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“What do you know?” I asked, my eyes closed while my mind continued a full-blown conversation with my dead best friend.
“I know you need to forget your one experience with love. Why lay your hurt at Chad’s feet?”
“Who are you talking to?” a different voice asked.
I startled, and my eyes popped open. Chad stood at my feet. I scrambled to sit upright, embarrassed beyond belief.
“No one,” I stated.
Chad’s eyes narrowed. “You were talking to Jack,” he whispered. I said nothing, avoiding eye contact. “You gave me grief when I first met you and now you’re talking to him?”
“I’m listening, not talking,” I fibbed. “I don’t talk to dead people.”
“Well, he isn’t talking to me lately,” he said sadly. “Trust me, I’ve tried listening for him,” he added. He sat on the end of the chaise.
“That’s how you do it?” I inquired. “You listen for his voice?”
“Sometimes,” he admitted. “And then sometimes I just speak to him directly.” Chad stood back up and walked to the edge of the patio before turning around. “He’s not responding to me for some reason.”
“Was that why you drove to The Hamptons?” I asked, standing. “To try to get closer to him?”
“Why are you so… so… sudd…” he began, me interrupting by raising a hand toward him.
“Suddenly interested?” I asked. “Not freaking the fuck out like I did a few months back?”
“Yeah, that. Why aren’t you?”
“Who knows?” I admitted. “Who the fuck even knows anymore?”
We stood side by side but didn’t speak. He faced the ocean, and I faced my house, leaning back against the patio railing with my arms crossed, closed off to feelings.
“Was he there? In The Hamptons?” I asked.
“How’d you even know I went there?” he asked. “That was a long time ago,” he added.
“Full disclosure?” I asked. He nodded. “I went looking for you at the hotel you worked at after missing you and wanting to get to know you better after we first met. A person there let it slip you’d gone there.”
“You liked me that way back then? Even after firing me on day one?” he asked. “You liked me enough to stalk me?”
“Yeah, enough to stalk you,” I confessed.
He moved closer to my side, nudging me affectionately. “I went to Perry’s old house to ask Jack about you,” he revealed. “For some odd reason, I’d hoped Jack might be hanging around there.”
“What’d he say?” I asked.
“Fuck all is what he said.”
I turned to him, my eyes doubled in size. “I’ve never heard you curse.”
“Yeah? Well, blame Jack the next time you hear from him. I felt I needed Jack to tell me you were the one, but he hasn’t.”
“So you’re angry with Jack?” I asked, looking into his stunning eyes. “Jack hasn’t abandoned you, Chad.”
“How do you know that?” he asked, tearing up.
“I just do,” I replied. “I don’t know how I know, or why I know, but I do.”
“So now you believe I used to hear Jack’s voice, feel his presence?”
