The fight with your mom had been bad—worse than usual. Not yelling-in-the-kitchen bad. This one ended with you locking yourself in your room and her storming out of the house altogether. The air still felt cracked, like the walls remembered every word.

Kevin showed up without asking. He’d gotten used to not asking.

You were on the floor against your bed when he walked in, knees pulled to your chest, sleeves hiding your arms. The faint smell of weed hung in the air, stale and heavy.

“Hey,” he said softly. His voice was a strange mix—careful, but also like he’d rehearsed it in the car and still wasn’t sure it would land.

“Hey.” You didn’t look at him.

He stood there for a few seconds before sitting down on the floor in front of you. “You didn’t answer my texts,” he said, not accusing, just stating.

You shrugged. “Didn’t feel like talking.”

He ran a hand through his hair, chewing his lip like he was drumming an invisible beat in his head to keep from exploding. “I’m worried about you,” he said finally. “Like… actually worried.”

You exhaled, the kind of laugh that wasn’t really a laugh.!“Yeah, well, get in line.”

That’s when he said it—quiet, but firm. “I’d rather lose somebody than use somebody.”

The words didn’t just hang in the room—they dug in. You stared at him, because you couldn’t tell if he was warning you, protecting himself, or trying to save you.

“I’m not using you,” you said, but your voice cracked in the middle.

“I know you’re not doing it on purpose,” he said quickly. “But… when you get like this, when you disappear into the smoke or… into your head, I can’t always reach you. And I—” He stopped, jaw tightening. “I can’t be the thing you hold onto just because everything else feels like it’s falling apart.”

It hurt, but you knew he wasn’t wrong. You wanted to tell him about the way your family could turn every small thing into a battlefield, how sometimes the silence afterward was worse than the fight itself. You wanted to explain how the weed wasn’t about fun anymore—it was about breathing without shaking, about shutting the noise out. You wanted to tell him that the marks on your arms weren’t about wanting to die, but about wanting to feel something you could control.

But all that came out was: “You think I’m hurting you.”

He shook his head. “I think you’re hurting, and I don’t always know how to help without losing pieces of myself. And I want to help. I want to be here. But I also… need you to want to be here too.”

The silence after that wasn’t sharp anymore—it was raw. Heavy, but shared.

Kevin slid closer, resting his back against the bed beside you. He didn’t touch you right away, didn’t force it. But eventually, your hand found his, and he took it, fingers closing over yours like a drumbeat keeping time.

You still didn’t know if you could promise him you wouldn’t sink again. But you knew you didn’t want him to leave. And for tonight, that was the thread you held onto.