what right had you not to let me die?
fandom: all for the game pairing: jeremy knox/jean moreau title: julien baker - favor word count: 7.2k !! warnings: suicide attempt, discussion of suicide !! AO3
Jeremy sends Jean a text when he’s leaving Lyon.
Just a quick: “hey, u up?”
Because Jean is at home sleeping off the migraine he woke up with. He insisted he would be fine after a nap so Jeremy is heading back to the lofts to see if that is true or if he needs to take Jean to the medical centre and get him a slip to get out of classes for the day without Rhemann coming down on his head. With a gentle and fatherly pat because Rhemann doesn’t know how to be firm when it comes to Jean. Something about his fearful wild animal tendencies and Jeremy is pretty sure Rhemann hasn’t gotten over Jean expecting him to strike him with his own racquet.
He’s a nice guy, he doesn’t want his players to fear him. So he sent Jeremy off without much hurrah and well wishes for their ex-Raven.
Cranking on his radio, Jeremy throws his car into reverse and pulls out of the parking lot and heads off along the familiar route that will take him to Jean.
Something in his chest squeezes thinking about it but he shakes his head, wet hair and all, and forces himself to tighten all his muscles in groups and relax them completely. One of the few things from his therapist’s bag of tricks that he actually remembers to implement in his life. Usually when he can’t sleep.
But it works and he cruises along the path he could map out in his sleep. He sings along to a song he knows and with the window rolled down he’s sure a few bystanders shoot him weird glances as he passes but he doesn’t look so he’ll never know.
He pulls up to the lofts and parks his car, taking a minute or so to finish the song that’s playing. He wonders if Jean can hear him from inside, maybe off-key singing is his alarm clock today.
Letting himself into the apartment, Jeremy tries to be a bit loud so that he doesn’t surprise Jean. He dumps his keys into the brass bowl Laila found at the flea market and they clang loudly, metal against metal. He doesn’t bother toeing off his shoes because there’s no one around to see and Jean won’t tell.
He pulls a can of coke out of the fridge and rips into it, happily gulping down the tingly carbonation as he quenches his thirst in a way that Jean would not approve of. He leans against the counter and fingers through the sticky notes and scribbled lists. He still can’t make out Cat’s handwriting even after knowing her for so long.
It’s mostly just groceries and a menu for the coming week, he guesses, so Jeremy discards the information as nothing important and proceeds down the corridor once he’s finished his coke.
He sidles up to Jean’s door and lifts a hand to knock. He doesn’t do it particularly hard but it’s still loud enough that it would wake Jean up if Jeremy’s elephanting around the apartment didn’t already.
“Jean,” he tries. “How’re you feeling?”
After a solid forty-five seconds of no response, Jeremy knocks again. “Did you take some Tylenol after the girls left?”
Still nothing.
Jeremy goes to open the door, twisting the knob and finding resistance in the form of something very solid and heavy. It takes a few shoulder-to-the-door thrusts but Jeremy clears enough space for him to wriggle in and find that Jean had pushed his dresser up against the door.
Casting his gaze across the room he finds Jean curled up in bed, looking as if he’s sleeping with his back to Jeremy. But there’s no way he’s actually asleep because he’s a light sleeper and Jeremy just made a hell of a lot of noise just to get into the room.
“Jean?” he asks again. “How’s your head?”
Silence.
Something sinks from Jeremy’s chest to his feet at record pace.
“Jean?”
He’s up against the bed now and he reaches out an arm to wrap his hand around Jean’s shoulder and give him a soft shake.
“Wakey wakey.”
He shakes him harder.
“C’mon, you’re really starting to freak me out.”
Jean doesn’t move. He doesn’t grumble or lift a hand to push Jeremy away. He just lies there in the same position and that’s when Jeremy realises he’s too still.
He knows from sharing a room with him enough that Jean is a fitful sleeper, addled with nightmares he won’t talk about and insists don’t come for him in the dark. But they’re there and he wakes easily. Something is very wrong.
Jeremy shakes him again.
Nothing.
He sticks his hand under Jean’s nose, heart in his throat as he waits to feel the brush of air that never comes.
There’s a snap in Jeremy’s brain.
“No, no, no, no, no,” he mutters, voice climbing in pitch as he grabs Jean under the arms and pulls him from the bed. “You don’t get to do this to me!”
Jean’s limp form hits the ground hard and Jeremy tries to be gentle as he puts his head down but he’s shaking all over and he can’t feel his fingers.
