Adam grins. “Hot.”
Ugh, he is impossible! Why can’t I get under his skin?
I message Luca back, picking one of the restaurants randomly without looking them up. I’m no longer really concentrating on the date anyway. I’m way more focused on what to do about my stupid, couch hogging, zombie ex-boyfriend.
“That was good.” Adam licks his fingers. “I might have to go get more.”
I roll my eyes. “Wash the plate.”
He gets up and takes the plate and my ice cream bowl to the kitchen, which only irritates me more. He’s not allowed to start being useful around the house now. Not when it doesn’t matter anymore.
I need to focus on all the things that annoy me about him and how to get him out of my life sooner. Instead I find myself feeling guilty and unable to concentrate on the episode ofGossip Girl. As the credits roll, I sigh. “What time is this support group?”
FIVE
Jen
The Friends of the Dead support group meets in a basement below the local community center. It’s dark by the time we arrive, and the light on the stairs is flickering which gives it an ominous feel. There’s no sign up, and I wonder for a moment if we’re in the wrong place. It doesn’t help that when I push open the door and walk into the small room, a circle of greenish gray faces turns to stare at me.
A lady with a bright yellow jacket and skin the same shade of gray as Adam’s stands and gives me a smile. “Hello. Are you in the right place, love? The AA meeting is in the community centerdowntow—” At this point she must spot Adam over my shoulder. “Oh welcome. Adam? You brought a friend? How lovely. Come in.” She offers me her hand, but when I take it I can’t help staring at the visible stitches all around her wrist.
She ushers us in, and we sit on the small plastic chairs which squeak as we do. The other zombies around the circle stare at us, and I’m ashamed to say I shuffle my chair a little closer to Adam.
“I’m Rosie,” says the zombie who welcomed us. “I am the founder of Friends of the Dead.”
“I’m Jen,” I say awkwardly. No one else has spoken.
Adam has gone silent so I nudge him. “This is Adam.”
He lifts his hand and gets a few nods from the others.
Rosie sits beside me and looks around the circle. “Now, now. I think we could give Jen and Adam a better welcome, don’t you?”
The zombies mumble a greeting, and Rosie smiles and claps her hands as if her kindergarten class just learned to tell the time. “Well isn’t it so lovely to have a real friend.”
She smiles at me, and I try not to let my nerves show on my face.
A man across the circle drops his head into his hands with a sob. “I wish my wife would come with me. We haven’t talked since I died. She makes me stay in the shed.”
“Oh god. No, um, we’re not…” I look around at Adam whose face has gone even grayer. I clear my throat. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Rosie fetches the sad zombie a box of tissues, and there’s a moment of silence.
“Well, sometimes it feels good to talk about the things that are getting us down, doesn’t it, Christian?”
Christian only sobs.
Rosie forges on. “Let’s all go around the circle and say one thing that’s been a bit rough this week.”
I’m expecting Adam to make a juvenile joke about not being able to wank, but what he actually says surprises me. “I feel bad lying to my boss about why I’m not coming into work, but I wasn’t sure how to handle the whole being dead thing.”
At the end of the session, the others gather around a trestle table where bowls of something I don’t look too carefully at are being passed around.
Rosie draws me aside. “It truly is so lovely of you to be here for Adam. The transition period can be tough.”
Adam is standing off to one side, not near the table, just sort of staring at the others. I nod. “To be honest, I’d never really heard of zombification before all this. I wasn’t sure if it was real.”
Rosie gives a sad nod. “We’re one of the most marginalized groups of supernaturals. Terribly misunderstood. But it only takes a few breathers spreading the word.”
