It leaves me in a state of semi-consciousness, where I am more asleep than awake. My sated body feels very far away.
I’m vaguely aware of Hex pulling out of me. Then the blanket is wrapped around me.
Soft lips brush over my forehead.
“Farewell, My Love,” whispers Hex.
My heart thumps, but I can’t stir. My limbs and eyes are far too heavy.
Besides, it is exactly what I asked for.
Chapter 25
Not Missing You
Theflatisveryquiet.
I knew it would be. I prepared for it, in the way you prepare for things you know are coming and still aren’t ready for when they arrive. I told myself it would be fine. I told myself I liked having the flat to myself. I told myself that before Hex arrived, I was perfectly content with the silence and I would be perfectly content with it again.
I lied to myself quite comprehensively, as it turns out.
It’s been three days, and every day the quiet is getting louder. And nothing is like how it was before Hex arrived.
The mugs are in their descending row. The spice rack has been reorganised for the last time. The books are alphabetical. The crystals face whatever direction Hex decided was correct, and I will never know his reasoning, and I am not going to move them to find out.
I sigh heavily and drag myself to the kitchen. I make one cup of tea instead of two, and the single mug sitting on the counter is the loneliest thing I have ever seen.
I drink it standing up because sitting at the table feels wrong. Too much empty space where the other chair is. I had considered moving the chair back to where it used to be, before Hex repositioned it to the slightly different angle he preferred, but Ihaven’t. I don’t know when I’m going to. It’s possible I’m going to leave it at that slightly different angle indefinitely, which is not something I’m going to examine too closely.
Something else I’m not going to examine, is how I’ve been making mental notes to tell him things. Small things. The man who came in and ordered a coffee and then spent twenty minutes explaining to me why he didn’t actually like coffee. The pigeon that has developed an interest in my windowsill crystals and visits every morning now, which Hex would have found extremely funny in a way he would have expressed as withering commentary. The seasonal menu at Coffeelicious has a new addition, something called a Midnight Spice Latte that is absolutely a marketing attempt to capitalise on the fact that apparently Bristol has a reputation for supernatural activity now, and I cannot tell anyone why that is darkly hilarious.
I can’t tell Hex any of it. Because he is not here. He’s gone and I’m never going to see him again.
The doorbell buzzes. Loud and jarring. Jolting me from my thoughts.
I glance down and realise I’m holding a half-empty cup of tea that’s gone cold. I tip it down the sink and answer the door.
It’s Felix
He didn’t tell me he was coming. But I’m not surprised that he has just appeared at my door at seven in the evening with his bag and an expression that says he has made a decision. And before I can say anything, he is inside and putting the kettle on.
“I was fine on my own,” I say.
“No you weren’t,” he says.
“I wasn’t about to fall apart.”
“Yes you were.” He opens the cupboard and takes out two mugs without hesitation, and it takes me a moment to realise that he’s reaching for the right ones without looking, because he knows which mugs I use, because he knows me. “Sit down.”
I sit down.
Felix makes the tea with the focused efficiency he brings to everything, and sets a mug in front of me and sits across the table in Hex’s spot, and looks at me with those sharp dark eyes that have never once in our entire friendship let me get away with anything.
“How bad?” he says.
“It’s fine.”
“Adam.”
