“How’re you feeling?”Blake hedged.“Are you crying?”
“No,” Celeste lied, voice thick with tears.They reached under their glasses with a tissue, dabbing at their reddened eyes.“This is a really moving part of the game.”
Blake glanced at the television, wherein the player character was hurling fireballs at a pixelated skeleton.“Uh… huh.”
He figured that Celeste’s tears had to do a lot more with Ryan’s absence than with the presence of spooky skeletons.
“I wanted to check in on you,” Blake said, stepping into the pit.“You uh.You need anything?”
Celeste gestured towards a pile of fresh Gatorade bottles and saltines lying next to them on the couch.“Oh no.I’ve got everything I could ever want,” they said with no small amount of sarcasm.
Blake felt a little bad for them and abandoned the idea of asking for a ride the next day.They were in no condition to be awake, let alone be asked for more favors.
“Pleasetell me you guys spent the rest of last night getting up to something less depressing thanthis,” Celeste said, pausing the game and gesturing to themself.Bonbon huffed a little in his sleep.
“Well, we ate pancakes, went out to a shooting gallery in Old Sac, and then came home and went to sleep,” Blake left out his and Marin’s intense make-out session and the subsequent disaster of the merman’s transformation.He wasn’t super keen on divulging that information to Celeste.
“Thenpromiseme you’re going to do somethingactuallyfun eventually!”Celeste groaned.
“I mean, we went out last night, but we were planning on taking a train out to San Francisco for the day tomorrow—” Blake began, but was cut off by another exaggerated groan from Celeste.They reached under their glasses to pinch the bridge of their nose.
“Ugh, screw that,” they told him.“Take my car to SF.Its old as fuck, but it gets great mileage.”
Blake blinked, taken aback by Celeste’s sudden turn towards philanthropy.“You sure?”
“Screw it, why not,” Celeste shrugged, pulling the blankets over their head.Bonbon and Kerby slid along with it.Celeste’s muffled voice rang out from underneath the covers: “You can leave your bike in the garage for the next few days as insurance.Just don’t crash my car or I’ll bury you alive, bitch.”
“Thank you, that’ll be a huge help,” Blake told them, patting the blanket pile in the approximate area that Celeste’s back was.
There was a pregnant pause before he asked:
“You really think he’s going to disappear, huh.”
It wasn’t a question.
“What makes you say that?”Celeste asked, voice thick.Peeking out from under the covers, they rolled over to face the back of the couch.Bonbon and Kerby rotated along with them, jammed in between the backrest and Celeste’s legs.The younger dog managed to wriggle free, climbing up onto the back of the couch and making himself comfortable while Bonbon floundered around for a moment before righting himself with a grumpy huff.
“Look, we both know you’re not the most generous person on the planet,” Blake told them.Celeste sniffed, but didn’t say anything else.“Did you find something else out, or—?”
“Look, I—!”Celeste blurted out, shoulders hitching up in defense.After a moment, they began to lower.Celeste reached up to remove their sunglasses, turning them introspectively between their fingers.“Yes.I did… hear something.”
Blake perked up.“About what?”
“I finally heard back from Paul Aberley this morning,” Celeste admitted, their voice wavering.
Blake was about to inquire further, but Celeste’s forlorn demeanor immediately slashed his excitement.Blake waited quietly for them to continue.
“I don’t have many details, he was super cagey in his e-mail…” They trailed off before adding in a mutter: “I’m actually waiting on another response, so hang out here until I hear back from this guy.”
Blake waited quietly for them to continue.He watched as Celeste flipped the sides of the shades in and out several times.
“And not only am I feeling like shit because of what I found out from this Paul guy, but… maybe I also feel like shit for baiting you into kissing Marin,” Celeste mumbled.They pulled their knees close to their chest, curling into a miserable little ball.“I know he’s remembering stuff, but digging through all those obituaries yesterday made me realize that I really had no idea what I got us into.
“I’m not… I’m not a good person, Blake,” they admitted in a quiet voice.“I mean, you’ve probably figured that out by now,” they added with a tiny laugh, although there was no humor in it.“I’ve done all sorts of scummy crap my whole life, but…”
They clicked the sides of their shades closed one last time.“But this is the first time that someone’slifehas been on the line because of my shitty actions—and he’sa really wonderful person.And not only that, but—”
At last, they glanced over their shoulder, the whites of their eyes tear-pink.