This time he hovers his face over Jean’s nose and mouth and splays a hand on his friend’s chest. Begging to feel something, anything, but there’s no movement.
“Fuck!”
He knows what to do, he audited a health class in his first year at USC and maintained his first aid certification after that. It’s a useful skill but not one he thought he would ever have to use. Not here. Not now. Not with Jean.
Locking his fingers, one hand over the other, he pushes the heel of his palm against Jean’s sternum and pushes down hard.
He makes it to thirty compressions and pulls his hands back, leaning down and positioning Jean’s head appropriately. Tilted back so that his tongue isn’t blocking his airway, jaw forward, he checks in Jean’s mouth but finds no obstruction. He doesn’t know why but Jean isn’t breathing and something in him tells him that it’s all his fault.
Taking a deep breath and pressing his lips over Jean’s he pinches the backliner’s nose and pushes the air from his lungs into Jean’s twice before rising again and resuming compressions.
There’s a pop as Jean’s rib breaks under his palms. Then another.
His eyes burn and the tears that haven’t started to fall are making it hard to see. Watery and warped, light catching but Jeremy can still see Jean’s slack face and his unmoving chest and he wants to throw up but nothing will come.
“Not you too,” he begs. “I can’t lose you too.”
The tears fall.
They splash on his hands as he starts sobbing, breath catching and choking him. He breathes for Jean again. He presses down again. Rinse and repeat. But this isn’t shampoo, this is Jean’s life and Jeremy’s scared he’s fighting a losing battle.
He should call an ambulance, maybe they can help, but he can’t stop, if he stops he will fall apart and Jean will die. He’s not sure he could even type out the right numbers right now, between his drowning eyes and trembling hands, buttons are probably beyond him.
“Come on, Jean. Come on!”
He breathes for him. Two breaths ripped from his lungs and handed to Jean on a bloody and mangled platter. He would tear himself to ribbons if it just meant that Jean would take a breath.
And he does.
Jean’s chest hitches under Jeremy’s hands and he convinces himself he imagined it but it happens again and suddenly Jean is moving, pushing Jeremy away and curling up on his side.
He wheezes a few times before throwing up unceremoniously into a puddle at Jeremy’s knee. It soaks through Jeremy’s jeans but he doesn’t even care. He falls back onto his heels and gasps around ugly sobs as they break free from his ribcage and force their way up his throat.
A few seconds pass and Jean rolls away from Jeremy, onto his back with his arms at his sides but his eyes are open and he’s breathing heavy.
“Fuck you, man,” Jeremy says, voice strained and cracking from crying.
Jean doesn’t say anything but he looks at Jeremy with those cold gray eyes and enormous black pupils.
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
His voice is raw and rough when he speaks so quietly that Jeremy almost misses it. “Why didn’t you let me die?”
—-
Jean picks at the hem of his shirt while he waits for Jeremy to fill out the paperwork the nurse gave him. He’s being discharged today after three days of being cooped up in the psychiatric ward under a two-person-twenty-four-hour observation period. They got him into therapy, he didn’t talk much. They gave him medication, he reluctantly took it. He spent the days wishing he had succeeded.
Something has been eating away at him for the days since his attempt. That Jeremy had been the one to save him. Maybe he should have planned better because Jeremy hasn’t said a word to him since then.
Cat and Laila swung by on the first day before he was moved upstairs to bring him some clothes and fuss over him. Cat cried and held him like he was going to slip through her fingers in an instant and Laila kept a stony expression betrayed only by her red eyes. Jeremy stuck around until Jean was admitted to the ward and visitors were no longer allowed. But he didn’t speak, he just sat in the chair next to Jean’s bed and typed on his phone for hours.
An apology burned on Jean’s tongue but he didn’t have the strength to voice it, it would be a lie to say he was sorry when he didn’t regret it. He only regretted Jeremy finding him.
He knew about Noah and he still went through with it because his pain outweighed his reasoning. He didn’t think far enough ahead, couldn’t imagine Jeremy finding him. Somehow in his mind it was a victimless crime. He would find peace and his friends would find life unburdened.
When Jeremy stands up and hands the clipboard back to the nurse he gives her one of those fake smiles he’s so good at and it makes Jean’s stomach twist. Jeremy’s eyes are so dead. Moreso than when they are vacant, like when he talks about his family, there’s something there behind brown irises but something has killed it and Jean fears that it was him.
