It’s hard to remember it’s not quite the same—that I’m late, notleft—when the sting of snow and silence cuts so deep. That maybe the ache in my chest was there before I met Sab. Before that flashover stole two years of my life. Christ, it’s hard to remember anything except how much I already miss him. And the brutal truth that if he’s gone from my life forever, it’s my own fecking fault.
I stand there too long, the sharp wind needling my lungs, my battered shoulder joining in for fun, breath rattling through my ribs with an instinct deeper than reason until I have to look away. Until I force my feet to move and trudge home with snow pelting my face hard enough to warn me how the next few days are going to pan out.
Back in my own house, I find myself on the couch that’s now starting to feel like it’s laughing at me—like it knew all along—clutching my phone with freezing fingers, staring at the blank screen as if it holds answers that are so fecking obvious to everyone else.
Take a chance.
Take a chance.
Take a chance.
I fumble my phone to life with a graceless touch. Open FlingIt before I can overthink it.
Just to see.
To prove my stupid gut wrong.
I tap and swipe, searching for the only message thread I’ve engaged with since Sab found me on this cursed fecking app. Frowning as it eludes me.
It’s not there.
Blinking hard, I look again. Scroll too fast to make sense of the blurred screen. Then too slow as reality hooks its claws into me, and I find nothing but stark white space where Sab should be.
I typeLeLionDuBois96into the search bar, dread blooming in my veins, my pulse a drumbeat of slow-dawning horror. Iwait, as if God might take pity on me and magic Sab back onto my phone screen.
Nothing happens.
The screen stays blank and merciless, and the bottom drops out of me, my entire existence narrowing to a hollow void I can’t crawl out of.
Sab’s account is gone, taking every word we’ve traded with it.
Every flirty joke.
Every loaded message and accidental endearment.
It’s all gone, wiped clean from the ether as if none of it was ever real, and the panic knotting my chest becomes something I can’t endure.
Sab
Sawdust and screaming. I’m beginning to think that’s all my life is meant to be.
I wrestle Esme into her coat. Rigid as a board, she fights me at every turn. “Stop,” I tell her as gently as the frustration holding me together will allow. “You need to put your outside clothes on so I can take you to Uncle Bhodi, okay?”
A bargaining chip that’s never failed me, but with her red nose and heavy eyes, fever heating her skin, my baby girl doesn’t want to hear it today. She wants to feel better, she wantsme, but I can’t make either of those things happen right now.
I sack off the coat and scoop her from the floor, nodding to the nursery worker who called me off a job to retrieve my sick kid. Third one this morning, apparently, but that doesn’t mean much to me. I don’t have room in my head to worry about anything that’s not right in front of me. Anything that isn’t Esme, or finishing the stack of work bearing down so I can get paid before Christmas lands. SoIcan pay for the emergency head gasket replacement on my van.
I’m driving Tam’s right now. Big enough for Esme, but too small to carry everything I need for the job I’m on. A sane person would’ve hired a replacement. Swallowed the cost and worriedabout it later. But I’m not feeling all that sane right now. Haven’t since Galen walked out on me and left a giant empty space I can’t seem to fill. A gaping fucking wound that feels as old as time. Familiar in ways that make me want to claw my eyes out. A festering itch beneath my skin, whispering the same poison in my blood.
I don’t want drugs.
Idon’t.
But this gnawing want, it haunts me, and it doesn’t seem to matter how fast I move, it finds me anyway.
I take Esme to Tam’s place, so grateful Bhodi’s not working today I feel outside of my fucking body. “Thanks for this. Keep her away from Tam, okay? He can’t get sick like this.”
“He’d be okay if he did.” Bhodi presses his hand to Esme’s hot forehead, wincing as she cries and cries and cries. “There’s nothing wrong with his immune system.”
