Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Tick, tick, tick…
The second hand of the clock snaps forward, each tick sharp, grating, and digging deep into my skull.
I stare at it where it hangs above the fireplace, and its steady rhythm mocks the stillness in my chest. My fingers restlessly tap against the side of my now-empty glass, matching the slow, maddening cadence of the clock, like a metronome for my unravelling patience.
Tick, tick, tick…
It needs to hurry the fuck up.
I drag a hand down my face, the faint burn of my first drink already fading from my tongue, leaving behind nothing but the dull, familiar ache for more.
Fuck it.
I lean forward to grab the bottle of whiskey from the coffee table and tip a generous pour into my glass.
It’s only my second drink of the afternoon, and somehow, that feels like an achievement worth noting.
As if making it to 6:00 PM on a Saturday at home before giving in deserves some kind of medal.
Well… 5:58.
Close enough.
Because, at the end of the day, who fucking cares when the buzz starts, as long as it comes. So long as it reminds me I’m still here and have a pulse.
The whiskey hits my tongue with the familiar taste of caramel and heat, and just enough of a burn to feel like penance.
It slides down my throat and settles in my chest, wrapping itself around the hollow space where something used to sit.
Something that shifts every now and then, like a ghost beneath the surface.
Not quite solid, but not quite gone either…
A heavy sigh escapes me as I flop back on the couch and take another long drink. The glass is nearly empty by the time I let it fall back against my thigh, and the ticking fades as the liquor seeps into my bloodstream and the corners of my mind start to blur.
I close my eyes and try to feel my heart beating in time with the clock, but as I press my fingers to my sternum, all I get is a whisper.
Just one, and I’m not even sure I really heard it.
My body moves, breathes, and swallows the whiskey, but I’m locked somewhere outside of it, reaching for a door that never opens.
But then I feel the shift. The familiar slide into the half-comfort that isn’t comfort at all.
It feels both safe and wrong, quiet and loud, empty and full, soft, but not suffocating…
just beginning to dull the edges, smoothing out even the static I was hoping might turn into something real.
The shame, the isolation, the pain, the craving for purpose, meaning, and sensation… it never really surfaces.
I drink to try to feel something. But all it ever gives me is a quieter kind of empty. A silence I can’t crawl out of.
It’s the most comfortable place I’ve ever hated.
But lately, there have been brief, unexpected moments that bring sparks of awareness. Where I’m suddenly hit with the feel of my own breath, the weight of my limbs, the heat and pressure that build under my skin… like I’m in my body, even if just for a second.
And I felt that just yesterday… in my office.
I open my eyes and turn my head towards the window.
Bare branches sway beyond the glass, just beginning to bud, as their skeletal limbs reach towards a soft blue sky, slowly darkening as the evening settles in.
The breeze nudges them gently, and something inside me seems to sway as well, as a breath automatically fills my chest like I’m trying to move with them.
Who even has a favourite fucking tree…
My phone starts buzzing on the coffee table, so I roll my head to see my brother’s name lighting up the screen. Reaching forward to grab it, I blow out a long breath as I prepare to sound more sober than I feel.
“Hey,” I say as I lift the phone to my ear and let my eyes drift back to the window.
“Hey, bud,” Darren replies, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “What’s up?”
My gaze drifts over the living room, bathed in the soft light of the lowering sun. Golden streaks spill through the windows, casting everything in a gentle, settled glow, looking like something out of a life that doesn’t belong to me. One that’s warm, quiet, and almost convincing.
Except the light lands on the truth.
It hits the half-empty whiskey bottle on the coffee table, the amber liquid catching the sun like stained glass.
Across the room, last night’s empty glass still sits on the bookshelf, another empty bottle tucked halfway under a pillow on the armchair.
A sweater I haven’t picked up in days is slouched over the armrest, and notebooks and scraps of paper are scattered across the floor.
“Just…” my eyes flick to the bookshelf beside the fireplace, “reading.” Then I press the heel of my hand into my eyes and shake my head.
I hate lying to him.
“Nice,” Darren says, and I can hear his kids laughing in the background. “We’re outside watching Hunter and Sophie on their new hoverboards, hoping they don’t injure themselves or each other.”
I huff at the ease with which he says that. “Hoverboards?”
“Yeah,” he says with a chuckle, and I hear his wife, Claire, laugh as well. “That’s what they bought with their birthday money. So, thanks for sending that.”