He knows it was him.
The nurse comes over and talks to the two of them, explaining things that went over Jean’s head because he is too busy trying to catch Jeremy’s eye. There is a tense set to his shoulders and he fidgets with his car keys in hand. Once the nurse leaves he picks up Jean’s duffel of clothes and sets out of the room and down the winding path of corridors.
They stop at the hospital pharmacy and Jeremy picks up Jean’s prescription before setting off wordlessly again, expecting Jean to follow him. And he does, he trails listlessly after his partner with a sick kind of gnawing in his chest.
Jeremy guides him out of the hospital and into the parking lot, to the second level where his car is parked. He unlocks it with the fob and puts Jean’s duffel in the trunk, maybe a bit too roughly to be dismissed but whatever words Jean has for him die in his throat when he sees the half-blank half-apocalyptic look on Jeremy’s face. So he climbs in the passenger seat and buckles himself in and hopes the drive goes quick.
More than anything he wishes he was dead right now. It would save him from the tense air and the pain of surviving.
“Kevin’s plane lands in five hours,” is the only thing Jeremy says for the whole drive home.
Guilt closes off his throat and he claws at his skin. Kevin knows. Kevin knows that he broke his promise and he’s coming to punish Jean.
He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to make everyone worry. He didn’t want to destroy whatever light Jeremy had left in his eyes that he fought so hard to keep after his brother died. But he did and now he has to deal with the fallout.
He needs to apologise to everyone, Jeremy especially, but he can’t find the strength to say anything so he just stays silent.
They pull up to the lofts and Jeremy gets out of the car and retrieves Jean’s bag and Jean just numbly follows after him and up the stairs to the apartment.
Cat is cleaning in the kitchen when Jeremy opens the door and she drops whatever dishes she was washing in the sink and comes flying over to the two of them and wraps her arms around Jean’s middle, burying her face into his chest.
After a little while she leans back and smacks him on his arm. “You scared the shit out of me!”
Jean just blinks down at her owlishly, apology stuck on his tongue and he can’t force it between his teeth.
He makes words happen eventually but it’s not what his friends need to hear from him, just, “I’m going to go lie down.”
“I took your door off of its hinges,” Cat says as she lets go of him and steps back. She has a fierce look in her eyes that tells Jean she doesn’t regret it for a second. “If you’re going to stay here we have to be able to make sure you’re safe. No compromises.”
“Okay,” Jean says lamely and lifts a hand to pat Cat on her head. That gesture makes her smile softly but there’s still an expansive sadness to her features.
“Laila is in the shower but I’m sure she would love to see you when she’s done,” Cat explains as Jean drops his hand.
He doesn’t say anything and just keeps looking at his small backliner friend.
“Maybe later,” she says eventually. “There’s leftovers from lunch in the fridge, or I can fix you up something else if you’d like.”
“I’m not hungry,” he says as he steps around her and walks to his bedroom.
True to Cat’s words, his door is leaning against the wall of the hallway and the hinges are bare. It’s not ideal but it’s Jean’s price to pay for failure.
He takes off his shoes and dumps the laces he was handed back upon discharge on his nightstand, not having bothered to rethread them. He just lies down in his bed and folds his hands together over his stomach as he stares up at the ceiling.
There’s a lot to contemplate but his thoughts are a blurry mess of pain and regret so he just stares and thinks of what he will say to Kevin when he arrives. Maybe he will have to beg for the striker’s forgiveness. Kevin deserves at least that much for promises broken.
Laila doesn’t come to see him when she’s done in the shower, probably still too wound up to face him but Jean doesn’t mind; he doesn’t know what he would say to her if she came.
Cat comes by after a short while with a plate of food. She sets it down on Jean’s nightstand next to his discarded laces before plonking herself on the end of his bed where she sits with her legs pulled up to her chest and wraps her arms around her knees.
“The team is really worried about you,” she says after a bout of silence. It is probably hard for her to figure out what to say to him without ruining his fragile mood. The team is a neutral topic for the most part because there’s less guilt there. They have enough backliners so his absence wouldn’t be felt too deeply.
Jean wants to say that their worry is misplaced but his words fail him so he just lies there, mouth shut but he digs his fingers into the tender spot where one of his broken ribs is and drinks in the pain it elicits.
