30. Secret Journey
T he door clicks shut behind me. For a second, I stand there—keys in hand, feet on the threshold like I haven’t decided whether I’m staying or leaving again.
The fan is off, so the air inside is stale from the heat.
It smells like toast and this morning’s coffee grounds when my day started so perfectly.
There’s also a low, dying hum in the air, something familiar yet unexpected.
The turntable’s platter still spins, even though the tonearm rests in its cradle—motion without sound, like something waiting to be remembered.
Outside, the drone of traffic up Piedmont Avenue and down Juniper Street creeps through the old window sills, a rasping chorus of movement rising and falling with the static of the turntable. Two different textures of emptiness layered together to fit as one.
I take a step forward. Then another. My shoes stay by the door, forgotten in the motion of entering, but I don’t remember taking them off.
The filtered light through the north-facing windows is the color of overripe peaches—thick and low, catching the dust motes in the air like little ghosts suspended in honey.
Everything looks softer than it is—like it’s been blurred or waterlogged.
Like someone’s wiped their hand across the glass of a framed memory.
The living room still holds this morning’s half-drunk glass of water, sweating on the coffee table, leaving a pale ring on the wood. I press my thumb into the circle to smudge it. Just to move something. The condensation is cool against the skin of my thumb, and it surprises me.
I sit, then stand again. The old couch that Naomi helped me find at a second-hand store feels too low to the ground.
Too soft. I step over a laundry basket left by the bathroom and make my way to the bed, but don’t lie down.
Instead, I sit on the edge, my elbows on my knees, my hands hanging loose between them.
The quiet rings in my ears, high and hollow.
Kevin was laughing.
That’s the part that loops in my head. Not the way he looked away from me. Not his hand on Josh’s back. Just the sound of his laugh. It wasn’t forced, or awkward, or guilty. It was genuine and whole, but just not for me.
I rest my head in my hands. The heels of my palms press into my eye sockets until color bleeds through—reds, oranges, that violet static behind the lids when there’s too much feeling and nowhere to put it.
Deep down, I know they are not the villains in my story. Kevin didn’t betray me back then. Josh didn’t steal anything. There wasn’t a theft. There wasn’t even a fight. There’s just a vision of a life that I don’t belong to.
The turntable still spins in the other room, yet there’s no music, just a faint hum that sounds like rain falling on a distant roof.
There are no tears. No tension building behind my eyes, no pressure in my throat. Nothing to release. I wish there were. That would mean something was still alive in me. Something worth fighting for.
Everything feels weightless. Loosened from gravity. It’s like sitting at the bottom of a pool—airless—watching light bend in ribbons just out of reach .
There’s a stack of vinyl on the floor, sleeves poking out, bent at the corners. One of them—I think—was playing that night. The night of the swim. It was an obscure song by the Police. I don’t remember the name—
No.
I do remember.
“Secret Journey.” From Ghost in the Machine .
It played as I stood moonlit in front of his bedroom window, towel damp around my waist, trying to decide if staying meant becoming something I couldn’t undo.
In that moonlit darkness, the lyrics spoke of seeing the light in the darkness of what was happening—of making sense of it—and when the evening’s secret journey was completed, I would find the love I missed.
I didn’t see the light, however.
I didn’t stay long enough to.
Not that night. Not in Bayview. Not in Kevin’s life.
I shift onto the floor, my back pressed against the bedframe, my knees up. I run a finger along the edge of a scuffed floorboard until it catches on a splinter. I don’t pull away. I press harder.
There’s no pain. Not really. Just the weight of being here. Just presence.