I don’t understand kids. They just turned eleven, and for the longest time I never knew what to get them. They’re twins with totally different personalities and interests, and a shared need to one-up each other. So once they turned ten, I just started sending them money and let them figure it out.
But hoverboards? What the fuck…
“Good to see you teaching them solid financial skills,” I mutter, tracing the rim of my glass with one finger.
“Fuck off,” he laughs. “If it gets them off screens, I don’t care what they spend their money on.”
“Good to know,” I say, tipping my head back on the couch and looking up at the ceiling. “I’ll double it next year and tell them it’s only for weapons and chaos.”
“My god,” he groans. “Don’t, please.”
A ghost of a smile touches my lips, and for a second, it feels almost normal. Like I’m not a mess, and we’re just two brothers simply catching up.
“So,” Darren starts, and I hear the shift in his voice that reminds me that’s not true, as he shifts into big brother mode. Being twelve years older than me, it comes way too fucking naturally to him. “It’s sunny and warm here in Nova Scotia today. How is it there?”
The fucking weather? Seriously?
I shift my eyes towards the window, taking in the soft sunlight streaming in. “Same.”
But Darren remains silent on the other end. And I know why.
I know he knows. He knows I haven’t been outside today, and he probably knows I’m at least a couple drinks deep.
It’s why he calls every weekend, usually on Saturday night, even though he’s never said it out loud.
But I see the way he watches me when we’re both home in Moncton, as if he’s trying to piece something together without tipping me off.
Like he knows something is wrong, but he can’t figure it out.
You and me both, bud.
“How’s work?” he asks in that same careful tone, easing around the edges of the question he really wants to ask. Are you ok?
I roll my eyes and look back at the ceiling. “It’s the weekend, Darren.”
“Yeah,” he says, a little too gently for my liking. “But you don’t do anything else, so… what else am I supposed to ask you?”
Asshole.
A sigh escapes me, and I don’t bother hiding it. “It’s fine. Besides dealing with eager, stuck-up dickwads and students who don’t know a wavefunction from a waveform.” I sigh again. “My research is going well.”
“Well, that’s good.” His voice lifts a little, and I try not to let that annoy me. “Any major breakthroughs in the quantum mechanics world coming soon?”
I roll my eyes with a huff. “No. No one’s celebrating marginal entropy shifts in imaginary systems just yet.”
Darren laughs. “Well… I have no idea what that means, so I’ll take your word for it.”
But my gaze drifts towards a notebook by the armchair, where I’d jotted down the results from the simulation I ran this week. Something about the edge cases in the entropy distribution had been bothering me… I’d meant to rerun that batch, maybe adjust the boundary conditions or—
“Cade?”
“Sorry,” I mutter, dragging a hand down my face as I force my attention back on Darren. “What?”
“I asked if you’re going to Mom and Dad’s tomorrow?” Darren asks, sounding even more concerned now.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m going to help Dad get their yard cleaned up.”
“Good,” Darren says. “We’re planning to visit in a couple weeks, so I can plug away at some too while we’re there.”
“I’ll leave plenty for you then,” I say, eyes dropping to the whiskey bottle on the table, hating that I’m even half-considering making those words true.
But Darren just chuckles, taking it as the joke it was supposed to be. “Perfect. I’ll bring my chainsaw and pretend I know what I’m doing.”
But I don’t laugh.
I want to, and I wish I could. But the weight in my chest is becoming heavier, dragging me deeper into the void I can’t climb out of.
I hate that he continually wastes his weekends checking on me, and I know he spends more time than he’d ever admit worrying about me.
And while he’s trying to keep things light…
I have my eyes locked on a bottle of whiskey, proving that he has every reason to worry.
There are some murmuring sounds in the background as Claire says something, and I hear the kids cheer.
Darren chuckles. “Ok, sorry bud, looks like I have to go. We’re going to fire up the barbecue.”
“Sounds nice,” I say, glancing down at the glass resting on my knee and tilting it just enough for the sunlight to catch the whiskey, turning it a rich, honeyed amber. “Enjoy.”
He hesitates for a moment. “I’ll call tomorrow when you’re at Mom and Dad’s, and I’ll see you in a couple weeks.”
I take a slow, deep breath and hold it until my lungs start to burn, just enough to feel real. Then I let it go. “Yeah. Sounds good.”