Sab’s tree isn’t on, his house and garden as dark and lifeless as mine, and it bothers me for the same reasons everything else is bothering me right now.
You care about him.
Ever considered that maybe you might love him?
I should consider it. Sober and rested, when I have a better chance of making sense of the jumbled mess of feelings I’ve become since I caught that handsome bastard cruising a dodgy app in his car.
He’s not a bastard. He’s the nicest bloke you’ve ever met.
Another truth that sits like lead in my gut, and I’m a bloke lucky enough to call Logan Halliwell my best friend.
I leave the blind open and back up from the window, dragging myself upstairs and to my bed, wishing I had the excuse of a heavy night for the weight in my limbs. In my cracked brain, when my bewildered heart already knows all the answers.
My mattress on the floor has never been less inviting. I kid myself the sheets still smell of Sab, but I’ve washed them since he was last here, I’m aneejit, not an animal. An eejit who falls face-first onto my pillow and forces myself into a sleep I’m convinced won’t last. That I’ll be wide awake ten minutes later to play chicken with my phone again.
It’s still dark when I wake up. Takes me a minute to figure out it’s darkagainand I’ve slept the whole day, a boneheaded thing to do ahead of the last rest days I have before I work most of Christmas.
My phone is a devil under my pillow. I reach for it like a smoker reaching for a cig, thumbs halfway to hell before I catch myself and drop the damn thing as if it’s made of molten lava.
Eat.
Drink, maybe, if I can trust myself not to sink the whole bottle in my best impression of my uncle Seamus.
Easy. You haven’t drunk that much.
And I wasn’t lying when I told Sab I’m not much of a drinker, but this last week…Christ. It’s a lotforme.
I haul myself out of bed and go downstairs to face the depressing contents of my fridge. The bare shelves are a world away from how my ma’s probably look right now, and I miss my people as much as I miss Sab. Eat a Rustlers burger in front of Eastenders and fecking hate myself.
Then I’m restless in ways that usually have me firing out DMs and texts, searching for an open bed for the night. Offering up my couch. My phone’s still upstairs. I don’t even think about fetching it. Instead I ruminate over the fact I haven’t fucked anyone since I met Sab and I can’t imagine that ever changing.
Because you love him.
Feck.
Feck.
A desperate groan escapes me. I need out of this house before I stick my head in the oven.
Go to the gym.
But without Sab, working out holds little appeal either, and I stamp into my shoes and steam out of my house with no destination in mind. Iwalk. Leaving my car on the driveway, and trekking down the street in the opposite direction of the alley leading to Cosmic Avenue.
Means I wind up on Moonberry Crescent instead, heading for Figgy Mount, and honestly, how?How?These bad decisions keep coming, and as I find myself in the exact spot where I first kissed Sab, the pull to him is unbearable. Ithurtsand I rub my chest, tipping my face to the sky as it starts to snow, like I could roar at the fecking moon.
Like Iwould, if I thought it would help.
I make a phone call instead. And despite yearning for my best friend too, it’s not him I dial.
Nash picks up on the third ring. “Bad shift?”
I’m staring at the sky to avoid losing myself to the horizon. “What makes you say that?”
“You always check up on me when you’ve seen someone else get squashed.”
“Do I?” I’m asking myself more than Nash, and he chuckles, letting me find the answer, and of course he’s right. I didn’t know Nash that well when I came upon him trapped under an HGV a few years ago, but watching him live such a full and happy life ever since has been better than fecking therapy. “Eh. I haven’t been at work today.”
“Still hung up on your love life then?”
