"Jason, you're flying."

Peter's hands are on his face, but everything is blurred and dull now. Jason stumbles and falls back, and, for a moment, he regrets.

But then it goes dark.

And nothing matters.


His eyes open and harsh light drills into his skull. Jason winches and brings his hands up to his face to block the offending light, but a sharp tug forces his right hand back. He squints his eyes opened to stare at the hand, and he sees tape near his wrist. There is a tube coming out from under the tape, and that's when it hits Jason.

IV.

It's an IV line.

He's in a hospital.

But why?

Jason has a moment of confusion.

Then he remembers.


It's all so hard. Everything. His parents. The expectations. Notre Dame. The secrets. Ivy. The lies. Peter.

And all Jason does is mess it up.

It would be better for everyone if he wasn't there to interfere with their lives.

(And easier for Jason himself to not have to feel guilty and wrong all the time. )


Jason doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. He's alive. Somehow he'd survived.

Why was he alive?

By all accounts, Jason should be dead. He'd wanted to die. He'd taken what had been a lethal amount of GHB, and he remembers fading.

But he's not dead.

And he doesn't know what to do with that.

He remembers the minutes Before. The moment he'd decided to end it. Saying goodbye to Peter (in his own way). How he began to get confused, then dizzy and lightheaded. The look on Peter's face, the confusion that made way for horror when he finally understood what Jason had done.

Jason also remembers the regret.

When he'd been as good as dead, he took a microsecond to think about his family, Peter, Nadia, Ivy, Matt, Lucas, even Sister Chantelle, who'd always been so kind to him. And he'd realized that he didn't want to leave them.

And maybe that's the tragedy of it all, of the entire sordid affair of trying to be good enough, to be the what everyone wanted, what everybody needed, but never quite getting it right. Always coming up short, falling behind and failing so spectacularly that even the people he thought would always be there, couldn't stand him. Because even with all of that failure, Jason still had that moment of regret, and he knows it wasn't guilt. He'd wanted to stay for himself, and that's the most selfish thing Jason's ever wanted.