Chapter 4
chapter four
It was almost midnight, but my mind was racing, my heart was aching, and everything felt like it was slowly falling apart around me.
I was fighting back tears. Tears I didn’t want, and I didn’t need.
They were useless. Like a dark sky with nothing but two tiny little stars in one corner all the way on the other side—too far to be seen.
Too inconsequential to be noticed. They didn’t mean anything, and they didn’t change anything, so why entertain their existence?
After ringing the doorbell a couple times with no response, I started to knock. Loudly. Rapidly. Over and over, I knocked on the door, hoping and praying that one of them would answer. Just fucking answer.
I leaned forward, letting my forehead rest against the door as I was trying and failing to even out my breathing.
It was too fast and too shallow, and soon, my silent disco would become a very vocal and panicked one.
My chest felt so fucking tight, I started to worry I was having a heart attack.
But no, it was just anxiety. Always there, always waiting, like a monster in the dead of night, hiding in the dark.
My forehead slipped as the door finally opened, Price standing on the other side. His pajama pants were backward, he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his cheeks were surprisingly red for how cold it was outside. “Callum? What the fuck are you doing here?”
Swiping my hair out of my face, I looked up, taking in another deep breath. “I need to talk to you. Both of you.”
“And it couldn’t wait until morning?”
“No. It can’t.” I blinked through a couple of tears that had made their way onto my eyelashes. “Please, Price.”
His eyebrows furrowed just before his face started to relax. I could see when it finally dawned on him how desperate a situation this was. He stepped to the side, letting me in. “Let me go get Crew. We were, uh, busy.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re good. Just give me a moment. Go sit on the couch, and we’ll meet you there.”
Their house was in one of the nice suburban communities. I’d been really surprised when they first moved in, honestly. I thought they’d keep the apartment or at least stay in the city if they did buy. It was nice, though, and their couch was super comfortable.
I waited, anxiously picking at the skin on my fingers. They were always torn apart and bleeding, a curse of how much anxiety fueled my day-to-day life.
Crew and Price came back downstairs and took a seat on the loveseat by the couch. Crew turned toward me directly. “What’s going on?”
Fuck. I had to tell them now, didn’t I? But how could I?
How was I supposed to explain that I’d seen a ghost of our past and that it was tearing me the fuck apart?
I didn’t know how to explain that the memory of Tobi had haunted me all these years, never giving me a moment of rest because what if. And what happened?
Clearing my throat, I hoped and prayed the choking feeling in the back of it would go away so I could sound like I somewhat had my shit together. I wasn’t too hopeful, though. “I saw Tobi.”
This was the worst part. The part we usually avoided at all costs.
I watched as the light visually drained from Crew’s eyes.
The usual bright, icy blue of his iris slowly started to dim.
Just like that. With the mention of one name.
One person. The person he missed almost as much as he missed his mom.
Crew blinked once. Then twice. It was like slow motion, waiting for his brain to come back online from the years of pain he was sifting through in his mind. “What?”
Price was shaking his head. “Tobi? Like, our Tobi?”
I couldn’t do anything but nod, confirming their thoughts.
“How? When? Where?” Crew’s voice sounded uneven. Shaky. Something I hadn’t heard from him in a very long time—not since he’d hit his sixth year in therapy, at least.
Averting my gaze, I looked down at the carpeted floor.
I stared at it, begging for answers. Were there patterns in the threads that could lead me to the right place?
“I went and saw my friend Jack. He owns a bar not too far from work. He had to step away, and when I was looking around, I saw him. Even though I only saw the side of his face, I knew. I knew it was him.”
I leaned my head back against the couch, looking up at the ceiling instead.
If I couldn’t find anything in the carpet, would I find it there?
No, probably not. But I’d still try if it meant my tears would go back to where they came from.
“He looked bad. Really bad. Different. He was nursing an entire bottle of vodka by the shot glass full.”
“He was drinking?” Crew sounded so hurt. “He didn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that. He stayed away from anything that could numb him like that. He always said he was afraid to start because he didn’t know if he’d be able to stop.”
“Yeah, C. He was drinking. He’d already drunk most of it by the time I got there, but I took the bottle away when I left.”
I could hear a shuffling sound just before Price started to speak. “So, wait, what did he say? What did you two talk about?”
Closing my eyes, I replayed it in my head again.
For the hundredth time since driving over here.
“Not much. He said he doesn’t come to this side of town anymore.
He’s lived here and there and everywhere.
” I scrubbed a hand over my face, catching a few drops of nothing.
Just useless, ridiculous fucking tears that wouldn’t do anything.
“His accent is like yours, Crew. It isn’t as thick anymore.
He looked like he hadn’t been taking care of himself.
I told him we missed him. I told him I wanted to understand. But he didn’t give me much.”
“I can’t imagine Tobi without his accent.”
Rolling my head against the cushion, I huffed a humorless laugh.
It was more sad than anything. Maybe even devastated.
“I couldn’t have imagined him any way, honestly.
I’ve tried so hard not to think about him for so long, I forgot thinking about him wasn’t illegal.
In my mind, he was happy. He was off in another state, living his life, probably with a new boyfriend and maybe a couple of dogs.
” I shrugged. “I don’t know. But the truth feels so much worse.
