Chapter Twenty-Four
Alex
The days blur together. It’s as if time and space don’t exist, and I’m just going through the motions.
Roll out of bed, move to the couch, stare at the muted television, order food, brush my teeth, get back into bed.
Repeat. Sometimes I get a flower delivery and add them to the pile next to my dirty laundry.
My mom texts, asking if I’ve eaten. I send her a picture of the half-empty box of fried rice.
Texting I can handle. Mostly. Short messages.
After several days of sending everyone straight to voice mail, pretty much everyone stopped calling.
Other than Jules, Chloe, and my mom. It’s exhausting, assuring people I’m okay when I’m not.
But my heart’s still beating, proof that I’m somehow alive.
When I wake up this morning, there’s a text from Jules.
It’s a photo of a flower stem bursting through the ground.
I’m not sure what kind, maybe a tulip or a daffodil.
I wonder if the picture has some kind of double meaning, like regrowth or new beginnings.
Life after death or something symbolic like that.
Or maybe she sent it because she’s excited about the flowers making their first appearance like she is every spring.
I groan and toss my phone on the bed, not sure how to handle symbolism in my current state. Throwing back the covers, I slide out of bed and push open the curtains, squinting when the sun filters through the windows. It’s the first time I’ve seen daylight in days.
Mason would have a fucking fit if he knew.
That’s when I get a whiff of myself. Or is it all the leftover take-out boxes and dying flowers I’m smelling? Either way, I’m unable to remember the last time I showered, and that’s enough of a motivation to get my shit together.
I spend an exceedingly long time in the shower, and once I’m out, I start a load of laundry and take a trash bag to the various take-out canisters scattered around the flat. I wash my sheets next and do a deep clean of all the surfaces.
When everything’s been put away or pitched, I discover that somewhere along these past few days, I’ve lost a sock, my favorite fork, and my retainer.
Again.
Once the clean sheets are on my bed, my stomach rumbles for something other than takeout. I check my fridge only to find a half a carton of spoiled milk, some butter, and a quarter jar of jam. Even my bread has gone moldy.
“Great,” I mutter.
There’s a knock on my door just as I try to psych myself up into going to the store. It’s probably another flower delivery. As if the dozen vases of wilted flowers I just pitched aren’t enough. I’m not sure I can take much more of things dying.
But when I open the door, there are no flowers. Instead, there are several bags of groceries being held by a glaring and exhausted-looking Chloe. “Ten days is too long, dude.”
My mouth opens, but I’m too stunned to say anything. When Chloe pushes past and unceremoniously drops the bags on my counter, the first thought that crosses my mind is that I’m supremely glad I cleaned and showered.
She faces me with her hands on her hips and waits.
“Hi,” I finally manage to croak. I thought my tears were all dried up, but here they are, threatening to spill once again. I’ve never been more glad to see her in my life.
Her expression softens, and she crosses the short distance to pull me into a tight embrace. One I return with strength I didn’t know I had left. “We’ve been worried about you.”
“So you flew to England?” I ask, my face pressed into her shoulder.
“So I flew to England.”
She holds me for an eternity, never once loosening her grip.
Chloe has always been closer with Jules, but that doesn’t mean I don’t consider her one of my best friends.
And even with all the ways Jules knows me, there are some parts that Chloe seems to get on a deeper level.
Or maybe it’s not deeper. Just different.
Where I seem to cut Jules with my broken pieces, Chloe seems immune to my jagged edges. And she proves it by showing up time and again. It makes me realize how much I’ve been taking her for granted.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I whisper. She gives me another squeeze, and I finally let go and wipe at my eyes.
She takes me in. “On a scale of one to ten?”
“A three,” I tell her honestly, way too tired to lie. She’d be able to see through it anyway.
“A three?” She frowns. “That’s not good, Alex.”
I shrug because I kind of thought a three was pretty good, all things considered. “Maybe tomorrow, I’ll be a four.”
“Or you could be a two.” She rubs at her face and takes a deep breath. “Okay, go sit. I’m going to make you something to eat.”
I don’t fight her on it, mainly because I’m hungry and also because I can tell by the tone of her voice that she’s not messing around. She doesn’t say anything else, just gets to work cooking something that smells an awful lot like her famous chicken parm meatballs.
