Chapter 18 - Bin Alone
Claudia had not stayed long, but she didn’t need to.
She had asked for a key, and I obliged and found her my spare.
The weekend had come and gone, but by Monday morning, despite still not wanting to get out of bed and face the world, I needed to get up for work.
At least I find the courage to say the words I’ve struggled to accept aloud.
“Eddy is gone.”
I clutch the pillow in my bed to my chest. It is the only pillow I had not washed yet. It smells damp, like he once did. Mixed with dust and my sweat. Or are those tears? I lift my head and inspect at the stain.
I replay that moment repeatedly in my mind. I bargain with myself, begging nobody in particular for him to return. To change what had led up to that moment. But he had spirited away faster than I could process. He faded away, dissolving in the morning sunlight.
I bury my nose deeper into the pillow and breathe it in as if, if I smell it hard enough, it will somehow bring him back to life.
It doesn’t.
It only brings me a headache, and heartache.
Life doesn’t pause for the heartbroken, especially over the already dead who manifest as a spirit and haunt the bins in the office. And so, like all things, I have to return to my old reality.
I go back to work.
Here, no one says anything to me. Nobody speaks to me unless they need something cleaned.
Claudia gives me a long look but doesn’t push. The accountant on level 4 had put in a cleaning request to get the stains out of the kitchen grout. I do the job without a fuss. I empty bins, clean stains, refresh toiletries. The motions are muscle memory at this point.
Easy.
Automatic.
As my hands work, my head is somewhere else. Somewhere darker. Quieter.
The trash is quiet too. I hate that I no longer hear Eddy’s playfulness throughout the day.
There is no low giggle from the recycling chute, no annoyed sigh from the mop bucket, no greasy fingers trying to tug at my belt while I am elbow-deep in someone else’s mess.
I had gotten so used to his presence, his little hauntings, his crude flirting, that now without them, the world feels… grey.
Not black. Black would’ve been better. Dramatic. Cathartic. But what I’m dealing with is grief. Wet cardboard sorrow. Everything is dull and soggy and too quiet, like a streaming service asking if I am still watching. Obviously not.
When my shift had finally finished, I came back to my apartment and tried everything to snap out of it.
I watch my favourite YouTube videos: trashy food reviews, cryptid conspiracy theories and old reruns of that weird 90s dating show where everyone dresses like vampires.
I don’t even laugh. Just stare hollow, wondering if he is watching these videos somewhere too.
For a few days, this goes on. As Friday rolls around, I realise I need to do something else to distract myself. I text Claudia, and she hatches a plan.
I go out for drinks with two staff. I let them drag me to this small queer dive bar where the music is too loud; the patrons vary between supernatural and not, and the air reeks of smoke, sweat and cologne.
I even let a hot guy flirt with me. He has broad shoulders and a filthy laugh and keeps touching my arm with intention.
I smile. I flirt back. I really try to feel something.
But I can’t stop comparing the lines on his face to Eddy’s smooth, youthful face.
I am not paying attention to what he says, but just how he is behaving.
He blinks too slowly. The smell of his cologne makes my nose curl.
None of it is right. None of it is him, but I let it happen, hoping that going through the motions will help me move on.
As Claudia had reminded me before we arrived, “Sometimes you have to get dicked down by someone else, to no longer have life dicking you down instead.”
I kiss him in a stall. Just to feel something. Anything.
He sucks me off. I struggle to cum, but it's an empty feeling.
The silence presses in around me, us, as I zip up my jeans. A hollowness echoes inside me. Cumming into that guy’s mouth had meant nothing. I had no connection to him.
He isn’t Eddy.
I had rushed out of the stall before he could ask me my number.
The next morning, I wake up and immediately trip over my phone charger cord.
My phone flings across the room, and I almost stumble over.
I quickly dip and grab my phone, then go into the kitchen.
There’s a crusted mug on the counter I don’t remember using and three takeout containers that might be sentient by the looks of them.
I throw them in the trash and turn around, leaning against the counter.
The apartment smells faintly of disinfectant and loneliness.
I shuffle through it anyway. Each step sounds too loud, like the place is trying to remind me it’s empty.
The bin in the corner is just… a bin; no sexy ghost men will ever come out to free me from my grief.
My whole apartment feels like a stage set for a life that had already ended—every object perfectly placed, every surface too clean.
It isn’t my home anymore. Just a place I come to sleep off my days.
I had thought going back to work would be the answer, but I am still hollow. He’d been everywhere; now he is nowhere.
I cleaned the whole place again. Not because I want to, but because I think maybe clearing out the last remnants will help. A sort of spiritual exorcism through disinfectant.
It doesn’t help.
It just makes the silence louder.
On Sunday, I impulsively called Claudia hoping for some guidance. I hang up before she answers. I can’t handle human company, even though I need it.
She arrives anyway without being invited.
She doesn’t knock. She just lets herself in with that key I had lent her last week. I hear her shuffle behind me–she’s found me on the couch, wearing the same hoodie I hadn’t taken off in days.
She looks at me, says nothing, then hands me another homemade pastry and sits down beside me.
“Is this grief?” I ask her eventually, mouth full of almond croissant.
She shrugs. “Looks like it.”
“He wasn’t real, though.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Wasn’t he?”
“I mean, he was. But not… you know. Real real. Like, he was a ghost.”
“He was real to you.”
I say nothing and just stare at the half-empty bin beside the couch. I wish it would rattle. Whisper. Smirk.
I say softly, “He mattered. Made me laugh. Made me feel… wanted.”
Claudia reaches over and squeezes my hand. “Then he was real. Curse or no curse. Bin-bound Spirit or not.”
I don’t cry. Not then. I had already used up my tears that morning on the floor of the shower, after I had cleaned everything but before I had called Claudia. But something shifts inside me, like a pressure valve has released. Like maybe I don’t have to keep pretending I am fine.
She stays for hours. Made a pot of tea. Lit candles. And she forced a reading of my tarot, even though I hated that shit. Do you blame me? It’s a result of having an Etsy witch as an ex.
Every card she had pulled had fire in it. Passion. Change. The Tower had come up, of course. And Death. And The Lovers reversed.
“He’s not coming back,” I say as she pulls a face.
“No, the Bin-Spirit isn’t,” Claudia says glumly. “But you’re still here.”
Later, just before she leaves, she kisses my forehead and whispers, “Call me when you’re ready to let him go. I’ll help you do it right.”
I nod.
I’m not ready. Not yet.