I stopped thinking about how happy I conjured him up in my head to be because it felt wrong.
So fucking wrong. Like a piece of me was going with each fake memory I had of him. But the truth hurts even more.”
Crew sniffled. I knew it was him without even opening my eyes. I could hear his heartbreak. I could feel it shifting through the air, grouping together, and settling into the couch I sat on. It was heavy. It was loud. “I’m so sorry, Callum. I know how much you loved him.”
“Love.”
He paused for a second, letting the word hang in the air. “Right. I know how much you love him. And I know how much this must hurt. Fuck, it hurts, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Price started. “It hurts knowing he’s not been doing well, and if he’d just talked to us, we could be there helping him right now. He left without explaining. He made himself disappear from our lives without even so much as a heads-up. It hurts not knowing the reason.”
I opened my eyes and picked up my head, looking straight at both of them. “Now that I know he’s still in Crescent Planes, I’m not going to give up. I told him I was going to figure out the truth, and I meant that.”
Crew was nodding, bringing a hand up to swipe tears of his own. “We won’t give up, either. If he even wants to see me. Us.”
“I think he does, Pretty Boy.” Price leaned against him, kissing his temple. “It may be buried, but I think deep down, he really wants to see all of us. Why else would he be on this side of town after all these years?”
Was it by chance or maybe convenience? Was it possible that there wasn’t a specific reason Tobi was here?
Maybe he didn’t mean to be. Maybe he was passing by and wanted to stop for a drink.
I didn’t want to think the universe was that cruel, but what else had it been to me, if not cruel and punishing?
Thankfully, the night sky was still beautiful, the earth was still rotating, and stars were still being born. If the sky stopped being beautiful, then I’d know I was really and truly fucked. I’d know that I’d lost Tobi forever.
At least the universe could give me signs.
I never should’ve picked up smoking. When I was a dumb kid, I found out it was one of the few things that stopped the absolute chaos in my head.
At least, it used to. Now, not so much. Now, I panicked on the inside, stayed calm on the outside, and tried to catch up with the smoke billowing from the cigarette by inhaling it quicker than it could disappear.
My one true guilty pleasure. My most damaging vice. I just couldn’t find it in me to care enough about actually quitting anymore.
The moment I stomped out the remainder of my cigarette and swung the doors open, the smell hit me.
Disinfectant. Sickness. Despair. Death. It was always the same—always getting stuck in my nostrils, irritating the very lining of them.
I hated it here. I hated it so much, I’d rather cut my fucking arm off with a toothpick and no numbing agents.
I walked down the hallway, passing by different rooms and the odd nurse every now and then. I tried to pretend like everything was fine. No big deal. Just a hospital. It was just a hospital. I kept telling myself that as I reached the room I was looking for, walking through the open door.
I put on a fake, beaming smile just for him. “Hey, Pops.”
He looked up, his dreary eyes catching mine. God, he looked so tired. “Callum! My favorite grandson.”
“I’m your only grandson, Papa.” I laughed as I pulled a chair close to his bed, sitting right in front of him. He couldn’t see or hear very well anymore, so I had to be right up in his personal space to have a conversation with him. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Oh, I feel fit as a fiddle, Cally. I’ll be up and running in no time.”
Frowning, I took his hand from the bed, holding it in mine.
His skin was so thin and fragile—like paper, waiting to be torn.
He had an almost yellow tint to him that he hadn’t had a few days ago, right before I took him here.
His body was constantly fighting and losing, and I was secretly losing my fucking shit at the idea of losing him.
I didn’t say that, though. “Yeah? What did the nurses say today?”
“Well, my blood pressure is looking good. They’re still pumping me full of medicine to keep my heart where it’s supposed to be.
They’ll be doing more tests to see if I’m out of the danger zone with the infection, but I feel fine.
I told them I wanted to go home, and one of the ladies just looked at me like I was spouting nonsense. ”
“As they should, Pops! You’re in no condition to be going home. Infections are no good for you. Especially with your heart the way it is.”
“I’m just old, son.” He patted the back of my hand gently. He was shaky and weak-feeling. “I’ll be alright. Just need to finish those meds they’re giving me, and I’ll be back home where I belong.”
Seeing him get older was pure agony. I couldn’t help the pain. I couldn’t stop time. I couldn’t keep him from losing parts of himself that he prided himself on for so long. He’d raised me, and I couldn’t imagine burying him before I went six feet under, too. I just couldn’t.
I fucking wouldn’t.
So, instead of thinking about it too hard, I gripped his hand just a little bit tighter—only a little bit, as to protect his skin—and laughed with him.
I pretended with him. We pretended like time wasn’t our enemy and that the day would never come where I’d have to make a decision for him after his death.
Because death didn’t exist. It was a myth.
A cruel, punishing myth, just like the universe.
I wanted to tell him I saw Tobi. I wanted to spill every emotion taking up space in my mind and body.
We used to do that, he and I. I’d just tell him every single thought that came up in my head, unloading all the weight that held me down in life.
He’d take it all, nod along, and then hug me so hard I could barely even think.
It’d helped me all the way through my early adult years, but then reality struck.
Tobi left.
And my world had totally fucking collapsed. I’d been weighed down ever since. I refused to weigh Papa down with me, too.