Page 14 of The Intimacy of Finding You

The door creaked open again as Jack came out and stood beside me, rubbing his shoulders with a shiver. “Holy fuck, it’s cold.”

I blew out the smoke I’d been harboring in my lungs and kicked some of the snow surrounding my feet. “Yeah. I really hope Tobi made it to some shelter.”

Seeing the pavement covered like it was didn’t bring good feelings or memories. Whenever it snowed like this, all I could ever think about was the panic during the snowstorm that had happened twelve years ago now. I could still see it on Tobi’s face as tears kept coming, staining his cheeks, and I couldn’t get him to tell me why.

I remembered the fear in his shaky voice when he came inside the restaurant and finally told me that Crew had disappeared into the storm. I’d taken him home with me that day. I’d slept on the couch while he took my bed, and I could hear his cries from all the way in the living room. He’d cried for the entire night.

Jack took a puff from his cigarette, letting the smoke blow with the wind. It billowed and traveled in front of our faces so peacefully, like it wasn’t in any hurry. “So, how do you and Tobi know each other? I asked him earlier, but he was more concerned with getting more booze.”

Sighing, I let myself fall against the wall behind us. There wasn’t enough nicotine in the world to make remembering any easier. I wondered if it ever would be, or if I’d be stuck in a constant state of fear and unrest. “Do you remember me telling you about my first love?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Tobi and I met each other at The Arch. We worked together. We started dating twelve years ago. And then one day, two years later, out of the blue, he started acting weird. Really fucking weird.” I took a final drag from my cigarette, holding onto the smoke in my lungs as I let it fall to the ground. I wanted another one. I wanted a hundred more. I wanted to drink so that maybe I’d understand why Tobi did it. Maybe I’d get why it meant more to my parents than I did. “And then not too long after that, he left. Disappeared. Vanished from all of our lives like he was never there in the first place. I haven’t seen or heard from Tobias Weaver in ten years.”

“No fucking way.” Jack gasped and turned toward me, his eyes wide. “He’s the guy?”

Nodding, I looked out across the snow-covered ground. There was nothing to look at aside from that, really. “The one and only.”

“No wonder he looked so fucked up when I mentioned you.”

“He looked fucked up?”

“Yeah, like, he had this distance in his eyes. Like he was stuck in thought, and the thought was making him sad. Really fucking sad.”

Was Tobi sad when he thought of me? I knew I was when I thought of him. The usually happy memories we’d had together were shrouded in grief. The grief of losing someone like him.

Even though he was alive, I’d grieved him as if he were dead. I think we all did. Crew and I had regularly searched for obituaries just in case, typing his name into Google along with different states, holding our breath as the search results populated. They never said his name, but we were ready. We were prepared for the worst.

“I’m sad, too. I was hoping to see him today so I could talk to him again. I want to try, you know? Try to understand and let him see that we all still miss him.”

Jack threw his cigarette butt onto the ground, letting it sizzle into the snow. “Do the others know?”

“Just Crew and Price.” Crew’s face when I told them still haunted me. “I don’t think I should mention it to anyone else until Tobi is ready to see them. I showed up at their front door that same night, all messed up and panicking. I had to go see Pops the very next day. Barely held myself together.”

“That makes sense. How is your grandpa, by the way?”

Shaking my head, I tried to breathe through the tightness in my chest. “He’s okay, I think. They’re catching up to the infection with medicine, and his heart seems to be holding strong.”

“Thank God. Let me know if you want me to come with you next time, though. I don’t mind being some comedic relief.”

I turned my head, eyebrow raised. “Comedic relief? I think you have to be funny for that.”

His jaw dropped as he put a hand over his heart. “I am so funny! You’re just jealous.”

I laughed just as my phone started to buzz. I reached into my pocket, looking at who was calling me. When I read the name, everything stopped. Everything in the entire world pressed pause. “Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It’s the hospital.”

Jack leaned closer to me, looking at my screen. “Shit. Answer it, Cal.”

No, no, no… They only called when shit went wrong. I wasn’t ready for shit to go wrong. I didn’t think I could handle it if something was going wrong with Pops. How did I answer it? My fingers didn’t want to. My brain didn’t want to. I didn’t want to.

If I didn’t, though, it’d go to voicemail, and I’d have to face it anyway.

Though my hand was shaking violently, I somehow got myself to answer the call, putting the phone up to my ear. “Hello?”

“Hi, is this Callum Stanton?”

I had to swallow through the huge fucking lump in my throat that was making it harder to breathe. My tongue was numb. Why was it numb? “This is he.” How was I even speaking right now?