Free Here for You by Skylar M. Cates

that done.”
    “Wait!” Cole shook his head. “Wait. This is all going too fast! Brendan can fight this!” he looked at them all, his eyes wild with grief, even as Brendan’s parents ignored his outburst. “He can! He’s strong, and doctors don’t know everything. They make mistakes. If he’s left on the machines and given some time—”
    “Stop.” River held up a hand. “He’s gone. Don’t you get it, Cole? He’s fucking gone already.” His eyes glittered like marbles, his fists clenched. Then he tore out of the waiting room at breakneck speed.
    A little while later, Tomas approached them. “We’d like to visit with him too,” Tomas said to Brendan’s parents, tears streaming down his cheeks freely. “Say our good-byes.”
    “Brendan has his family,” his father said. “We’ll take care of him.”
    “Because you cared so much about him all these years?” Marc snapped, and then stopped when Tomas laid a hand on his shoulder.
    Marc buried himself in Tomas’s arms. Brendan’s mother and father walked stiffly away, looking years older than they had when Ian first saw them only hours ago.
    “They don’t know everything,” Cole repeated.
    He stared at Ian, and Ian stared back, a lump in his throat.
    Cole hid nothing. Ian could see it all on his face: hope, misery, love.

C HAPTER N INE
     
     
    B RENDAN ’ S FOLKS , after spending time with Brendan in ICU, relented and let in Cole, Tomas, and Ian to see him. River was long gone from the hospital, but Marc was still there, raging and too worked up to go into Brendan’s room. They were only allowed in two at a time. Tomas went first. Cole knew he’d stroke Brendan’s fingers, talk to him in that gentle deep voice of his, maybe take a washcloth and bathe his face. Tomas focused on asking the nurses questions, not intimidated by the loud machines or patients wheeled by them. Cole wanted to go in and steal Brendan away. He wanted to take him home.
    Brendan had struck his head less than twenty-four hours ago. How was that even possible?
    Cole buried his anger better than Marc, but he couldn’t meet Brendan’s mother’s gaze, not since she’d dismissed him. Brendan’s parents—a couple who’d never visited, though they lived not far away, and rarely called as far as Cole knew—now decided when they, Brendan’s truest friends, his brothers, could see him. The friends had no rights. Neither did Brendan. His parents had signed to turn off his breathing machines and still decided not to donate his organs.
    Fuck them. Cole knew that Brendan would have chosen to fight, to live. He loved those shows on television where medical miracles happened. He was the most optimistic, positive person Cole had ever known, and he would have wanted more time, at least to try. Okay, maybe he’d never be the same, but River had to be wrong. Brendan might still be there deep down, somewhere.
    Cole brushed away a tear. Tomas, looking ashen, appeared out of Brendan’s ICU room.
    “You two should go in.”
    “Do you want me to wait?” Ian asked softly. “Would you like to go in alone too?”
    Cole shook his head. For some reason, he wanted Ian next to him. Ian had a quiet strength about him, and Cole was ready to fall to his knees.
    They could see Brendan through the glass window of his ICU room, but it wasn’t the same as going in and seeing him up close. Cole looked numbly at it all. His gaze swept over the machines, beeping incessantly, the tube sticking in Brendan’s mouth, another connected to his nose. He didn’t know what any of them did exactly, but he knew they would be removed soon. Cole stared at Brendan’s chest rising and falling. If he only looked there, and nowhere else, Brendan might simply be asleep.
    “Hi, Brendan. It’s Ian.” Ian touched the side of Brendan’s face. Cole wished he could talk too, but words jammed in his throat. He walked closer and took Brendan’s hand, careful of his IV.
    Brendan’s curled fingers were cold. His hair