Welling up, he presses his forehead against the cold window.
He’s unfair. His friends would drop everything to support him if he screamed the way he feels like screaming. If they knew him at all. It’s his own fault that they don’t, and he despises himself for dreading their company.
He wipes the steam off the glass, to focus on his neighbourhood and get a grip.
Christmas and street lights are blurry through his tears, giving a bokeh effect to the background frontages. Some he still doesn’t see and some he notices every time now.
Like the North Haven and its front patio, where Loris is clearing glasses from a table.
Charles twitches and twists his neck, but they’re going too fast and the sight is gone before he can blink. Yet, a couple of screws pop out of his throat.
‘Could you please stop the car? I’ll get out here.’
‘What?’
‘Why?’
‘You know I love my walks.’
‘It’s minus twenty,’ Phil says with a grimace.
Charles shrugs and opens his door as soon as the driver pulls over. ‘Thank you for tonight, guys. I had a great time.’
‘Sure you did…’
The cold instantly pierces through Charles’ peacoat, so he tucks his scarf into his collar and whirls around to sprint down the pavement.
He’s not questioning this urge to go to the pub. He spent three daysheld down under muddy waters by the lead in his stomach, but he resurfaced the second he spotted Loris.
If there’s an explanation for it, he certainly won’t find and process it now.
Once on the empty patio, Charles dries the tears that the wind has drawn out. His breath is coming out in clouds, and he exhales a full sky of them before marching to the door to push it open. It resists, so he pushes harder, but it doesn’t budge. It’s locked. The outside lights that allowed him to see Loris have been turned off.
Charles clenches his pen and exhales more fog to remain composed. It’s alright. He can hear muffled voices inside the pub.
Six clicks, and he knocks against the frosted window.
The voices go silent for a couple of seconds, then a chirping one shouts, ‘Too late! Come back tomorrow!’
Charles pounds on the door again.
‘It’s closed, dude!’
The glass is too obscure for Charles to make out the features of the person who’s approaching, but the purple hair swinging around their face is enough of a clue.
‘Phoebe?’
‘Wow. That’s freaky.’
‘It’s Charles. I’m… I’m a—’
‘Oh.’
‘—friend of…’
A taller silhouette appears in the square of light, the latch slides with a creak, the door opens, and Charles congratulates himself for not wasting a second trying to make it make sense. There’s no rational explanation for the warmth that rushes through his veins, melting thelead and drying up the muddy waters.
‘Is everything okay?’