“Cody will want to talk to you when you’re feeling up to it. They’ve been tearing themself to shreds for days about it. Everyone’s really worried, especially Rhemann, he’s making us all see a counsellor with USC and really emphasising that we can always call him. Jeremy’s been staying at his place for the past few days,” she says. “Hopefully it helps, he’s not been himself at all.”
Jean had noticed that. The eerie silence and stiff set to his mouth. Something in Jeremy was broken, probably irreparably by Jean and just the thought of it made Jean’s heart crack.
It’s guilt. Swelling up inside of him until he can’t breathe. The therapist in the psych ward made him write letters to everyone he’d hurt with this but he’d scribbled them all out in frustration. Maybe he needs to try again, write something for Jeremy to tell him how badly he didn’t mean to hurt him like this because he wasn’t strong enough to put a voice to it.
The silence smothers everything.
Cat sat and talked to him for a bit longer, about recent drama in the group chat and at practice. She just barely touched on the sombre mood of the team lately before backtracking and trying to act like she hadn’t said anything. She is walking on eggshells, desperate to not make Jean feel bad for what he did but also wanting to make him feel like he was wanted more than he knows by everyone.
It’s hard. There’s a lump in his throat.
“Xavier sprained his ankle the other day so you’ll have someone to sit with during practices while your ribs heal. He is not impressed at being sidelined again but he should have thought about that before going too hard.”
She mentions how they withdrew from the game on Friday as a means of giving the team time to acclimate to the news and Jean’s absence. Jean thinks it was a monumental waste of effort, they could have taken home another win but instead they were all at home twiddling their fingers.
Cat eventually gets up and leaves Jean to his own devices, probably to check on Laila and Jeremy, making sure that everyone in the house is okay and not just their basket case.
Jean dozes a little and wakes up when the front door shuts heavily. He rubs the heel of his palm into his eye and blinks slowly as he sits up.
At some point Jeremy had left and come back with a guest in tow. The last person Jean wanted to see now stands in his doorway, dark hair ruffled and green eyes wide, chess piece on his cheek.
Standing up Jean braces for a punishment that never comes.
Instead Kevin crosses the bedroom and wraps him in a bone-crushing hug that makes Jean’s busted ribcage light up like a Christmas tree. Jean’s arms hand limply at his sides as his fingers tingle with the pain shooting down all of his limbs from his middle and he can feel Kevin shake.
“You promised,” Kevin whispers in a dreadfully torn voice after a few long silent minutes.
“I’m sorry.” It’s Jean’s first apology for the whole ordeal and he finds himself shocked at how deeply and truly he means it. He is sorry. He’s sorry he did it, he’s sorry he hurt Jeremy, he’s sorry he broke Kevin’s promise, he’s sorry he scared everyone, he’s sorry he destroyed his friends’ trust in him. He’s sorry.
“I can’t lose you,” Kevin murmurs into Jean’s shoulder, holding him for dear life. Suddenly Jean is back in the nest after the last time he tried to leave this world with Kevin plastered up by his bedside, begging him to live and making him promise he wouldn’t cut his life short.
But the walls are white and there’s a window above his bed and Jean is older now, Kevin too, but somehow they’re both still teenagers, both still grieving themselves and each other.
“I’m sorry,” Jean says again. This time he brings his arms up to wrap around Kevin in turn.
—-
Kevin sleeps on the floor of his bedroom that night.
They don’t have an air mattress or anything so he sleeps on some blankets with a cushion from the couch as a pillow. He doesn’t complain, just lies down next to Jean’s bed and tries to get comfy on the hard floorboards.
Jeremy sleeps at Coach Rhemann’s house again. Jean’s chest aches, the heaviness in his heart outweighing the pain of cracked ribs shifting with every breath.
They lie in the darkness for a while before he speaks softly. “Why’d you do it?”
Jean doesn’t dignify his question with a response, pretending to be asleep even though he knows Kevin knows better than to believe that.
“Jean,” he tries again.
“I don’t know.”
Kevin huffs and Jean can hear him roll over, able to see the frustrated crease to his forehead even in the dark with his back to him. “You can’t just do that and not know.”
Moments pass in uncomfortable silence, Kevin’s gaze in his direction an unbearable weight. “I was hurting,” Jean says finally.
“Who hurt you?” Kevin asks. There’s something in his tone Jean can feel but not place. Anger, maybe? No, it’s too cold. Fear?
Does Kevin spend every moment afraid that Jean will take his life? Has Jean just reinforced this fear tenfold?
