“I'm right here, and I'm fine.” I full out laugh now, much to my mom's joy.
“It's my birthday—I'll spoil my baby if I want to. Oh, I bet you need new underwear.” She's already moving away, and Dad is grinning like a fool in love after her. “Be ready in twenty!” she calls. Then peeks her head back around the corner. “So happy you're home.”
When Dad looks back at me, he tips his head over to the stairs. “Why don't you take your bag up? Gather yourself for what just turned into a busy afternoon. Tucker will be here later for your mom's birthday. Can't wait to have both boys under my roof again.” His smile is full, then he trails off in the direction my mom went, taking my smile with him.
I wasn't hesitant to walk in the house. But going upstairs? Something a little like dread is pooling in my gut. It grows with every step.
Avoiding the creaky spots is like muscle memory, and I make it to the top with barely a groan from the old staircase. The short hallway looms ahead of me, shadowed and feeling a little stuffier than it had downstairs. I guess that's what happens when the two kids who used to occupy the bedrooms up here aren't here anymore.
Both rooms are closed; the only door open on this floor is the bathroom. I glance inside, switching on the light long enough to see the same blue and white striped shower curtain that hung there two years ago. Tucker’s room is the most changed space I've seen.
Nothing but bare bones left. A bare mattress on the bed. No blankets or pillows. No books on the black desk in the corner or speaker on the nightstand. Definitely no Tucker tossing a ball against his bedroom wall repeatedly until I barge in and scream like a banshee for him to stop.
Life and my choices robbed me of a lot in a few years’ time. One of those things being the years after childhood, when your siblings become more friend than enemy.
His bedroom door closes with a quiet click. Then it's just me and the bedroom door across the hall.
Is it ridiculous to feel like as soon as the door opens, I'll be consumed by whatever is left inside? Probably.
Don't be dramatic, Kit.
The knob is cool under my palm, and I hoist the bag up my shoulder and push the door open.
No monsters wait on the other side.
No vat of gooey depression falls on my head when I step inside and flick on the light.
It is the exact opposite of Tuckers bedroom, though. It's a time capsule. I set my bag down by the door and bite my bottom lip. The air is thickand feels like it hasn't been disturbed since the last time I left it. But Mom must come in here and clean occasionally. The bed is made, same black comforter. There isn't the garbage lying around that I was too tired and too fucked up to care about before.
No liquor bottles in the small trash can. No discarded clothes on the ground. But all my things are right where I left them. A book open, pages down on my nightstand. My desk is littered with notebooks, pencils, and pens. Several other stacks of books. My old laptop.
My favorite pair of Converse look sagged and abandoned in front of the closet. And my old clothes hang, untouched.
I remember packing my bags before I left. Scared to take too much from here in fear that I would take whatever darkness that clung to me. I wasn't taking any chances.
Seems silly now, but I got in and out of here as fast as I could then. My throat burns as I whisper my fingertips over the pictures still hanging on the wall.
Brett. Bowen. Brett. Bowen. Me. Bowen. Bowen. Bowen.
I suck in a deep inhale and walk over to the bed, sitting on the edge and bouncing my leg. I want to text him. Tell him I miss him already. That I'm terrified what it means that he just let me go.
I wonder if the monsters will come out when night falls. If they will find me in the veil of darkness and sink their claws back inside me. Bowen won't be here to hold them at bay. He won't be here to hold me together if it all gets to be too much. I pull the hoodie over my nose and mouth, breathing in the scent of home. It’s not this room, or vanilla scented candles and laundry detergent. It's a man a hundred miles away, tucked inside a cabin.
How many nights did he come here and be a pillar of stability in the storm of darkness? How many nights did I survive just to feel his arms around me?
What if I never feel them again? What if he never calls, and I never grow the balls to reach out? What if we orbit around each other, destined to be nothing but an almost? An almost everything.
I keep part of my face tucked inside the hoodie and move over to the window. The curtain is open a little in the middle, but I open both sides more.
The window across the driveway is dark. No movement. No sound. No set of identical faces. No cheeky Brett grin or patient Bowen assessment. It's as lifeless as a tomb.
Grief is such a fucking dick. So is Bowen Briggs.
God, I love him so much it hurts.
Where would we have been, had I been stronger then? If I had rolled over on one of the many nights we came together to shoulder our grief. What would have happened had I held his face in my hands and gave him back everything he gave me?
Would he have let me go the first time? Would he have been by my bedside when I woke up in the hospital, had I shown him how important he is to me? What would have happened that night at his townhouse, when he was drunk and falling apart, had I opened my mouth to tell him that I was five days sober and doing everything I could to get better? To heal. To try. That I hadn't been running around, drinking and doing whatever horrible shit he had in his head after I left his bed.
