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“It’s just…” I sniffed again, wiping my nose. “I try not to regret stuff, you know? I try to make the best of shit and not second-guess myself or wonder how I could’ve done things differently. But… there’s nothing I can do about this. I can’t take it back. I just have to live with this. With knowing I made my brother’s childhood hell.”
“Maybe that’s not a bad thing. You never stop growing, you know?”
I rolled my watery eyes. “Yeah, dude, I’ve heard all your little affirmation thingies before.”
“I’m just saying think positively, Nuni. Greid is okay. He’s happy. And your relationship with him can only get better from here.”
“I guess,” I croaked.
“You said you apologised, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And he forgave you.”
“Yeah.”
“So now you can both start moving on from it.”
I swallowed thickly, chin wobbling. “Yeah. Hopefully.”
Laki grunted. “And we don’t want a repeat of the Month of Despair, right?”
My ears fluttered wildly. About six months after Felik and I had started Rorik + Stimis—when I’d just left an amazing job at another architecture firm, and we were drowning in debt, and I was working eighteen-hour days to get the business off the ground—I may have had a… mild breakdown.
I may have spent a month on Laki’s couch, doing nothing but eating ice cream cake and watching terrible action movies in a pair of ancient pyjamas.
I’d just kind of… snapped. It had felt like I hadn’t relaxed or had a break since I was a kid. No one else in the family knew about it, and eventually I’d taken a shower, put on a suit and strolled right back into our tiny, crappy first office as if it hadn’t even happened.
I’d told Felik I had to go to Deep Earth for a family emergency, despite the fact that I’d only once met the very distant family we had down there when I was a kid. But he hadn’t questioned it, even though he’d been majorly pissed off.
“No.” I exhaled, trying to calm down. “We don’t want a repeat of that.”
“What are you doing today?” Laki asked. “Want to go for a hike? Or we can just chill. I could bring some beers to your place. I’ll even get the gross low-carb ones.”
“Uh, I’m just—” I froze, whirling around on the couch to peer at the time on the oven’s digital display. “Shit. I was supposed to meet Anita at the gym a half hour ago.”
Pulling my phone away from my ear, I realised I had a few texts from her.
“… about after?” Laki was saying as I lifted it back to my ear. “Or are you spending all weekend with her again?”
“Um, I think so.” I stood up and beelined for my bedroom. “If I drive, I should be able to get there—” I froze again. “Fuck. My car’s still at Greid’s.”
“It is? Why?”
“I smoked shade with him yesterday,” I said distractedly as I grabbed my gym clothes.
“What?” Laki sounded dismayed. “I can’t believe I didn’t get to see you high for the first time.”
“It wasn’t all that interesting, dude. I just ate too much.” I tugged on some clean underwear. “And we watched wrestling.”
Laki grumbled. “That sounds awesome. But I can go get your car for you.”
“What? You don’t have to do that—”
“You have plans with Anita. It’s cool. I have the spare key for it. I’ll get the bus to Greid’s and drive your car to yours.”
“Seriously?”