“No one hurt me.” It’s both the truth and a lie at the same time. The nest hurt him, Riko hurt him, the Master hurt him, Grayson hurt him, Zane hurt him, Kevin hurt him. But no one hurt him this time. No one did anything to him, there were no blows, no bites, no fists in his hair, and yet he still caved to the pressure. He would never escape the nest, not even across the country on the sunshine court with the California sun beating down on his face.
He would always be in that dark room with Riko’s hands around his neck.
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Something had to have happened. You were doing so well.” There’s a shift in the mattress as Kevin sinks into the end of it, behind Jean’s back.
He wants to bite back that Kevin only knows what Jeremy tells him, only knows a far too positive view of the world. Only knows a lie.
Jean rolls over and tries to look at Kevin but can’t make out more than the implication of form so he leans over and flicks on the lamp at his bedside. In the soft yellow light, Kevin’s wide eyes are impossibly green. There’s tears hanging unshed in them, the light reflects off of them gathered in his waterline.
Leaning forward, Jean crowds his space. “The nest happened.”
Kevin leans in closer too, his hand lifts to stop a few inches from Jean’s face. “Can I touch you?”
No burns on Jean’s tongue but he can’t bring himself to say it, instead he opens his mouth and “yes” falls out.
Kevin’s hand on his cheek is soft as he cradles Jean’s face. His eyes are searching Jean’s expression, anything to latch onto in the quiet dark.
“Can I—?” Kevin asks, not finishing his question. Jean nods anyway.
Kevin’s lips on Jean’s are softer than his fingertips. Jean scrunches his eyes shut against the pain such contact pulls forth from his battered body, nothing physical, entirely untouched.
Jean feels Kevin’s tears fall against his own cheeks before he pulls back. Kevin freezes, opening his eyes, lips parted with the memory of Jean.
“I— I can’t do this,” Jean finally says.
He doesn’t know what he’s done to force Kevin to do this. Coerced him with the precipice of death to connect their lips for the first time because they were almost torn apart forever and Kevin doesn’t know how to process his emotions. This is Jean’s fault yet again, he is the bomb that detonates every relationship he has, even one that is already a wreckage like him and Kevin.
Kevin retreats, his expression shuttering. “Okay. I’m sorry.” He heads back to his spot on the floor and Jean flicks off the lamp and turns his back to Kevin again, but his fingers trace his bottom lip for what feels like hours before he falls asleep.
—-
The others try to pretend they’re not actively on suicide watch but unless they’re sleeping, either Cat, Laila, or Kevin is sitting with him. But never Jeremy. He had once told Jeremy that as his partner, he is meant to be underfoot but Jeremy seems to be spending as much time keeping Jean as far away as possible. More than arms’ length. He still comes over to the apartment but doesn’t speak to Jean or acknowledge his presence between watching him with those big brown eyes that make Jean’s heart seize in his chest.
There’s something in Jeremy’s gaze that Jean can’t quite read but he tries not to think about it. It keeps him up at night.
Jean has to go back to classes tomorrow morning but he apparently has an out if he’s willing to sit in Coach Rhemann’s office. Which he doesn’t want to do because he’s still wary of the older man, especially his reaction to Jean’s unforgivable behaviour on Wednesday. Kevin flies back to South Carolina before dawn tomorrow after two days in LA, having determined that Jean is alive and safe for now. As best he can manage anyways. Jean knows he wants to stay longer but Kevin knows when he is not wanted, even if Jean yearns to reach out for him regardless.
“Jeremy,” Jean starts when it’s just the two of them sitting in the living room, Jeremy with an LSAT guide in his lap that he’s pretending to be really interested in.
“Yes, Jean?” Jeremy answers in a tone that is too polite to be anything but a farce. It makes bile sting in the back of Jean’s throat.
“Are you mad at me?” he asks.
“No, Jean,” Jeremy says before turning the page in his guide and lapsing back into silence.
Jean doesn’t know whether or not Jeremy is lying to him because Jeremy doesn’t lie to him but at the same time Jean doesn’t believe him. It seems like Jeremy can’t stand to be around him yet can’t stand to be apart either. They’re some fucked up idea of partners right now and Jean wishes he could just undo everything and go back to the way they were.
He misses Jeremy. He misses having his partner. Kevin is a poor substitute for the connection they’ve built here.
Above all else, Jean wishes he was dead.
—
The next morning Jean sees the outside of the apartment in the form of the gold court. He is sidelined from practices until his ribs heal but Cody still crushes him in a hug the second they see him, ignoring how he gasps in pain.
