“I’ll be okay. We have a pet cam pointed at the front door. And so far, no one has even attempted to get in touch with me. I think they all lost interest, honestly.”
“The thirty-dollar pet cam is not going to call the police if assassins break into our apartment.” Hudson sighed. “But I didn’t even mean it like that. I’m worried about your mental health, Noves. I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“Well, I’m not sure the police would even be helpful in an assassin situation. I think the Graves family owns them too.”
Hudson looked at me pointedly.
“I promise, I’ll be fine. I have Inara,” I gestured to the sleeping calico in her cat tree by the window. “And I’m going to rake in money cat sitting for all you transplants flying home.AndI’m going to a comedy show with Ella on Saturday. She’s Canadian, so no Thanksgiving celebrations for her either—we’ve agreed to send brain rot VidWaves back and forth all day long.”
Hudson parsed through my plan of action, as if assessing my current state of emotional wellness. The conclusion he came to made him frown. “Can you call me Thursday, at least? And tell me how grateful you are to have me in your life?”
I nodded. “Yes, grateful for you and all your gay labor on my behalf.”
Hudson smiled. “I’m glad that’s going recognized this year.”
Delilah had already taken a train back home to Boston. When Hudson left, I’d have the entire apartment to myself for the first time in… forever, maybe, at least for this stretch of time.
“I can’t wait to walk around naked and free.”
Hudson rolled his eyes. “Please reach out if you need anything.” He studied me again, his concern failing to drain from his features no matter how many jokes I cracked.
“I will. I am fiiine. Now, go.” The words seemed to echo through the space after Hudson left to get in his car.
I wasnotfine.
As I drifted in and out of much-needed sleep, Wes continued to haunt me. He promised me the holidays would be better this year, but I knew this was about to be my worst season yet.
Balls deep in Chinese takeout and four hours of VidWave brain rot content, I’d finally reached a flow state of comfortable numbness.
It was Thanksgiving. The apartment was dark and eerily quiet, not even a creak from upstairs neighbors. I might’ve been the only person in our building tonight.
Our crooked lamp and the blue light of my phone were the only sources of light illuminating the buffet of food littering the coffee table.
It was eerily quiet, of course, when the radiator wasn’t spitting and hissing like a demon rising from the pits of hell. But I couldn’t complain, because at least our negligent slumlord had finally turned on the heat.
Inara had grown bored of laying on my chest, as she was now perched on a couch cushion, slowly blinking at me with extreme and undue judgment.
I thought that after almost two months, the heartbreak would’ve felt lighter. I’d never experienced a breakup like this before. Maybe the recovery time was different when you’d been in love with someone.
When I wasstillin love, no matter how much I prayed to be cured of the affliction.
Yes, I was praying again. I wasn’t sure to what or to whom. But like I used to beg to be made normal, I now begged for my higher power to take away my love for Wes, to make me hate him instead.
I so badly wanted to hate him.
He’d told me he worried he’d become addicted to me, but I thought I was the one who’d ended up hopelessly addicted instead.
I replayedusover and over, imagining how things could have gone differently. Every time I wondered if I should’ve stayed and heard him out, I remembered he still wasn’t blocked. He had my number.
And he’d never once reached out.
I closed my eyes as the current VidWave video played in a loop. I hadn’t been listening, but a single word snagged in my mind.
Nihilistic.
I frowned.
You’re a nihilistic black hole, just like the rest of our hopeless, useless generation.
