“Max.” Oscar’s words are soft. “Come on. Stop torturing yourself.”
Jake waits at the end of the hall, his arms crossed and a furious look on his face. Theo’s already gone, taking out his anger on the trees out front.
“She shouldn’t be alone on Christmas.” I say it quietly, still watching her. “We said we wouldn’t leave her alone.”
I feel him step up beside me. “We’ll be back by six. Two hours to have some dinner. And… we need to reset. You haven’t left here in four days. You need a damn shower.”
There’s steel beneath the softness. “We’re no good to her if we fall apart.”
And it feels like we’re falling apart. The small hints of optimism from those first weeks have vanished into an endless cycle of rinse and repeat.
And she’s still here.
I force my eyes away. My words croak. “I really thought—,”
I thought – fucking stupidly – that she’d be home for Christmas. Maybe even Thanksgiving. Held it in my head, even as the date crept closer and Kenny slipped further away. Even as Thanksgiving came and went, I still held onto that fucking hope. I’d have a whole week to spend with her, without having to leave for work. It had to do something.
But it’s donenothing.
“I don’t want to go back without her. Not today.” Any steadiness in my voice is gone. “It feels like giving up, Oz.”
Oscar grips my shoulder. “Come on. Food, and a shower. You’ll feel better. Joel is watching on the cameras. He’ll call me if there’s any update.”
Joel’s one of the more decent staff here, but it doesn’t make me feel better.
“Wait.” I turn over the package again, before stretching my hand through the gap and placing it on the tray. My voice raises, enough so she can hear it. “Merry Christmas, Ken.”
When I don’t move, waiting for a response that isn’t coming, Oscar slowly slides it shut.
The drive back to the house is silent. Jake’s knuckles are white on the wheel as Theo sits beside me, silently flexing his own shredded hands. Oscar’s tension bleeds out, even as he shifts, clears his throat. “One hour. We shower, we eat –together- and we go back to Kenny.”
He’s trying to hold together a pack that’s breaking apart at the seams. But I know he’s on the edge too.
We all linger in the empty kitchen. Jake pushes himself away, the chair scraping as he vanishes.
Oscar slowly moves toward the fridge. “I’ll… fix us something. Go shower.”
It takes a long time. As if I’m trying to rebuild a wall on shifting sand, pulling myself together piece by piece in sections that no longer quitefit.
There’s no tree. None of us bothered, not when we’re barely here to see it. The living room is a mess of cups and paperwork from the research Oscar forces himself through before he starts work every night.
Jake and Theo linger in the hall. When I step up behind them, Theo turns. His face is a mask of pain. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What—,”
I hear it, then. A shuddering, choked sob that cuts off as I push through to step inside.
Oscar doesn’t look up. His cheeks are wet, his glasses on the floor beside him where he sits with his back against the cabinet.
“I need a minute,” he rasps. He scrubs a hand over his face. “Just – just a minute.”
I don’t say anything. Oscar presses his heels into his eyes. “Sorry.”
He’s spent months taking care of everybody else. Forcing us to eat, to sleep, to fucking wash, working all the hours under the sun and still finding time to fight for Kenny. We’ve all leaned on him, and he’s taken the weight over and over again without a single complaint.
And in that moment, I realize that not one of us has done the same for him.
When I ease down to sit beside him, he pulls in a long breath. “I’m going to do food. We need to – to get back.”