“What the fuck, man? I’m glad you’re okay,” they say.
Trying to breathe around the pain in his chest, Jean brings up a hand to awkwardly pat them on the back. “I’m okay,” he affirms even though he doesn’t feel it. He knows it’s what they need to hear.
“I just—” they lean back and look up at his face. He can’t see his own expression but he wonders if it’s stony or everything in his mind is laid bare. “When Jere called Laila and she told us you were in the hospital I was so worried. Never,” they point an accusatory finger into his chest just above his heart, “do that again. Got it?”
Jean just hums and lets Cody hug him again, squeezing them back and putting his head atop theirs. Which seems to help their mood.
“Are we having a cuddle pile?” Xavier asks as he walks over to the defense line’s lockers, eyes inquisitive as they search Jean for any sign of ailment. Jean isn’t sure what he finds but there’s a worried set to Xavier’s expression that does not go away.
“Please no,” Jean pleads as Cody finally lets him go.
Cat sighs from further down the line. “He’s got busted ribs, guys. Handle with care.”
“Jesus,” Xavier says, leaning against the locker behind him. It’s now that Jean spots the bandage on his ankle and the crutches under his arms. Sprained ankle, Cat had said, it looks bad. “Did Jeremy do that to you?”
Jean cringes at the accusation but he doesn’t defend Jeremy. It’s the truth after all. Jeremy broke his ribs saving his life no matter how badly Jean wishes he hadn’t. He just didn’t realise how much the team knew about what transpired on Wednesday morning. Did Jeremy tell them about how he found Jean unresponsive and had to breathe and pump his heart for him? Do they resent Jean for putting him through that like Jeremy himself seems to?
“Accidents happen,” he says finally and Xavier’s eyes don’t leave his face.
“Glad to see you up and about,” he says after a few beats of silence Jean didn’t know how to fill. “Sitting out of practice with me then?”
Jean just nods.
“We’ll make the best of it.”
And Jean believes him. Xavier smiles brightly at him and claps him on the shoulder before turning and heading back to his own locker on the dealers’ line.
Jean is treated to a lot more pats on the back and a few—albeit gentler—hugs as the rest of the team fills in and they all get a good look at him. He doesn’t imagine it felt like a short time for them between now and when they saw him last if they were all as worried about him as they seemed to have been. Jean doesn’t know what to do with the emotions that stirs up.
While the rest of the team gets changed and heads to the court, Jean and Xavier get relegated to the bench with the coaches. Jean doesn’t miss the way Coach Rhemann’s gaze lingers on him but tries to brush it off although the weight of it makes him shiver.
They make it a solid fifteen minutes into the practice before Rhemann finally comes over to Jean with a quick “walk with me.”
There’s no option but to follow instructions so Jean stands up and trails after him.
Once they get far enough away from everyone else, halfway to the locker room, Rhemann stops and turns to Jean with an expression that is all kinds of torn open. He puts his hands on Jean’s shoulders and levels a look at his backliner. Jean can see his smile lines and the start of crow’s feet when they’re up this close to each other.
“Are you okay?” Rhemann asks, voice dripping in the same concern everyone else has regarded him with. Everyone except Jeremy who has been uncharacteristically cold, but that’s Jean’s fault so he cannot hold it against his captain no matter how much it hurts.
Jean nods. “I’m okay.”
Rhemann sighs. “Say it like you mean it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” he cuts in. “Just promise me it will never happen again.”
“I—” Jean starts. “I can’t do that, Coach.”
Sighing again, Rhemann moves one of his hands to pat Jean on the cheek. “There’s a lot of people around here who care about you too much to see you do that to yourself, kid.”
Jean just nods. His “yes, Coach,” numb on his tongue.
“You’re giving me grey hairs.”
Jean doesn’t understand that part. He looks up and the coach has plenty of silver hairs peppered in at his temples. Most of them, at least there since before Jean transferred.
“Sit with me,” Rhemann says and gestures to the bench nearby before sitting and patting the space next to him. Jean obediently follows his orders. “Can you make me a different promise?” he asks.
“I’ll try, Coach.”
“I told everyone else this but you weren’t here for it so I’ll repeat myself. You can always contact me if you’re struggling with anything. I’m here to help, so let me help. I don’t care if you’re just lonely and need someone to talk to and feel like you can’t go to Jeremy, or Cat, or Laila, or anyone else on the team. I want to hear from you before it gets to that point from now on.”
