“Let him.”
“It’s going to get messy.”
“Probably.”
“You’re not worried about that.”
“Are you?”
She takes a second with it. A real second. No bullshit.
“No,” she says. “Not right now.”
“Good.”
We sit there after that.
No one trying to fix the room.
I’ve sat in a lot of silences. Press silences. Locker room silences. The silence after a bad loss when nobody has anything useful to say.
This one’s different.
This one has her in it.
She reaches over at some point and puts her hand on my arm.
Doesn’t make it a thing. Doesn’t look at me. Just puts it there and leaves it. I look down at her hand on my arm like it belongs there. Then I put mine over hers.
Neither of us says anything about it.
That’s how I know it matters.
I lose an hour in that room without noticing.
I should go.
I don’t want to.
I could stay all night. But I leave anyway.
The house is quiet when I get home.
Josie’s been by — Brick’s bowl is clean, his toys scattered across the floor the way they get when she’s really gone at it with him. She spoils him rotten. He deserves it.
I plop on the couch. Brick finds me and settles in.
I should pull up film.
I don’t.
That’s how I know this shit’s bad.
It’s always been a good house. Aurora claimed roomie status first, filling the place with plants, color-coded calendars, and opinions nobody asked for. Then Aiden showed up, and somehow the place bent around the two of them until it felt impossible to remember it any other way.
I stayed out of it. Let them figure themselves out while I played the reliable one in the background. Turns out that role costs more than you think.
Now it’s just me in here with the history of everybody else’s life still hanging around these walls.
