“Thank you, Rithy.”
“Enthusiasm, Ashton. I’m your emotional-support gay. You could at leastpretendto be grateful.”
“I am.”
He grins, satisfied, but I catch the flicker behind it, the same one I’ve seen in Ronan and Kiri too. They’re all worried, but none of them say it outright. I tell him I’m glad he stayed. He said he didn’t want to go home anyway.Safer here.That his parents would probably be busy fighting but that Kiri, the dutiful,straightson with short hair, who doesn’tkiss men on stage,would be there to endure the bigotry for both of them.
“Better to spend it with you,” he’d said earlier, “You’re sad, but you tip well.”
I laugh now, soft, genuine. “You didn’t have to babysit me, you know.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s mutual codependency. The band would kill me if I left you alone too long.”
It’s what this feels like sometimes, a rotating watch. Who gets Rafe-duty tonight? I try to shake it off, thank him again for dinner, for staying, for trying.
He waves it away, dramatic. “Go on. Brood in peace. Call me if you feel the need to smash another mirror.”
I leave him there, smiling, and head back to the hotel. I kick off my shoes, sit on the bed, and stare at the ceiling. I’d made my excuses with my parents, told them I’d come by for Christmas if I could, that work was too busy, but the truth is I couldn’t stand the idea of being there. Of being in Seattle, in the city that holds her.
The cabin. The rain. Her laugh echoing down the hallway of my apartment. Every corner of that place is her. I know if I went back, I’d drive straight to her door before I could stop myself.
The weeks were supposed to make it easier, but they haven’t. It doesn’t feel easier, it just feelsfurther away. The pain hasn’t dulled; it’s just spread. Not one clean bullet wound now, but a thousand cuts that never stop bleeding. Everything I do reminds me of her somehow, songs, scents, the way someone walks in front of me that moves like her or a laugh that's almost hers butnot quite.I roll onto my back, exhale into the dark, and that’s when I feel it.
The buzz of my phone against the nightstand. I grab it, expecting a message from management or maybe one of the guys, but then I see the name and the world stops. Kasia. I don’t even breathe as I open it.
Happy Thanksgiving.
It’s ridiculous really, two words, polite, harmless. But I know her. I know how hard it is for her to reach out. What it means when shedoes. My chest tightens, the kind of ache that’s both pain and relief. For me, it’s everything. I type fast, before I can second-guess it:
Happy Thanksgiving.
I hover, think maybe I should wait, pretend I don’t care. Butfuck that. I’ve run from enough things in my life. I hit send. The reply window stays empty. The seconds stretch. I close my eyes, press the heel of my hand to my face, and feel it, one single tear slipping free. But it’s not the kind that comes from grief this time. It’s the kind that comes when something inside you stirs again.
A pulse. A spark. A reminder that maybe she’s still out there, somewhere, thinking of me too. The silence after doesn’t feel empty. It feels alive.
Kasia
As the screen door swings open, then closed again, the smell of cool night air mingles with some leftover pie Mama is wrapping up. I sit on the top step, the one that creaks, rolling my phone in my hand while the last of the cousins clatter down the stairs with tin-foil-wrapped leftovers. Someone’s cackling, drunk on vodka. Someone else is being dragged toward a car, slurring about how they’refine to drive. Tatamutters something in Polish about saints and stupidity, and I smile, watching him herd people like it’s a second profession.
The air’s cold enough to bite, but I don’t move. I’ve been holding onto his reply for an hour now, turning it over like a stone in my pocket.
Happy Thanksgiving.
He’d answered instantly. Like he was waiting for me, still. I thought maybe, if I just waited long enough, the need to respond would fade. It doesn’t. All that polite conversation, all that restraint, it’s gone. I just don’t want the line between us to close yet.
Finally, I type:
Have a nice day?
He replies before I can even put the phone down.
not really.
Rith took me to a terrible restaurant in L.A.
very his scene not mine.
you?
