Free When He Fell by Kate Hewitt Page A

love you, no matter what. Nothing will ever change that.” I take another deep breath and rest my hand on his shoulder. He feels so small and vulnerable beneath my hand. “We want to help you. And to help you, we need to understand.” I pause. “Did you push Ben?” I ask in a slow, clear voice.
    Slowly, so slowly, Josh nods. His eyes fill with tears and he lowers his head, his chin jutting his chest as he gives a loud sniff. “Oh, Josh.” Tears prick my eyes as I pull him into a hug; he doesn’t resist and I rest my chin on his head, his body melting into mine. “I’m sorry. So sorry. I know you didn’t mean to. I know it was an accident.” My heart aches as I think how he has been trying to bear this alone. “I know you must be worried about Ben,” I tell him, my arms still snugly around him. “Maybe we can visit him in the hospital. We can call his mom, at least, and see how he’s doing. I’ll ask Dad—”
    Josh wriggles out of my grasp. “No,” he says, and his voice is firm, startling me with its tone of finality. “No,” he says again, and then he turns back to his Lego book.

7

MADDIE
    That night I get another text from Lewis:
I heard about Ben. I’m so sorry.
    I stare at the words, torn between feeling pathetically grateful that he’s finally reached out to me, and angry that it’s just a text. After all the time we’ve spent together, the four of us, after what has happened to Ben, the hugeness of it, he sends one measly text?
    Then another comes through:
What can I do?
    And I have no idea how to answer that question. I know what I want him to do, what I wish
he
wanted to do, and I know none of it is possible. But I can’t text him back, telling him things are fine, that he’s not needed. Because he is. He
is.
So I slip the toss phone aside without texting anything.
    I hardly sleep that night. The silence stretches around me, worse than any noise Ben ever made. Lying there alone makes me realize how much noise Ben usually makes. Even at night, when he is sleeping, he is loud. He snores; he sighs; he tosses and turns. With only a few feet and one paper-thin wall between us, I hear everything.
    Now I wish I could hear those noises that annoyed me so much. I wish I could hear Ben’s dirty clothes being tossed on the floor, cereal being scattered across the kitchen counter as he helps himself to a late night snack. I wish I could be hassling him to take a shower, to turn off the TV, to speak in an inside voice. Except I wouldn’t hassle him at all. I would hug him and tell him how much I loved him, how important he was to me. Because I know now I didn’t say that nearly enough.
    A little after five I finally get up, having only dozed for an hour or two at most. My eyes are gritty, my body aching, and I feel light-headed with fatigue. I still haven’t answered Lewis’s text. I wish he hadn’t asked me; I wish he’d simply acted. I wish he’d dropped everything and come racing to the hospital for me, for Ben. But he didn’t, and I know he won’t. It was never like that between us, except in my head, in the forbidden fantasies I indulged in every so often, because that’s all I’ve ever had. Fantasies.
    I shower and dress and am just locking the front door when the door to the apartment next to mine opens, and my neighbor steps out, bumping into my shoulder hard.
    “Oh, sorry,” he exclaims. “No one’s usually out here at this time in the morning. Are you okay?”
    I rub my shoulder and nod. “Yeah, I’m fine.” My neighbor is a runner. I’ve never learned his name in the five or so years he’s been in the building, but I’ve secretly nicknamed him Spandex Man for the impressive amount of Lycra running gear he wears when he goes out for a jog. He has the lean, kind of stringy build of the diehard runner, and his brown hair is cut short so it is bristly on top. We’ve never spoken beyond a few murmured pleasantries about the weather when we’ve shared the elevator.
    Now he