When I was little–young enough to adore stuffed animals and just old enough for the earliest hints of my personality to shine through–my grandfather had gifted me a sock monkey. He was comically oversized, questionably constructed, and hideous to the point that he was almost charming. I’m sure I would have been bullied endlessly if I’d had any other friends other than Isaac. But I loved that sock monkey, the one still sat on my bed to this day, because of how safe it had always made me feel.
I wasn’t sure there was an adult version of that. Adults are tougher. Less reliant on small comforts. More put together–well, other adults were, I was still figuring it all out. But I came to the realisation, sitting on the sofa with Thallor and Mortimer, my little black cat–the one with more emotional maturity than most of the people I knew–that maybe it was okay to feel vulnerable. Because there were people,or pets,in the world who would love me, even when I didn’t feel very lovable.
Before Maura’s death, we’d been working our way through a long list ofmust-seefilms. We hadn’t gotten around to watchingGreaseyet, and whilst it didn’t feel like the most fitting film, I was glad that we had decided to watch it. The shock that danced at the edge of Thallor’s face and the star-struck wonder I saw behind his eyes once the singing and dancing had started was enough to make me laugh. The sound that escaped me was deep and carefree, and it erupted from the depths of my soul, tugging at the roots of grief as it went.
The full-bellied sound that I’d made was enough to makeThallor laugh, which, in turn, had me laughing even more. It was a small moment. A moment that felt equally bittersweet and surreal as it did wonderful. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I felt like I might have the capacity to feel something other than the sadness lingering inside me. It had been a small step, sure. But a step forward, nonetheless.
A little over a month later, I was feeling a little more myself. The grief was still there, but little by little, it softened at the edges, feeling a little lighter and a little more bearable than it had been before.
Where Thallor had been my rock, Esme had done wonders to keep me distracted. She’d called me religiously and kept me up to date with all the Zeta Sigma Noctura gossip–something there was never a shortage of. She relayed date stories–real bodice rippers–that sounded as though they’d been pulled straight from the lines of a dog-eared romance novel. From dinners at fancy restaurants to one of the girls hooking up with a pilot on a private jet, the ZSN girls were living their best lives, and I was living vicariously through them.
When I’d asked Esme if she’d been on any dates, she’d just laughed. The sounds just a little too practiced to have me convinced. She wore her mask well, masquerading under the guise ofloving single lifebut I could hear the ache in her voice every time she spoke. Despite it all, she checked up on me daily, sent me pizza and snacks, and did everything she could to distract me.
I hoped she was doing all right in the wake of everything that had happened between her and Isaac. I mean, he had always loved her. He had since the first moment she came to town. Her blonde locks had bound into our lives, wrapped themselves around his heart, and tugged until he was hers and she was his. But sometimes loving each other wasn't enough. Butthe lines of love got a little blurred, and as unfortunate as it was, I think Isaac got a little swept up in her.
In her laugh and her child-like recklessness. In her sunshine, it felt like a warm summer afternoon. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, of course. Anyone would be drawn to a warmth like hers. I just hoped he would find himself. And when he did, I hoped he remembered his way back home, too. BecauseGod,did I miss him. I missed all of us. And with Maura gone, I felt his absence harder than I ever had before.
It had probably happened in increments, before any of us had known it was happening. But we were all young when they met, I’m not sure either of them truly knew themselves.I still don’t know my way around myself, and I’ve had twenty-two years to learn.
After much deliberation,I’d decided I needed to move out of my apartment, too. I loved the little slice of solitude that I’d come to call my home, especially since Thallor had moved in, but I needed to be closer to my grandfather. In the last two weeks, I’d done my best to stop in to make sure he was doing okay. He wore a brave face, but I knew he was coming apart below the surface.
Thallor had driven me every time I’d wanted to see him. Whether it was early morning or the dead of night, Thallor hadn’t questioned any of it. He’d also taken it upon himself to tend to the plants in Maura’s garden, so my grandfather didn’t have to. I’d questioned whether it was his demonic ability or his blooming feelings for me, but Thallor poured everything he had into that garden. Leaving no speck of soil unturned.
