Moon grabbed his wallet and stepped into some shoes, stopping in front of his bike. “Oh, fuck. This won’t fit both of us.”
“No, no, it definitely wouldn’t. We could always walk. It isn’t very far.” And maybe it’d give my muscles a bit of a stretch so I could function better.
“Ew, I hate walking. That’s why I bought this thing in the first place, though I never expected to need to transport more than me on it.”
“It’s too close by for us to take my car, Moon.”
He turned around, grimacing at me. “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Officer.”
“That has a nice ring to it when you say it. Maybe just because it’s the only time you show me an ounce of respect.”
“Even when I say it, I’m not saying it with respect, Em. Get your facts straight.”
“Okay, brat. Em or Emerson is just fine, then.”
He put a hand over his heart, gasping. “Did you just call me a brat?”
I smiled, nodding as I walked closer to him. “Sure did. Am I wrong, brat?”
The tops of his cheeks started to turn pink, a blush spreading down his neck and chest. “You aren’t wrong, but don’t call me that. I need to put on a different shirt.”
He meant a turtleneck, of course. For a second there, I thought he’d go without one, and I almost let myself get excited over it. Baby steps, though. Baby steps. When he came back, he was wearing a simple and neat black turtleneck, along with some jeans. “I seem to be underdressed here.”
“They’ve seen worse come through the bakery. You’re fine.”
I looked down at myself, more notably at the sweatpants. I hadn’t brought any underwear with me, not expecting to stay the night, so I was going full commando. It would be a miracle if I went through the visit without a bit of embarrassment, but I stood by my decision not to stop by the house.
Letting Moon lead the way, we started the trek to Muffin Haven. He grumbled quite a bit, despite the short distance, but we eventually made it. It looked really busy inside, the line at least five deep, and most of the tables completely full.Thankfully, getting our orders and finding a booth to sit in didn’t take too terribly long.
We were sat side-by-side, so Crescent could sit in front of us, but it did seem like he was taking a lot longer than he usually would. Moon seemed content to wait, so I tried to be just as patient. I wondered what Crescent would say when he saw me sitting here with Moon after our conversation yesterday.
The chatter of the bakery was almost too much for my ears. The ringing seemed to distort everything around me. I couldn’t concentrate very well, trying to distinguish human voices, the buzz of the overhead lights, and the ringing that never stopped. I pressed my fingers into my temples, trying to concentrate on everything except the noise in my head, but it wasn’t doing much.
“You okay?” Moon asked from beside me.
I didn’t look over at him, still focused on trying to lessen the amount of noise happening. “Yeah, just a bad day for my ears, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
Admitting defeat for the moment, I turned my attention to him. “I have tinnitus. It’s a weird, constant ringing in the ears. Some days, it’s harder to deal with than others. Sometimes, sound can make it even weirder. It’s pretty loud in here.”
“When you say constant, do you mean, like, even when you’re sleeping?”
“Mhm. Of course, I don’t hear it when I’m sleeping, but I usually have a hard time with it. I use a loud fan and some background rain sounds at night to try and cover up the noise. When it works, it works, and I can fall asleep within an hour or so. When it doesn’t, I just lie awake at night for hours on end. That’s why I was so surprised I fell asleep without knowing last night. I’m usually up for a while.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
Moon shook his head. “When did it start? The, what’d you call it, tinnitus?”
“Yeah, it started after Harrison died. It was either stress-induced or medication-induced. I’d been on some antidepressants, and the doctors still aren’t sure which one it could’ve been. But I do know grief can do some shit.”
Moon rapped his fingers against the table, tilting his head in thought. “What doyouthink started it?”
A question, funnily enough, that no one had ever thought to ask me. Whether they couldn’t understand something so invisible, or they didn’t have enough of their heart to share to care, nobody had ever stopped and asked me. Moon was breaking past the surface level, and that was something I’d never come to expect from anyone. If I didn’t expect it, I wouldn’t be hurt by the lack of it because there would be no lack.
Clearing my throat, I played around with the cup in my hand. “I think the grief did it. It took me so long to actually start grieving all the loss in my life, I think I broke something when I finally let it through. Like a tsunami, I guess.”