Jean wants to tell him that his concern is misplaced, but he can’t find the words to do so. Truthfully he yearns for Rhemann’s approval and to see him so upset over something Jean did makes him ache. He wants to do better. He needs to do better.
“I’ll try, Coach.”
“Thank you, Jean,” he says. “Have you had much contact with your therapist since it happened?”
The hospital set Jean up with a psychiatrist as well as video appointments with Dobson every day he was there. He didn’t have sessions with her over the weekend but she texted him to check in and reminded him that they have an appointment for 10am today. When he will be in the library with Travis between classes. “Yes, Coach. We have a session today.”
“Good to hear it. You can regroup with Xavier now, thank you for talking with me.”
Jean stands up and takes a few steps before stopping and turning around to face his coach again. “Is Jeremy okay, Coach?”
Rhemann rubs his palm on his thigh before speaking. “To be honest, he’s really struggling. Maybe sit down and have a talk with him today, okay?”
“Yes, Coach.”
Making a shooing motion with his hand, Rhemann waves him off. “Hurry back, I know Xavier wanted to speak with you.”
Jean just nods and heads back in the direction of the court.
He finds Xavier easily, the co-captain not having moved from the bench the entire time Jean was gone. He looks up upon Jean’s re-entry and smiles at him. “How was your talk with dad?” he jokes.
“Insightful,” Jean says.
“Good.”
Jean sits next to Xavier again and stares through the plexiglass at the court. Jeremy misses the ball that is passed to him and it bounces away from him until Pat scoops it up in his net and passes it to someone on his own team. He glances over at Xavier’s crutches. “How’s your ankle?” he asks.
“Better than it was when I twisted it. The swelling’s mostly gone down now.”
“That’s good,” Jean hums.
They lapse into silence once again.
Until Xavier breaks it with a “why’d you do it?”
The same question Kevin asked him. The same question Jeremy wouldn’t.
“I don’t know.” There is no way to explain it that could ever make sense, just the overwhelming need Jean had to die. He was tired.
“I get that,” Xavier says. “Y’know, I tried it too. Ages ago now, but I was in a really dark place when I was fifteen.”
That revelation is a shock to Jean, Xavier has always seemed so sure of himself, so unshakable. “What?”
“Yeah.” Xavier leans back and crosses his injured foot over top of his other. He doesn’t look at Jean as he speaks. “Took a bunch of pills and went to bed. Woke up the next day and had a killer headache for two weeks. Never told anyone, though. Until now.”
“Why’d you do it?” Jean turns his question back on him.
“I guess same as you, I don’t know. I can try to blame it on any number of things, parents didn’t accept me, a friendship breakup with my best friend, a budding eating disorder. All true and all factors but somehow they didn’t really cause it, just kinda helped it along.”
Jean doesn’t know what to say.
“I guess what I’m saying is that I’m always here to listen. And that I get it a bit more than you might think. I’m sure everyone’s given you this spiel already but maybe it’ll make a difference coming from me now that you know this.”
“Thank you,” Jean says, his voice small. He can’t bear to look at Xavier.
“Anytime.”
—
Jeremy is sitting alone in the living room, barely looking at his open textbook and Jean takes that as a sign to make amends or at least try to patch up the chasm that has opened up between them. “Can we talk?”
“I’m a bit busy right now,” Jeremy says without looking up, “maybe later.”
“Please?”
Jeremy puts his textbook down and looks at Jean.
“Please,” Jean says again.
“Okay.” Jeremy sits up straighter and gives Jean his attention but he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. It’s now that Jean notices the dark circles under his eyes, has he been sleeping? Is he having nightmares? Is it yet another thing that is Jean’s fault? “What is it?”
Jean wants to throw up into his hands and show it to Jeremy as proof that the guilt is eating him alive, but he doesn’t. Instead he asks, “how are you doing?”
“I’m good,” Jeremy says with a soft smile that isn’t fooling anyone.
“Tell me the truth.”
“Jean.” Jeremy taps his fingernail on the cover of his LSAT book. “I swear I’m good.”
The lie stings but Jean swallows it. “You’re not angry with me?”
“I’m not angry with you,” he lies again.
“Coach Rhemann said you were having a hard time.”
“I’m better now that you’re home and doing better.”
Jean wants to tell him that he is not doing better, that he still wishes he was as dead as he was before Jeremy found him and pulled him back from the edge, but he doesn’t. He bites his tongue and smiles and nods. It feels like a knife twisting in his gut.
