Caleb’s POV
The bottle was half-empty.
Or maybe it was half-full. Didn’t really matter. Either way, the whiskey burned the same going down, numbing everything the way I needed it to.
I had crashed at Ryan’s place, an old friend from school who never asked questions, never judged—just handed me another drink and kept the music loud enough to drown out the thoughts I didn’t want to face.
I hadn’t been home since that night at the hospital. Since I had seen Logan standing there, useless as me, too much of a coward to go inside and face her. Since I had realized that everything I had wanted—everything I had planned for—was gone before I even had the chance to fight for it.
And so, I drank.
The parties blurred together.
At first, it was just whiskey and beer—enough to keep the nightmares away. Enough to forget that there had been two lives inside Emma, lives that would never take a first breath.
But then, someone handed me something stronger.
"It's just to take the edge off, man," Ryan had said, pressing a small, blue pill into my palm at a party. The bass was vibrating through the walls, the room swaying under my feet.
I had stared at it, my pulse slow and thick, like my body already knew I was about to make the wrong choice.
But I didn’t stop.
One pill turned into another.
And just like that, the pain became a little easier to ignore.