospital watching him breathe with mechanical assistance. The third time she'd wondered if this would be the one they didn't come back from.

Twenty-six days. Twenty-six days and they were right back where they'd started.

Shannon closed her eyes and prayed—not to God, not really, but to whatever force in the universe decided these things. She prayed that this would be the last time. That somehow, someway, they'd find a way through this that didn't end in death or prison or losing her son completely.

She prayed for a miracle.

She didn't know yet that the miracle would look like a nightmare, or that the choice she'd make in a courtroom three weeks from now would haunt her for the rest of her life.

For now, she just held her son's hand and waited for him to wake up.

Patrick found Jordan in the waiting room, slumped in a plastic chair, still wearing yesterday's clothes. He looked up when Patrick approached, and something like guilt flashed across his face before settling into defensive wariness.

"Mr. Walsh—"

Patrick grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. A nurse started to intervene, but Patrick's look stopped her.

"What happened?" Patrick's voice was barely above a whisper, but there was violence in it.

"I don't—he just—I woke up and he was like that—"

"Don't lie to me." Patrick shoved him back into the chair. "What. Happened."

Jordan's eyes darted around, looking for escape, finding none. "He came over last night. Just to hang out. I swear to God, Mr. Walsh, I didn't know he was gonna use—"

"He's been clean for twenty-six days. He wasn't using."

"I don't know what to tell you, man. He asked me for it. Said he needed it. I tried to talk him out of it, but you know how Ash gets when he wants something—"

"You're lying."

"I'm not! Ask him when he wakes up. He wanted to use, Mr. Walsh. I'm sorry, but that's what happened."

"Did you give him drugs?" Patrick's voice was deadly quiet.

"He brought his own. Or—I don't know. Maybe he had some on him. I was asleep, I didn't see—"

"You expect me to believe that?"

Jordan spread his hands, defensive. "Believe what you want. I'm just telling you what happened. He came over, we hung out, I went to bed, and when I woke up he was ODing on my floor. I called 911. I saved his life, actually, so maybe you should be thanking me instead of—"

Patrick's hand shot out and grabbed Jordan's shirt, yanking him close. A nurse gasped. "Don't you dare—"

"What? I'm serious! If I hadn't called, he'd be dead right now!"

"If you hadn't invited him over—"

"He chose to come, Mr. Walsh. He snuck out of your house. He chose to be there. I didn't force him to do anything."

Patrick shoved him back hard enough that Jordan stumbled. "Get out. Get out of my sight before I do something I regret."

Jordan straightened his shirt, eyes hard now instead of guilty. "Whatever. Tell Ash I hope he's okay."

He walked away, not running, taking his time.

Patrick stood in the waiting room, chest heaving, security hovering nearby, and felt something fundamental crack inside him.

Jordan was lying. He had to be lying. But he'd said it with such conviction, such certainty. And the worst part was—it was plausible. It was exactly the kind of thing Ash had done before. Snuck out, gone to a using friend's place, convinced himself he could handle it, made a catastrophically bad decision.

Patrick stood in the waiting room, chest heaving, security still holding his arms, and felt something fundamental crack inside him.

Twenty-six days. His son had been trying. Had been clean. And someone—

No. Not someone. A friend. Someone Ash had trusted enough to go see. Someone who'd thought shooting up an unconscious person was helping.

Patrick's lawyer brain started working through the implications. The probation violation. The fact that Ash had left the house, lied about where he was going, put himself in a situation where this could happen.

The fact that Ash would say it wasn't his fault, that Jordan did this to him, just like he always had an explanation.

The fact that Jordan said Ash had asked for it. Had wanted it. Had chosen it.

And Patrick didn't know who to believe.

No—that wasn't true. Patrick knew the pattern. Knew the excuses. Knew that every single time before this, Ash had sworn it wasn't his fault, it was just bad luck, just this one thing that went wrong.

But he also knew his son. Knew when Ash was lying and when he was telling the truth. Had seen the genuine effort of the past twenty-six days.

And he didn't know. He genuinely didn't know.

Patrick let security release him. Walked back toward Bay 4 on autopilot.

His son had been trying.

And it hadn't mattered.

Patrick didn't know yet about the Fresh Start Initiative. Didn't know that in three weeks, a judge would give them a choice they never wanted. Didn't know that he'd be the one to say the words that would change everything.

For now, he just walked back to his son's bedside and stood next to his wife and wondered how many more times they could survive this before something broke for good.

The answer, as it turned out, was zero.

This was the last time.

One way or another, this was the last time.