Jean tries to be the one being honest in this conversation and he’s overdue for an apology for his hand in Jeremy’s current foul mood so he offers up a measly, “I’m sorry if I scared you.”
It hurts to say because it’s such a weighted sentence but it simultaneously doesn’t feel like any measure of enough to atone for his sins. He put Jeremy in an impossible position and made him relive the worst thing to ever happen to him. He poked and prodded at Jeremy’s wound until it was open and bleeding again and then he just left it and expected it to suture itself closed. Jean is a terrible friend and he needs to amend it before it kills him.
Jeremy waves him off. “Water under the bridge.”
Jean knows he’s lying. He’s on the fence as to whether or not Jeremy knows that Jean knows he’s lying. He would be upset with Jeremy if he wasn’t so upset with himself. He wraps an arm around his middle and pokes at a tender spot, relief coming with the spark of pain. He turns and walks to his bedroom where he sits on the bed for what feels like hours, hoping Jeremy will come to him.
He’s undone so much progress, it used to be that they never lied to each other and now Jean isn’t sure that Jeremy has told him the truth at all since he swore at him while kneeling in a puddle of vomit with tears streaking his face.
—
Standing in the bathroom, Jean stares at his bruised chest in the mirror and pokes a long finger into the purple mottling of his skin. It’s tender and his breath catches if he pushes hard enough but it helps to clear his mind.
He lines up his thumb with the one on his right side and pushes inward until he can’t help but gasp.
“What are you doing?”
“I–” Jean says, startled as he whirls to the now wide open door that had only been ajar a few seconds ago. Jean hadn’t seen his approach in the mirror.
Jeremy crosses the room and snatches Jean by the wrist, ignoring how he flinches. “Don’t do that.”
“Leave me alone.” Jean shrugs off his touch and yanks his shirt down to cover the bruising. He can’t handle Jeremy pretending he cares, not now. Not when he’s ruined everything and made Jeremy hate him in the same way he hates Kevin for making him stay alive.
“No, I won’t.”
“What do you care?” Jean bites, tucking his arms behind his back and stepping away from Jeremy until the small of his back hits the sink. He can’t go any further but he’s still within Jeremy’s armspan. He knows Jeremy won’t lift a hand against him but he still prepares for a blow that never lands.
Jeremy steps closer, hands outstretched like he wants to touch Jean. “I won’t stand by and let you hurt yourself.”
Jean recoils. “It’s none of your business.”
“Yes it is,” Jeremy takes Jean’s hand and holds it to his chest. Jean can feel his hammering heart beneath his skin. “I’m your partner.”
“I didn’t think we were anymore,” Jean admits slowly.
Jeremy honestly looks floored as he turns his stunned expression to Jean. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“You haven’t wanted anything to do with me. I destroyed our friendship.”
“You didn’t destroy anything,” Jeremy says. “I was just trying to cope, Jean.”
“You wouldn’t talk to me.”
“I was scared you hated me for saving your life!” Jeremy’s voice climbs to almost a yell but as soon as it’s past his lips Jeremy drops Jean’s hand and retreats from his space. Offering him some chance at escaping this conversation that has him cornered.
“I did and I still do,” Jean’s voice drops to a whisper, “but I want you in my life.”
Jeremy’s eyes are wide and honest. It’s his turn to bear his soul. Raw and bloodied from grief. “I’m sorry, Jean. After losing Noah like I did, finding you like that was a bit much for me. I didn’t mean to shut you out when you were hurting too.”
Jean’s eyes fall to the floor, too scared to meet Jeremy’s gaze.
“Jean?” Jeremy tries, reproachful.
“I’m so sorry.” Jean wants to cry but the tears won’t come, his eyes just sting as he stares at his socks. They’re blue and yellow.
“Just, can you do something for me?”
“Anything,” Jean vows without lifting his head.
“Can you make a new promise, this time with me? Don’t kill yourself, Jean. I know it’s selfish but I can’t lose you too, not at all but especially not like that.”
In shock, Jean looks up at Jeremy who has laid himself bare in this bathroom, his hand extended, palm upturned as if begging Jean to take it.
“Promise me you won’t do it.” He’s years away looking at Kevin as he begged him of the same thing. He broke that promise but there’s something in Jeremy’s haunted brown eyes that makes him want to keep this one.
“I promise.”
