Page 29 of The Art of Drowning

“I have been assured that there is no time-sensitive information in the envelopes and that you can read them at your own discretion. He simply wanted you to have them.”

The envelope wasn’t anything special. Pristine. Light. Whatever he’d written hadn’t been a long letter. If it was even a letter at all. I gave it a shake and deduced that it was not, in fact, a glitter bomb.

It dawned on me then that this could have been mailed. I didn’t have to come back for any of this circus. But my proximity to Callum made it hard for me to be angry about that.

Which was good, because what the fuck, Sam? You made me cut Callum out of my life, then you cut me off. And now you drag me all the way back here for something that you could have mailed.

“This could have been an email,” Callum said, echoing my thoughts. I turned and stared at him, seeing the way all the light vacated his eyes. “I—shit.” The envelope crumpled in Callum’s hand, and I watched him close his eyes and try to regain his composure.

Callum turned and headed for the door, and he was gone before anyone could say anything. John started to stand, but I shook my head. “I’ll go. You two should stay here, deal with this. I’ll go talk to him.”

Milly gave me a tight, watery smile. She looked like she was about to collapse on the spot.

Callum wasn’t in the waiting room, which I didn’t blame him for. I rushed out of the office and scanned the area for any sign of him. I looked left, then right, trying to see which way he went.

“I’m right here.”

I turned around so fast I nearly fell over.

Once again I was following Callum around, but I couldn’t help it. Seeing him had been the only good part of this whole shit show.

He was leaning against the wall of the building, no doubt getting the back of his jacket dirty, but he didn’t seem to care so I didn’t bring it up.

I didn’t know what to say to him, though, so I just walked over and stood next to him, mirroring his body language.

It felt like an eternity before he spoke again.

“An envelope. Can you believe it? He was fucking dramatic.” Callum exhaled a heavy breath. “Did you read yours?”

“Fuck no,” I said. “Not here. Not yet. Maybe one day.” Maybe never. Truthfully, there was nothing Sam could say from beyond the grave that I was even remotely interested in hearing. It was likely a bunch of bullshit anyway. I slid the envelope into my back pocket.

“Are you going to read yours?” I asked, eyeing the envelope as Callum shook his head.

“Maybe. Not today. I don’t—I can’t.” He cleared his throat. “Not today.”

I took a deep breath in, then let it out slowly. “Did you want to go get shit-faced?”

Today was as good a day as any to break my long-standing rule of not using booze to deal with my feelings. I was tired as fuck of trying to be put together when all I wanted was to fall apart.

“That’s a terrible idea.” Callum closed his eyes and leaned against the building. He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh, all of the air whooshing out of him at once. “Let’s do it.”

I almost couldn’t believe he said yes, but then he opened his eyes and looked at me. I could tell he was exhausted, sad, a million things big and small all at once.

“I don’t want to be around people, though.” Callum grimaced like the word people was contagious.

“So we get smashed in my hotel room.” Oh, now that was a bad idea. Me and Callum, alone, in a hotel room, both mired in the thick of it.

He looked at me for a long moment before nodding and pushing away from the wall. “Okay. Okay. Yeah, let’s… anything beats being in that house right now.”

We hopped into my car, and Callum was kind enough to ignore the trash in the back seat that had accumulated during the drive here. Our first stop was the liquor store, where Callum chose a bottle of vodka that probably tasted like lighter fluid but would absolutely get me hammered. After the liquor store, I stopped by a pizza place and grabbed a large pepperoni pizza, knowing that later we’d need something to sponge up the alcohol.

Under any other circumstances, I might have been able to drum up some excitement for the fact that Callum Weeks was in my hotel room. As it was, I could only feel an unsettling sense of dread, like there were more shoes waiting to drop.

Callum sank down to the floor and leaned against the bed. Cracking open the vodka, he took a sip from the bottle and immediately winced.

“Strong?”

“Disgustingly,” he replied. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he then held the bottle up for me to take. Against my better judgment, I sat down next to him, shoulder to shoulder. And I took the bottle.