My eyes feel heavy and dry. At some point, I must fall asleep because the sound of Chloe placing a plate on the coffee table wakes me. Sure enough, when I open my eyes, there’s a plate of meatballs with marinara and a side salad. “Thanks, Chloe.”
She sits beside me, and we eat in silence.
“I ran into Simone a couple days ago,” she says once we’re done.
“Yeah?” I push my plate away, full and tired all over again.
“She said she offered you her spare room.” Her tone seems more curious than accusatory, but I still tense like she’s exposing some kind of secret. “You gonna take her up on it?”
I let out a long breath. Simone moved into her own place a couple months ago, and a few days after Mason, she was quick to offer me a place to crash if I decided to move back to Virginia.
“I don’t know. I’m supposed to go back to work on Monday,” I tell her, as if my mediocre job at the marketing agency is the reason I need to stay in London.
“Or,” she drags out the word, “you could not do that and move back home.”
My chest aches at the word “home.” “I don’t know where that is anymore, Chloe.”
She hums and tucks her leg underneath her, turning so she’s facing me. “Jules doesn’t know I’m here,” she admits. “She has school and wedding shit, and I knew that if I told her I was coming, she’d be packed and ready in under five minutes.”
Her admission feels like a sucker punch. I know Jules has obligations and a life outside of my sad little mourning bubble. I also know that the last time we were in the same space, I shouted and pushed her away.
I miss her.
“Yeah. I know. How is she?” I ask after an awkward beat of silence.
“Maybe you should call and ask her.” Her tone holds bite.
“I tried. She didn’t answer.” It’s a crappy response, one so unconvincing that it wouldn’t fool anyone, least of all Chloe. Especially because it isn’t entirely true. The one time I tried, she was in class, and she returned my call immediately, only for me to send her straight to voice mail.
“You tried what, twice?”
“What do you want me to do, Chloe? She didn’t answer.” It’s a stretch, an almost lie, and for the life of me, I don’t know why I’m digging in.
“Why would she?” she asks. “If someone I loved pushed me away as much as you shove her around, I wouldn’t answer your calls, either.”
“Fuck you,” I all but spit because that’s taking it too far.
“No, fuck you, Alex. It’s not always about you.
She’s supposed to be planning her wedding.
Her wedding! She almost canceled a venue tour with her future mother-in-law because she was trying to get on a plane to come see you, like, two days after you left.
Even after all the crappy stuff you said to her. ”
“I was hurting!”
“We’re all hurting,” she says just as loud. “I get that it’s worse for you, but that doesn’t mean you get to lash out at people who are just trying to be there for you. You don’t get to do that. Especially not to Jules.”
“I get it, I’m an asshole.”
“No, you’re just acting like one.”
My eyes start to water, and my throat feels tight. Her words hit hard because I know I’ve been a jerk. My brother is dead, and I’m so angry because I’m stuck here swimming in guilt because I wasn’t there. For the past seven years, I haven’t been there, and I hate myself for it.
She shifts closer and takes one of my hands.
“I’m sorry that Mason is gone. It sucks.
And it sucks that I don’t have the words to tell you how much it sucks.
But there are people who are choosing to be here for you.
Who want to be. Even when you act like a dick.
” I snort because only Chloe can lay it out so simply while bordering the line of loving and mean.
She squeezes my hand. “So let us fucking be here for you.”
“I can’t sleep,” I confess. “When I close my eyes, all I see is Mason plucking his stupid guitar or the look on Jules’s face when I…” Everything I want to say seems to get caught in my throat. “If I could go back, I’d do it all differently.”
“You can’t go back.” It isn’t unkind, but it still feels sharp in the way only brutal honestly can feel. “The best you can do is push forward, one day at a time. One minute at a time. It’s going to take some work, but you deserve to be happy.”
Instantly, I’m transported to my brother’s bedroom. I can see his concerned expression and smell his woodsy aftershave.
“She’s happy. I don’t want to ruin that.”
“So you get to stay miserable?”
The memory elicits the tiniest of smiles. “You sound like Mason.”
She lets her head fall to the back of the couch and closes her eyes. “That’s because we talked about it a lot.”
Of all the things she could’ve said, that was not something I expected. I think back, wondering when the hell Chloe and Mason would talk about something like that. About me and my happiness. “You did? I didn’t know that.”
She smiles. “That’s because we didn’t want you to.”
It makes me want to know what else they talked about. Were their conversations just about me? Or did they discuss Jules and Brian, too?