Jeremy's POV

A throbbing pain in my ears started hammering at me until I was forced to crack my eyes open and lift my heavy head off the pillow.

It was that fucking smart watch reminding me to take my meds. As I tried to coordinate my hand to press the red button, I could hear Benjamin groaning from the other side of the room, sprawled out on his bed.

I didn’t remember drinking that much. But the memory of the previous night was blurry. As soon as the ringing stopped, any coherent thought slipped right back into oblivion.

When I woke up again, it was to the commotion of footsteps and doors slamming. This time, when my head jerked up, I managed to focus on the room.

Benjamin was still crumpled up in his bed. The source of all that noise, however, was towering over me.

"Mphf... What time is it?"

"Eleven-oh-three," Lucas said, showing me the time on his phone screen. "Want to know how many calls you missed too?"

I buried my face back in the pillow. "I didn’t hear the alarm."

My brother Drake said something, but I couldn't catch it.

"What?"

The two intruders exchanged a worried glance.

"Are you gonna tell us what's going on or do we have to guess?" Lucas asked, his voice sharper than usual.

But Drake didn’t need me to confess anything. One look was enough. "Are you serious, Jeremy? You’ve been here a week and you’re already breaking the rules? How much did you drink last night?"

The nausea twisting my stomach grew even heavier. "It wasn’t... I didn’t mean to drink that much," I mumbled, struggling to sit up.

Lucas quickly masked a disappointed look, but I'd been trained all my life to catch even the faintest signs of disapproval.

Drake was furious. "Do you even realize how stupid you’ve been?"

"I didn’t mean to..." I stopped, unable to come up with an excuse that didn’t sound ridiculous even to myself.

Lucas stopped my brother before he could launch into another tirade. "Alright, alright, I think he gets it."

"Clearly he doesn’t get it! How are we supposed to trust—"

They started arguing. If it stayed verbal, Drake would win. If there was one thing my twin and I shared, it was a sharp tongue.

But Lucas wasn’t in the mood for arguing. Months of gym work, combined with his natural size, allowed him to drag Drake out the door and lock him out.

While they were distracted, I hurried to open my drawer and popped a pill into my mouth before Lucas found an excuse to count them and realize I had skipped my morning dose.

My beloved boyfriend turned the key, ignoring Drake’s swearing from the hallway. Then he took a deep breath.

"Jey..."

"I know... I’m sorry. It won’t happen again."

"What happened?"

I couldn’t help a quick glance at Benjamin. His breathing seemed a little too fast. If he was sharp enough to fake sleep, the hangover hadn’t hit him nearly as hard as it had me.

Lucas caught the direction of my thoughts immediately. He moved closer, sitting next to me without making the bed sway.

"Is he going to be a problem?" he whispered, nodding toward the white-haired boy.

Undoubtedly.

Benjamin was everything I should have avoided: unstable, sporadically cruel, and completely lacking any self-preservation instinct.

"I can handle him."

Lucas eyed my rumpled clothes and messy hair. "Swear to me you’ll stick to the doctor’s instructions from now on."

I was ready to answer without hesitation, but a soft, mocking laugh from the other side of the room interrupted me.

Lucas didn’t find it funny. He stood up.

"Lucas, don’t—"

"If you’re going to fake sleeping, you should at least stay quiet."

Benjamin opened his eyes, abandoning his act altogether.

"Something funny to you?" Lucas took a step forward. It wasn’t easy to get him angry, but once he decided he didn’t like someone, it was hard to change his mind.

Benjamin sat up with much more grace than I had managed. Clearly, he could hold his liquor better than me. "Oh, don’t mind me. It just made me laugh that... you think a pinky swear is enough to make your boyfriend tell you the truth. That’s really cute."

Lucas was not appreciating the mockery. "Jey doesn’t lie to me."

I felt an involuntary smile tug at my lips.
Jeremy lies. That truth would never change.
But Jey doesn’t lie to Lucas. Not anymore.

And to my brother. I thought reluctantly.
And to my sister. I added, even more begrudgingly.

It was so hard to be a good brother and a good boyfriend.

"Leave it, Lucas. I told you, I can handle him. And I swear I’ll follow the doctor’s instructions to the letter from now on."

Lucas turned back to me. His worried look hadn’t faded. "Jey, there’s something else we need to talk to you about."

I didn’t like that somber tone. My head still hurt too much for difficult conversations.

"What happened?"

"Nothing bad!" he rushed to reassure me. "It’s actually good news. But... we wanted to talk to you first because..."

That good news seemed to weigh on him, almost bending him like an old man.

"We got an offer for the band. Actually, Tony got us the offer. There’s this pretty popular indie band about to tour the US. They asked us to open for them."

"Oh!" That was a big step for Restart. A perfect launchpad. Drake must have been over the moon. "Congratulations."

"Yeah..." Lucas came back to sit on my bed, head hanging low, shoulders tense.
"We’ll be gone until January."

"Oh." Of course. It was a tour. They would leave and not come back for months.

"We all agreed that we won’t go anywhere if you’re not ready."

I felt a familiar, old rage flare inside me. I recoiled quickly, my back hitting the wall.
"What’s that supposed to mean?! I’m not part of Restart. It’s not me who needs to be ready—"

"You know what I mean! The doctor said separation—"

I clapped my hands over my ears. I didn’t want to hear it.

The doctor had said I could handle small separations, but anything more extreme could trigger a regression. They knew it and they still wanted to abandon me.

"Jey..." Lucas gently touched my wrist and moved my hand away.
"We’re not going anywhere if you’re not ready."

I wanted to cry.
There was no future in my mind where I would ever be ready for something like this.
When would I ever be ready to be abandoned forever by everyone I loved.

It’s not forever. It’s just four months. One, two, three, four. A perfectly reasonable time for an adult to be away from their family. They weren't asking for something crazy. They’d worked hard for years for an opportunity like this, and I would deny it to them?

I couldn’t.

But I couldn’t plaster a smile on my face and pretend I was happy for them either.

I took a deep breath, bracing myself to face the panic twisting my tongue.

I was terrified, convinced I would be left alone forever. I thought they were just looking for an excuse to get rid of me.

No.

No one wanted to get rid of me. None of this was about me. They wanted to live their dream. That’s all.

And if they became famous, I would have to get used to things like this.

I didn’t feel ready now, but I would be. I couldn’t see the situation clearly now because I was sick. But Borderline Personality Disorder wasn’t a death sentence. It didn’t have to last forever.

Early diagnosis, proper treatment, a safe support network—
With all that, symptoms could lessen over time, even disappear beyond diagnostic thresholds.

I had an early diagnosis.
I was following my treatments.
I had a safe social network.

I wasn’t ready now. But I would be ready.

But Restart’s chance was now. Could I really deny them knowing there might never be another?

"Okay, I’m calmer," I announced, knowing Lucas had been closely following my internal meltdown.
"I need to think about it. I’m going to take a shower."

"Alright." Lucas smiled and grabbed my hand before I could escape to the bathroom.
"Whatever your answer is, we’ll be okay with it. And we’ll still love you."

They’ll still love me. It was such a sweet thing to rediscover every day— even if it was torture to forget it again every night.

"I know." I bit my tongue as I headed to the bathroom.

Everything changes. Everything gets better. But I would never quite kick the habit of lying.