Page 2 of The Quiet After The Fall

He glances at me, then holds out the pack of Marlboro reds. I take one, let him light it, and pull the smoke down slow.

“Thanks, man.”

He nods, and takes out his phone, scrolling the screen so he doesn’t have to hold a conversation with me. I’m grateful.

I blow out a shaky stream, watching it dissipate into the air. I haven’t smoked in years. Not since college, when I’d stand outside the library at two in the morning telling myself I was fine. I’m not fine now either, but at least this gives my hands something to do.

The first drag doesn’t help me settle. The second one takes me somewhere else—it’s the smell of it, something about the char, and suddenly, I’m not in this parking lot. I’m suspended a hundred feet in the air, and there’s metal grinding, lights flashing, and there’s Sawyer’s hand and Owen’s scream.

A car door slams across the lot.

I flinch hard enough that ash drops onto my suit jacket. The valet pretends not to notice me acting off, but I see him give me the side eye. I’d crack some kind of joke and thank him for his graciousness if I had it in me.

I stand there until the shaking slows, and as the cigarette burns down to the filter, I let my mind wander back to the night I should have fought harder. The night eight months ago, when my father dropped a fucking nuke on me and let me handle the fallout.

Owen was already at the table when I walked into my parent’s house. He had a glass of wine in one hand, his phone in the other, grinning at something on his screen. So at ease. So Owen. It was always like the walls of my parent’s house didn’t suffocate him the way they suffocated me.

That was the difference between us.

He hadn’t noticed the last three months of my father’s conversations getting shorter, more clipped. Hadn’t noticed the invoices stacking up, the employees growing wary, the contractors with their watchful eyes. And he really hadn’t noticed the extra bottles of whiskey left in our father’s garbage can.

Owen existed in this family like a visitor. Warm and happy, everything surface level, never carrying any of the weight.

And why shouldn’t he be happy? He got to graduate college. He worked a normal job. And most of all, he had Sawyer.

Apparently, my father had decided he could live with their relationship, as long as Owen didn’t shove it in his face. He never even fucking told me when it became serious. I had to piece it together on my own.

I dropped my keys on the console table and ignored Owen for now. I kept moving toward the kitchen, where I could already hear my mother.

She was transferring takeout into serving dishes when I found her. Containers with herbed chicken, sauteed vegetables, and mashed potatoes were lined up on the counter next to our good platters, the ones she brought out for company. I observed her for a moment, watching her hand movements, the shuffle of her feet. She seemed lucid. Maybe it was a good day.

“Hey, Mom.”

She turned and gave me a half smile, reaching up to touch my cheek briefly. “Knox. Why don’t you go sit down? Your father will be out in a minute.”

I looked at the plates and the work she was putting into the presentation. Such an effort to put on the performance of a normal family having normal family dinner.

“What’s going on? Dad wouldn’t say.”

She handed me a dish to carry and turned back to the counter.

“Go sit down,” she said again, quieter this time. “Please.”

Okay then.

I carried the dish to the table and took my usual seat across from Owen. He glanced up from his phone long enough to acknowledge me with a nod, then went back to scrolling.

“You know what this is about?” I asked.

“No idea.” He didn’t look up. “Dad just said dinner. I’m hoping it’s quick. I have plans.”

Whatever plans he had weren’t with Sawyer. I knew she had a late shift at the hotel that night.

I reached for the red wine already open on the table and poured myself a glass, watching my brother for a moment. So relaxed, so easy. A small smile played at the corner of his mouth while he typed something. Probably texting Sawyer. I took a long sip of wine, willing it to loosen my tight chest.

It was clear Owen didn’t want to make small talk, so I pulled out my phone too.

The app started up, and I breathed out when I saw her little blue dot at the hotel, exactly where she was supposed to be. I stared at it a beat longer than necessary, then locked my screen and set the phone face down on the table.