By Elizabeth Jane Shelton

Mateo glanced at his lock screen and huffed. They should have left for the concert fifteen minutes ago. Where was Dylan?

He dialed his friend’s number yet again, but it went to voicemail for the fourth time.

Beep!

“Dylan, come on, man! We’ve been planning this for months! I’m not going to see Orion’s Hat alone. If I don’t hear from you in five minutes, I’m going to come over there and drag you out myself, understand?” He jabbed the end call button, tossing the phone onto the passenger’s seat.

What had gotten into Dylan? This was the third time this month he’d stood up Mateo. First, the sunrise hike, then the Super Bowl watch party, and finally—the real kicker—the premiere of the final Star Ways movie. Star Ways! They’d grown up dressing like space pirates and running around Mateo’s backyard. The old Dylan would never have missed that movie.

And now Mateo’s favorite band was in town, and Dylan was a no-show again. Didn’t he know how much this meant to Mateo? What were friends even for, anyway?

Five minutes later, Mateo careened through the familiar streets of his hometown, grumbling, and rehearsing his speech to Dylan to the empty passenger seat. “First, you owe me an apology for making me late to the concert of my life, and another for making me sit through the Star Ways finale with Simon instead of you. And then you owe me an explanation as to why you’ve been ghosting me!”

Mateo was still muttering to himself as he climbed the steps to Dylan’s apartment. His plan was to pound on the door until either it broke down or Dylan answered. But when he reached the door, he paused.

Dylan’s key was sticking out of the lock.

Dylan wasn’t the kind of guy to just leave his key like that.

Heart pounding, Mateo reached out and turned the handle. The door opened freely. The lights were off, though a window let in enough sunlight to see. He retrieved the key before stepping inside.

Mateo wrinkled his nose. Half-empty pizza boxes littered the kitchen and living room, along with hamburger wrappers, crumpled cans, and silvery Pop-Tart sleeves. It was like a tornado had picked Dylan’s apartment to dump all the city’s trash into.

“Dylan?” he called. “Are you here?”

Mateo heard a grunt from the next room. He closed the front door, then stepped gingerly around the pizza boxes as he pushed his way into Dylan’s bedroom.

With the curtains closed, there was even less light in here to help Mateo navigate through the piles of dirty laundry. He could barely make out the shape of his friend curled up on the bed. “Dylan?”

Dylan groaned. “Go away.”

Mateo sniffed, noting the pervading body odor. “Dylan, how long has it been since you’ve left this apartment?” he asked, alarmed.

“I can’t go to the concert, Mateo. Just go.”

For a moment, Mateo was tempted to do just that. It was Orion’s Hat, after all.

But then he spotted the pictures on the wall. Mateo and Dylan, wearing pirate hats. In basketball uniforms. At graduation. The irritation driving Mateo drained away, and a calm certainty settled in his chest.

This was more than Dylan being lazy or selfish or forgetful.

Dylan needed help.

Without a word, Mateo began picking up stained shirts, crumpled pants, and even underwear, tossing them into Dylan’s dirty clothes bin. When it was full, Mateo hauled it back through the kitchen and into the closet that housed the washing machine. He started a load before returning to fill the hamper a second time.

After clearing the bedroom floor, Mateo retreated to the living room, where he flung open a window and took a deep breath of the cool, fresh air pouring into the stale apartment. Then, finding a roll of trash bags under the sink, he went to work on the kitchen.

After six trash bags and two trips to the apartment complex’s trash chute, Mateo returned to the bedroom. Dylan still hadn’t budged.

“This is for your own good,” Mateo warned before yanking back the curtains.

Dylan grimaced when the sunlight hit his face.

“Come on, man. You need to get up.”

“Mateo, please,” Dylan begged. There were dark circles under his eyes, and several days’ worth of stubble covered his face. “I can’t. I just can’t. You go, man.”

“No one’s going to the concert.” Mateo flung a set of clean clothes at Dylan. “You’re going to take a shower. Then, we’re going to go on a walk, and you’re going to tell me what’s going on.”

Dylan squeezed his eyes shut. “Mateo—”

“Do not make me empty a bucket of cold water on you, because so help me, if I have to smell you for one more minute—”

“All right, all right!” His sigh was so heavy it scared Mateo. Dylan stood and lumbered toward the bathroom.

By the time the shower shut off, Mateo had turned over the laundry, wiped down the kitchen, vacuumed the living room. When Dylan emerged, showered and dressed, Mateo was stripping the bed, an Orion’s Hat album blaring from his phone.

Dylan rubbed a towel through his hair and scowled. “You should have gone to the concert.”

Mateo dumped the sheets into the hamper. He nodded his head toward the door. “Come on. Some fresh air will do you good.”

Dylan scrubbed a hand over his still-stubbly face. He sighed again, his words coming slowly. “This isn’t something you can fix, Mateo.”

Mateo rolled his eyes. “Of course not. But it’s also not something I’m going to let you go through alone.” He scowled. “And you owe me an apology.”

“I’m sorry I made you miss the concert.”

“No.” Mateo gave Dylan a pointed look. “For not telling me you weren’t okay.”

Tears formed in Dylan’s eyes, and he swallowed. “Thank you,” he said softly.

Mateo clapped him on the back. “What are friends for?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Jane Shelton has loved stories of every kind since she was young, although fantasy is her favorite. She strives to write stories that are both entertaining and meaningful, and she hopes to impact others and honor her Creator with her writing. If she’s not working on a story, it’s probably because she’s writing code at her job as a software engineer.

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