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My phone was heavy in my hand, and I stared at the screen, gripped with the sudden urge to call my mum. I’d been independent of my family for so long that it wasn’t an impulse I dealt with often.
Ruthlessly, I pushed that down because I knew what she’d say.
She’d never really understood why I was so firm in my resolve to stay alone, chalking it up to a child’s fears that would ease as I got older. Except they hadn’t.
That’s the thing about our fears. They don’t magically disappear unless you’re willing to face them, and this was the one thing in my life that I’d never been able to look squarely in the eye.
The house was quiet when I entered, and I had to wrestle past guilt over likely missing Mira’s bedtime. There were sounds coming from upstairs, and I decided not to interrupt, especially if Zoe was winding her down. Imagining Zoe’s annoyed expression if I got Mira ramped up right before bed took a corkscrew to my heart.
How was it possible to crave something so simple?
That’s how I should’ve known I was arse over tit for that woman. I wanted her ire. Her irritation. The fire she seemed to spit atmealone. It was a heat I’d never felt from anyone else, and with slow, steady tending—moments and days and months and years—an addiction to it had been born.
I found myself heading down the hallway and past the playroom, then slowly pushing open the door to the office. The room was dark, the walls covered with family snapshots in black frames next to candid shots of Chris’s career.
A masochistic part of me wanted to stand there in the dark and study them. Let the pain of the moment slice me open. Analyze my friend’s face from the pieces of his past.
But I didn’t.
The box sat on the corner of the desk, and I took a deep breath before ripping off the tape.
There was stupid shit from his locker: mouth guards and eye black and a sleeveless shirt left behind from his last day at the facilities.
My fist grasped on to that shirt so tightly that my fingers shook, and with slow, methodical breaths, I was finally able to set it down.
I’d underestimated the anger I still held inside over the senseless way they’d died, something carefully locked away where I refused to poke at it.
And I still refused. In that moment, I knew better. It snarled dangerously, like if I came too close, it would take off a limb.
After only a couple of minutes, I thought maybe I was on a fool’s errand. That a fruitless search for some piece of clarity would leave me frustrated, leave things worse than they were before.
I made it to the bottom of the box and found nothing.
My chest felt cold and empty, and my hands twitched restlessly. I tugged open the drawer closest to me, then riffled through pens and paper clips and loose cords.
I’d left this room alone since the day I moved in, and I couldn’t quite figure out why. Maybe because it was the place that most felt like his.
I pulled open another drawer and exhaled a short laugh when I saw a bottle of whiskey, the black-and-gold label of an expensive brand. Chris rarely drank, much like me. But when we did ... this was what we shared.
Turning the bottle in my hands, I studied the way the light from the hallway came through the rich amber liquid.
Down the hallway, I could hear Zoe moving through the kitchen. A drawer opening, soft music emanating from the little speaker she kept in the corner underneath the cabinets. If I concentrated hard enough, I could probably make out the sound of her humming along.
Longing hit me like a lightning bolt, clean through from head to toe. That particular feeling—the craving for something I didn’t have—was a strange beast, something I wasn’t sure I’d ever master.
I couldn’t mold it like a muscle, hone it with a machine or certain exercises, the way I’d done with my body, with my ability to play the game.
I couldn’t discipline it into submission, because it operated on its own whims. And I was a bloody idiot for not considering how it would rule my days once I was sharing space with her.
What a fool I was.
Slowly, I uncapped the bottle, allowing the smell to hit me first. Letting the glass touch my lips, I tipped it back until the smoky warmth hit my tongue in a smooth burst.
I swallowed, keeping my eyes closed while it settled warmly into my belly.
I opened one more drawer and shifted things aside, but there was no envelope with my name on it. No scribbled handwriting, no magical explanation that would allow me to lay down all my questions.
“Fucking Chris,” I whispered into the dark room. Made these big plans for his friends but hadn’t seen fit to bring us into them beforehand.
