Page 22 of The Art of Drowning

“A pet rock? Not a dog or a cat?”

Damien shrugged.

There was so much I didn’t know about him anymore, so much we didn’t know about each other, but still, sitting with him felt right. Comfortable. And painful. If I’d been more determined, less scared, smarter, better, I might have fought harder to keep Damien.

But I was young, and I hadn’t meant to hurt Sam. I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. I was just a guy who’d fallen fast and hard for someone I should have known was off-limits.

Who was still off-limits. Because nothing good would come of going back down that road. The more I learned about Sam and what kind of person he was, the less I cared about what he might think if I kissed Damien right now. Or sometime in the future.

More than sad, I was pissed at Sam for leaving with so many questions unanswered. I didn’t know why he did the things he did. Back then, his decisions at least made sense. Damien was his best friend and Sam had felt betrayed when he found out about us. He’d been so hurt. So wounded. I understood his anger back then. Even welcomed it to soothe the guilt I felt for hurting him. For hurting his friendship with Damien.

“I should get home. It’s a long walk.”

Damien looked at me like I had two heads. “You walked here?”

“I needed some air. That house… I couldn’t. It’s like a fucking tomb. It’s so quiet I can hear my own heart thumping in my chest. But I can’t stay anywhere else; it wouldn’t be right.”

“Did you want some company? I need to walk off these drinks anyway.” He motioned to the whiskey we’d both abandoned. Getting wasted sounded better in theory than I knew it would be in practice.

I stood, feeling a little wobbly, but nothing unmanageable. “I mean, it’s a free country.”

Damien smirked. “What a generous invitation.” He stood and watched me grab the bottle of whiskey and the glasses from the table.

“I’m going to give this back to Ginny. Give me one second.”

Damien nodded and stayed put while I made my way to the bar where Ginny waited for me, her mouth set in a thin line.

“Just dropping this off here for you.”

She grabbed my wrist instead of the bottle. “Be smart, Cal.”

“I’m always smart, Ginny.”

“Then be safe.” She tugged me closer and kissed my cheek. “And don’t you dare leave town without coming by for dinner.” Her gaze darted over to Damien and back again. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”

“I promise, I’ll try, but I don’t know if I’ll have time.” I returned the cheek kiss, extracted my wrist from her grip, and met Damien at the exit. We pushed out the door and into the night. The temperature had dropped a little since I’d gone inside, but nothing that would prevent us from walking back to my parents’ place.

We didn’t talk for the first block. It was like we were trying to remember how to exist in the same place. Damien walked next to me, but I felt every single inch of the distance between us. I felt farther away from him now than I had in years. Because he was so close and my heart hurt so fucking much. It had ached back then and over the years that ache never really went away.

Sometimes the noise in my life drowned it out or pushed it down, but it always found its way back to the surface. Damien was a wound that never healed, and I wasn’t sure being around him was the solution. But I couldn’t let him leave earlier, just like I couldn’t stop him from following me home now.

“I’m shocked you’re not married by now,” Damien said, breaking the silence.

I was glad that he didn’t seem to want to revisit old memories that we shared. There was no point in walking down memory lane asking if I remembered this or that or the other thing. I remembered everything. Every look. Every word. Every touch. Every tear.

“I got close once, but it didn’t work out.”

“I’m sorry,” Damien said, sounding not sorry at all.

“I’m not. And that’s how I know it would never have worked. What about you? Any ex-husbands or ex-wives out in the world?”

“Nope. Couple of exes, but none ever got close.”

More silence. More cars whizzed past, their headlights blinding me. More invisible strings, pulling at me, making me notice the way Damien was walking closer to me now. The distance short enough to where I could feel the fabric of his coat brush against me. We were magnets being pulled together. I should put more distance between us, but I’d been doing that for years, and it had been a long day, and I was fucking tired.

“Tell me about your friend. Bowie. And Spike. A pet rock? Really, D?”

The air stilled between us, and Damien’s steps faltered at the sound of his shortened name. But he recovered quickly and launched into telling me how he met his pet rock.