Page 77 of 6 Days to Whisky

If what Tristan did was bad, he would still do it as long as there was no reason not to.

Is he really asleep?

Or …

I can’t lose him again!

Words that stamped out everything else in his brain. Not finding Tristan in his apartment had been worrying enough.

The poet who can’t be alone seeking the ghost of his dead brother in his deserted home.

Leaf knew it was mostly his guilty conscience that had made him rush up the street to Tristan’s apartment, but he had panicked. An uneasy feeling, like thick slime, spread through him, making his limbs even heavier than they already were. The fear that something might have happened to Tristan had been omnipresent since Milo’s death, but right now, it took up all the space. In a way, he was even grateful for it. It distracted him at least a little from the fact that, since waking from his fever dream, he had been in total withdrawal.

Tristan lay curled up on the couch like a cat, looking peaceful—except for all those notes. Leaf knelt beside Tristan and gently touched his temple. Tristan stirred a little, which immediately set off alarm bells in Leaf’s head. He quickly scanned the room.

No drugs.

Just a half-empty bottle of Jameson.

Half-empty.

No.

Not good.

And when he glanced at the wall again, a chill ran down his spine. So much paper. So many notes. So much text. A disturbing plan. A cancerous growth that had found its way out of Tristan’s head.

Masterful, or …

Every day without you,

a day without sun, a day without air, no life.

The art has lost its effect.

Its taste is gone.

It no longer brings me relief.