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He would have been well suited to that lifestyle. The swishy, fey, mildly sinister cousin who dispensed witty bons mots and ominous warnings to a virtuous heroine from his ambulatory chair.
There you go again, he thought. Casting yourself as the side character. That man really did a number on you. The voice, he realized, sounded rather a lot like Jordan. The knowledge came with a pang of guilt that twisted his empty stomach into a facsimile of indigestion. Each time he thought back to that awful fight, the things he had said, he inched closer to the possibility that he had been wrong. But this was a notion he was unwilling to explore further at present, and so he turned his pillow over and buried his face in the cool side until he drifted off once more.
Will was vaguely aware of the sound of the door to the bedroom opening, but then there was nothing. It was only when Margo spoke, jolting him fully into consciousness, that he knew she had been watching him from the doorway.
“Have you eaten today?” she asked.
“Not hungry,” he mumbled.
“Oh. That’s a shame.”
Silence.
“I was just thinking I might make rarebit.”
More silence. Then: “With the…”
“Gruyère and truffle? Yes. But on reflection, it’s probably a bit heavy. Not to mention excessive, making it just for myself. Perhaps I’ll just make do with a tea cake.”
Will’s head lifted ever so slightly from the pillow, an ordnance map of creases running river-like down his cheek.
“I might actually be a bit hungry,” he said, realizing even as he made the pronouncement just how true it was.
“OK.” Margo didn’t stray from the door.
“And rarebit might help.”
“Fine,” she said. “But I expect you to shower before you come downstairs. The smell in here is threatening to ruin my appetite.”
* * *
•••••••••
Will stood under scalding water until he was certain he had scrubbed away every inch of the sweaty film he had acquired, then stood there some more for good measure. Once he was lobster red and had shed at least one layer of skin, he threw on a clean hoodie and sweats and ventured downstairs, where he wolfed down lunch with a hunger that he hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever.
Afterward, he curled up on the sofa with his phone, watching YouTube videos and taking occasional sips from a pint of water. Margo looked like she was about to say something but then didn’t, probably having decided that having him downstairs, showered and fed, was better than leaving him upstairs to fester.
Sometime around four, the doorbell rang, and a moment later April walked into the living room, lunging forward and trapping Will in a fierce embrace. Will returned the hug, patting April’s back appreciatively, until it became apparent she was in no rush to release him from her asphyxiating affection, and he was forced to extricate himself with a heaving backward push.
“That was from Jordan,” she said solemnly.
“Oh. Right. Well, thanks,” said Will, still catching his breath and suppressing the by-now-familiar clench in his gut at the sound of that name. “And well done on a successful delivery.” He did not believe for one minute that Jordan had told her to give him a hug. It was peak April to try her best to smooth things over, but she couldn’t Parent Trap Will and Jordan into coming to terms.
“What are we watching?”
“Brandy. The beagle. She’s an amputee. Brandy the amputee beagle.”
“That sounds…super healthy for you.” April clambered onto the sofa next to him and, after a few seconds of staring blankly at the screen, relented and dug into her pocket for her glasses. “This video is from 2009?”
“Yeah.”
“And it looks like it was aggregated from an earlier source. That’s how these things work, you know? None of the videos on ImportantAnimalNews are actually ‘news.’ They’re clips that have been reappropriated and packaged more neatly.”
“So?” Will asked impatiently, irked at his attention being drawn away from his dear new friend Brandy.
“Nothing,” April said. “It’s just that…that dog is probably dead by now.”
“What?” Will felt a tightening in his chest, and April’s eyes widened as she realized just how gravely she had erred.
