“You okay, hon?” she said, not unkind.
I nodded, the lie a reflex. “Just tired. Long ride.”
She topped off my coffee, the gesture more habit than charity. “You want anything to eat?”
I looked at the menu, every word blurring into a haze. “Toast. Dry.”
She clicked her tongue. “You sure? We make a good omelet.”
I shook my head. “Not hungry.”
She left me alone after that. I sipped the coffee, let the bitterness coat my tongue, and stared at the silent phone, daring it to ring again. It didn’t. Instead, the memories started in on me, loud as a jukebox.
I thought about the first time Floyd brought me to his place, the way he’d spent the whole night re-aligning picture frames and stacking coasters, as if the only thing standing between him and disaster was symmetrical décor.
I remembered how he’d stand by the window and watch the sunrise, never saying what was on his mind, just breathing in and out like he was counting the seconds until someone came to take it away.
I remembered how it felt to be in his bed—safe, anchored, like all the noise in my head was background static compared to the realness of his arms around me.
And I remembered when things ended. The way he looked at me, pleading and furious at the same time.
The last thing he said before I walked out: “I’m sorry.” But that’s not what I remembered. What I remembered was the silence after, the way he didn’t follow, the way he let me go.
I ran a hand over my face, wiped at eyes that were definitely not about to cry in a public place. The toast arrived, dry asinsulation, and I broke it in half, crumbling it into the coffee until it sank and vanished.
A family came in—mom, dad, two kids—and took the booth farthest from the counter. I watched them for a minute, the simple choreography of togetherness, the way the dad ruffled his son’s hair and the way the mom pointed out every item on the menu with a patience I couldn’t imagine. I wondered if Floyd and I could have ever been like that, if I’d let him.
The waitress drifted by again. “You need anything else?”
I shook my head, voice gone. “Just the check.”
She slid it across the counter. “You look like someone who’s lost more than sleep,” she said, not unkindly. “Whatever it is, I hope it gets better.”
I tried for a smile, got halfway there. “Me too.”
She smiled back, and for a second, I could almost believe it was possible.
I paid in cash, left too much for the tip, and stepped out into the hard light of day. The sun had climbed higher, the sky a flat slab of white-blue. I put on my helmet, swung a leg over the bike, and fired the engine. The sound was a relief—a reason not to listen to the phone, or my own thoughts.
But as I pulled out of the lot, the phone buzzed once more, sharp against my hip. I gunned the engine, pretending not to care, but the ache in my chest told the truth.
It always did.
* * * *
The afternoon sun was a fist on the back of my neck. I pulled off at a highway turnout, nothing but a strip of dead grass and two picnic tables warped by weather, and let the engine clatter down into silence. My helmet was a sweatbox, the inside lined with a damp print of my forehead. I peeled it off, dropped iton the seat, and stood there for a minute, blinking hard at the boiling horizon.
I’d thought the ride would shake the ghosts loose, but it just made them meaner. Every jolt of the bike’s suspension rattled loose a new memory: Floyd’s rare, unguarded smile; the hitch in his voice when he was about to say something honest and then backed off; the way he’d pull me in after a fight, hands rough but careful, like he was piecing together something he didn’t know how to fix.
The world was soundless except for the click of the cooling engine and the distant whine of insects. I sat on the splintered bench, slumped forward, elbows on knees. I tried to breathe, but the air was too thick with the smell of tar and my own sweat. I watched heat shimmer off the road, blurring the line between here and gone.
I thought about turning around. I thought about what would happen if I just kept going. What waited for me down the line? Another nowhere town, another string of one-night beds, another round of trying to prove that I didn’t need anyone, least of all him. The thought made me sick.
I took out my phone, almost on reflex. There was a new message, time-stamped three minutes ago:“Knox told me what you said. Please come home. I need to tell you something important.”
I stared at the words until my eyes burned. I read them again, then a third time, like maybe I’d missed a detail that would make it easier to breathe.
“Knox told me what you said.”The thought of Floyd talking to my brother was surreal, but also—yeah. Of course. Knox had always been the glue when the rest of us started to come apart.
