Chapter 16 #2
She looked almost nervous then, as if she thought she’d overstepped. He squeezed her hand back before pulling away from her. “That’s what I’m doing here.”
“Miniature robot wars with Bob and Phil isn’t really trying, Daniel.”
He gave her his own sad smile. “It totally is, compared to how I’ve been doing since we broke up. And don’t knock Battletech until you’ve tried it.”
Daniel , March 16
Daniel was officially twenty-one years old. He didn’t feel any different than he had last night, when he was still just twenty.
Sure, he could buy liquor now, but he rarely drank, so that didn’t seem like a big deal. And as of this morning he could go to Atlantic City and gamble in a casino, but he didn’t want to do that anyway.
Even though he’d known intellectually that nothing would really change, he was a little disappointed that he didn’t feel… something. He couldn’t say what it should have been. Just something .
On the plus side, he didn’t feel hungover, unlike everyone else in the house. He’d had one cup of last night’s drink of choice: the cheap vodka Bob had bought mixed with orange Tang that Phil had found in the back of a cupboard. One cup had been more than enough.
Well, Kim wasn’t really hungover. She was the only one who listened to his advice to take three aspirin and drink as much water as she could stomach before going to sleep, and she was the only one who was even halfway functional this morning.
“Thanks, Daniel,” she said while he poured out Cheerios for the two of them. It wasn’t quite stale, and it was also the only breakfast food in the kitchen. Luckily, there was also just enough milk to share between two bowls. “For last night, I mean. And for the breakfast, such as it is.”
He shook his head. “Sure thing. Next time,”—if there was a next time—“I’ll insist that we stop for groceries on the way. This really is a pretty sad meal, isn’t it?”
Kim gestured towards the back door, and he followed her outside with his sad bowl of almost-stale cereal.
“It could be worse,” she said, sitting down on the steps that led to the trail to the lakeshore. “At least the company’s pretty good.” She tapped her bowl against his. “Oh, and cheers to you. Happy birthday!”
“Thanks Kim. It’s weird,” he said, staring out at the lake. It was perfectly still this morning, and silent. “I thought I’d feel—I don’t even know what. But it’s just another morning, and I’m still just me.”
“A person could do a lot worse than being just you”
He didn’t say anything for a while, and neither did she.
They both just watched the serene lake. There weren’t even any birds this morning, or squirrels or whatever else lived out here.
After a while, she tapped his shoulder, and when he didn’t immediately respond, she grabbed both shoulders and turned him to face her.
“I know what I said when I got here. But do you want to talk about her? You can call it a birthday gift.”
He looked at her, and saw nothing except kindness—and maybe some sadness mixed with it in her eyes. “I don’t know. I—I still love her, Kim. She’s still here,” he put a hand over his heart. “I don’t think she’ll ever not be there, you know what I mean?”
“Like I said the other day, I’ve never felt that.
But I can imagine what it’s like.” She hesitated for a moment and her voice caught before she went on.
“I do imagine it. A lot. And sometimes I want to go downstairs to Nora’s room and scream at her because she did have it and she let it go.
” Daniel didn’t answer. What could he say?
He waited for Kim to go on. “Except—I guess this is what you want to know—I don’t think she has let it go, any more than you have. I don’t think she can.”
Daniel didn’t know how he felt about that.
This whole year had pretty much sucked. There wasn’t a day that went by—sometimes not even an hour—where he wasn’t reminded of her.
He’d see something she would have joked about, and he’d hear her laughter and then he’d turn around and expect to see her.
And always—every time—be disappointed that she wasn’t there.
If she was feeling that, too—he didn’t want that for her. It was bad enough that he lived with the constant ache of her absence, she shouldn’t have to hurt every day, too.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, after a while. “If she’s going through what I’ve been… I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”
There was another silence, and after—he didn’t even know, maybe ten minutes?—Kim finally said, “If I talk to her—I’m not promising, just if—do you want me to tell her that you’re doing okay?”
“Yes.” It was a lie, but the truth wouldn’t do anything except hurt Nora even more than she already was. “Maybe if she thinks I’m okay, she’ll let herself feel better. It’s the least I can do, right?”
Kim leaned over, hugged him. “I don’t think you owe her anything, Daniel. But I’ll tell her. I promise.” He wished he could believe he didn’t owe her anything. It would be so much easier. But maybe he didn’t owe her everything . That, he could probably make himself believe.
He held on to Kim for a moment or two longer.
He hadn’t realized how much he’d been missing simple human contact.
Not sexual. Not romantic. Not anything except kind .
Just touching someone else, and being touched, because they were another person who knew you were hurting and they wanted to make it better, even if it was just for a minute.
“Thanks, Kim. It—all of this, it means a lot.” He let her go, and grinned at her.