Chapter Thirty-Five: Breaking (December 27th)
Itook a taxi to theairport.It was fucking cold, even for Timmins.I called him, but it just went to voicemail.I left a message telling him I was coming home.He never responded.Which was maybe not surprising, since the last time I’d called him, he’d told me he didn’t want to talk to me.That had been two days ago.I got a text from my mom while I was waiting at the airport:
We’re so disappointed in you.
That was about me leaving early.Because they expected me to stay after he’d gone.
It was a bad flight.I didn’t have him to hold onto.I was petrified the plane would crash, and I’d die without having the chance to tell him I loved him again.
I took a cab home because I couldn’t ride the subway that long without breaking down, and I didn’t want to do that in public.
I got back to the apartment and unlocked the door.The apartment felt...different.
“Honey kid?”
No answer.It was too quiet.I knew he wasn’t there.I looked for him anyway, checking the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, and the bedroom.I knew he was gone because I couldn’t feel him.
Where are you?
I checked the linen cupboard and the closet, not that I thought he’d be there, but things would have felt unresolved if I hadn’t looked.I found his hat and gloves—the ones I’d given him—on the shelf above the coat rail.He wouldn’t have gone outside without them.For a second, I thought he must be in the laundry room, so I ran out and checked.I opened the laundry room door, but it was silent, and the lights were off.I flicked them on, and I walked through the whole room.I even checked behind the vending machine, feeling like an idiot.
Then I stood in the middle of the room and called his name.
Nothing.
I went back to the apartment, and I checked every room again.I noticed what I hadn’t before.He hadn’t slept in the bed.When he made the bed, he left wrinkles and folds in the blankets.The bed looked exactly the way I’d made it before we’d left.His drawers in the bureau were empty.And the poster of me on the wall was gone.I felt hopeful thinking he’d taken it with him, until I found it rolled up in the closet.The frame was gone.
I looked in the bathroom again.The tube of “fancy” striped toothpaste I’d bought him because he told me he used to love it as a kid was still on the bathroom counter.
The thing was, he didn’t own much, so superficially, the apartment looked almost the same with all his stuff gone as it had when he’d been here.
But he’d left his hat and gloves behind, and I worried he’d be cold.
I checked my phone and saw that text from my mom again.
We’re so disappointed in you.
I had a lump in my throat and didn’t think I’d be able to talk to him, so I sent him a text,Please come home, honey kid.Or at least tell me you’re okay.
No reply.
I unpacked my stuff and did a load of laundry while staring at my phone.All I had to eat was a box of KD, so I made that and used water because I didn’t have any milk.
It was dark outside when my phone rang.I snatched it up.
“Eddie!”
“Yeah.”It was him, but he sounded cold, unfamiliar.
“Where are you?”
“That’s my business,” he said.
“Come home, please.”
