Sol.
Oscar.
Mal.
“Not Sol. The boat only got in an hour ago.”
I wait.
Jack frowns, catching up. “I don’t know about Mal. He went for a run and I haven’t seen him since. You think he’s okay?”
“I haven’t seen him either.”
It’s the truth. The closest I’ve come is fading steam on the bathroom mirror and the pill bottle that reappeared a few days ago—thesameday I ate three meals for the first time since I got the VO from the prison.
He can’t know that.
Hecan’t.
I don’t like the feeling that maybe he does.
Or the worry making Jack frown harder. I move closer to my friend, drawing his gaze from where it’s fixed to a spot on the wall. “When did he go running?”
Mal.
His brother.
Current occupant of all the empty space in my head. It shouldn’t be a comfort there wasn’t much to spare. But now I’m no longer caught in the vortex between hunger and a sick need for control, I find solace in Jack. I always have. His demons are different to mine, but it tears me up that the shadow on his brainhas him thinking even for a second he’s not the man he used to be.
He is.
He’sbetter.
He just doesn’t see it.
Jack wears a watch. He glances at it, considering my question. “A few hours ago, maybe? He likes to run in the dark, it’s how we trained, but I don’t know if he’s supposed to be doing shit like that anymore.”
He does know. Jack’s not as forgetful as he thinks he is. But telling him different doesn’t stop him fretting he’s not taking care of us enough. And thatus—it includes Mal now, a fact I can’t escape, even though I see zero sign of him as Jack goes back to work and I climb the stairs to the flat.
The old front door is thick enough to drown out the accordion-laced racket that tries to follow me. But the peace is fleeting. Sea breeze hits my face and I realise every window in sight is wide open.
Mal.
It has to be.
Sol’s downstairs and Sev went back to London two days ago. And Jack? He never leaves the windows open—he’s the only soul in my life who’s ever noticed I don’t like it.
The wind whips through the landing again, rattling the blinds, and the clutter of artefacts Sol has on the windowsill. It’s reason enough to slam the nearest window shut, but I don’t do it. I don’t need to, not today. Instead I move through the few places in the flat Mal might be, and come up empty unless he’s decided to hole up in Sol’s room.
Or he’s in mine.
He isn’t.
Why would he be? But as routine tugs me towards the shower, I spot battered running shoes by the bathroom cabinetand something inside me relaxes and ties me a brand-new knot all at the same time.
I can smell him in the shower. The cedar-wood soap he’s brought from wherever he came from.
You know where he came from.
