I don’t mean to cry.
I’m not even sure what I’m crying about, or maybe there are too many things to name. Losing my childhood home and hurting Iris and the way Nate looked at me. The baby.
Christmas without Mike.
I must have fallen asleep, because sometime later, I wake up to noise at the front door.
The door opens too hard, slamming against the wall, followed by a thud of someone running into the side table in the entryway, and a muffled curse that is unmistakably Mike.
I pull myself up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
The lights are still off, but the sunlight coming in through the window tells me it’s still mid day.
Mike doesn’t see me at first, moving toward the stairs with the grace of someone who’s had way too much to drink. His hair looks like it lost a fight with a brush, and his jacket is half on, covering a rumpled shirt. “Mike,” I say, getting his attention.
He turns around too fast, grabbing the railing to steady himself. “Alex.” He blinks at me on the couch. “You’re back.”
“I texted you.”
“You did? I didn’t see.”
I sit up fully, reaching for the lamp on the side table and clicking it on. The light makes him squint. “Where were you?” I ask, and I don’t mean it to sound accusing, but it does.
“Out.” He straightens up, running a hand through his hair, making it worse.
“Mike—”
“I’m gonna go shower,” he says, already turning toward the stairs.
I stand up and make my way over to him. “Can you stop for a second? I’ve been trying to reach you for days. You’ve barely texted me back, and now you’re…” I gesture at him. “What’s going on?”
He looks at me from one step up, putting us at almost the same height for once. His eyes find mine and hold them, and it doesn’t feel right. “I’m fine,” he says. “I need a shower, okay? Good talk.”
He turns and goes up the stairs, holding the railing the entire time.
When I came home three days ago, I figured Mike was still feeling sad over Christmas. That he would be fine now that I’m back.
I was wrong.
He comes downstairs in the morning and makes coffee and if I’m in the kitchen he saysheyand that’s it. That’s the whole conversation. He takes his coffee and he disappears into his room or leaves the house, gone before I can get to him.
That doesn’t mean I don’t try anyway.
I ask how band practice was and he says it was fine. I ask if he wants to watch something and he says maybe later and I don’t see him again for the rest of the day. If I cook, I make him a plate too. He eats it, but he never says anything other than a quiet thanks.
The Mike I know can’t stop talking. He has an opinion on everything and laughs at his own jokes before he finishes them. He falls asleep on me on the couch and steals my hoodies and wakes me up in the middle of the night to tell me about his dreams.
This Mike won’t even look at me.
And he goes out every night.
Sometimes he’s high, the slow sleepy version of him that means he’s been at Zara’s or Damon’s. Sometimes both, that particular combination I recognize from early on, when he seemed a little more out of it than usual.
I wouldn’t say it’sout of character.Mike likes to party and drink and smoke weed and I knew all of that before we ever did a single thing.
But recently there have been so many nights where he came to bed sober, or close enough. So many mornings where he wasn’t at the table drinking a cup of black coffee with a groan, fighting a massive hangover.
I didn’t even notice it happening.