Although I appreciated everything Thallor had done for me,I’d pushed my feelings for him to the back of my mind. That was until my grandfather and I had returned fromSandi’son one particularly difficult morning–my grandfather had broken down in tears almost immediately, and I had just stared in quiet bewilderment at the hundreds of yellow tulips that encompassed my grandfather’s house.
“So, she always knows where home is,”Thallor had said. And just like that, I knew, I knew exactly how I felt about him. Although a part of me had always tried to ignore it–the stupid part of me, I was coming to realise–I think the love had always been there. It had taken root inside me long before I’d been aware of it, but it had finally bloomed in a sea of canary blossoms, until there was little else inside me but that.
Alongside holding me together, Thallor had also helped me with my final year presentation. Having a demon of my very own had really helped with theOccult Sciencepart of my degree. Night after night and breakdown after breakdown–of which, there were a few–Thallor would sit with me whilst I wrote, rewrote, deleted, andrewroteagain. For the most part, he had just listened, offering up the occasional counter-opinion.
Professor Caldwell hadn’t given me an extension or any special treatment for getting my thesis done. My previous description of him being a pompous jerk with a self-inflated ego had been an understatement. I was sure that if I cut him open, malice would pour out of his veins instead of blood. I don’t know whether it was me specifically or just the idea of inflicting misery on others, but he seemed to derive sick pleasure from my sadness. Thallor had offered to kill him free of charge when he’d stated that I should have been ‘better prepared for the circumstance’–although the offer had been tempting, I didn’t want to waste another thought on that sorry excuse for a man.
The more time went on, the more I felt like me. Quincey.
Gummy worms.
Old films.
Snarky remarks.
But there were still moments when the grief hit me. I’d either be in the library or walking down the street and be hit with something that reminded me of her. Either a particular flower or a song playing nearby, or if I looked up at the picture in my kitchen for too long. It was mostly just being reminded that I wouldn’t see her smile again, and or get to chat to her about boys. One in particular. But I knew that even on the sad days, I felt the way I did because of all the happy memories.
And for Maura I’d continue to make those memories. Because they were the ones that made life worth living.
Memories of fiery hair. Of red eyes and a kind heart.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Icould hear the rain pattering against the pavement as I stumbled into my apartment. As soon as I passed the threshold, I let out a deep sigh as my wet hair dripped against the hardwood floor. After several weeks of unrelenting sunshine, the rain was a much-needed change. For Darling, the weather had been uncharacteristically warm–burn your cheeks and warm up the soul,warm.I wished I could have enjoyed the weather more, but it had done little more than drain my energy and deplete my mood. Not that I thought the universe would orshouldtake my mood into account, but it would have been nice for the weather to be a little more aligned with how I was feeling.
Although I was silently jumping up and down inside for the welcome change in weather, I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for my grandfather, who had just set out on a weekend-long fishing trip with some of the men from the neighbourhood around his age. He didn’t fish, and I’m pretty sure he never had. But I understood it. The need for a distraction. The need to beanywhere but a house that held nothing but memories of Maura. Looking for some semblance of happiness when all of that was tied up in another person was hard.
I whipped off my boots with a little too much gusto, one of them pulling off one of my socks as it went. I tossed my bag on the kitchen table, and for a moment, I just stood there, taking in the black-and-white photo that was hung on my wall. Where it would have previously turned my stomach over in knots, this time, I just smiled, letting the feelings take hold of me for a moment before I turned around.
I wasn’t sure what it was that was woven into the smile that greeted me–magic, maybe. Love, almost definitely. But that smile spoke of home.No, it didn’t just speak of home.It whipped open the windows of my heart and screamed it from the rooftops. That smile spoke of slow, quiet mornings huddled under blankets. It spoke of stroked hair, yellow tulips, jam on toast, and a love I never knew I deserved.
His hair was slightly messy, the blazing red strands framing his face as his eyes met mine. The same rings of crimson I’d come to know and love, softening slightly. I often found myself lost in the colour of his eyes, the ones that had pulled me out of the darkness more times than I could count.
For a beat, I was captivated by the look he gave me before I was pulled, reluctantly, from my thoughts by the music playing in the background. You could find the opening notes in theQuincey Sterlingdictionary, pencilled in undernostalgia. Orfavourite. OrBaby.
