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“Remember the steps. Come on. Five things you can see?” His voice is distant.
“The scar on your lip,” I choke.
Jamie nods, smiling encouragingly.
“The paint peel on the cupboard under the sink,” I continue, my voice shaking as I try to take a deeper breath.
“Next?”
“Plates on the rack.”
“Good. Two more. Take a breath and two more.”
The pressure in my chest is lighter now.
“Your first grey hair.” I try to smile as Jamie feigns offence. “You have Mom’s nose.”
Jamie cocks his head to the side as he prods my nose with his finger.“So do you.”
I laugh as my tears fall.
Jamie sighs. “Better?”
“He smashed them, Jamie.” The confession cuts me. “Matthew smashed them.”
A darkness clouds his features, a mist of regret and shame mingling with something undiscovered; something shoved deep into the hidden depths of himself and left to fester.
“I’m so sorry, Jamie.”
He shakes his head slightly as a sad smile twists his lips. “It’s not your fault, Mik. None of it.”
Jamieleftthreehoursago and the apartment is too quiet. Even with the glow and whisper of the television screen permeating the space, I feel alone and exposed. My skin itches and every sound has me skittering to the door - checking the chain and sinking to the floor - or the window - double checking locks and pulling the flimsy curtains tighter. My heart is permanently in my throat and the thought of closing my eyes to sleep leaves me shaking and nauseated.
I’m right back where I started.
Slamming my laptop shut, I pull the blanket around myself and let my mind take a break from the blank page staring back at me. I shuffle from the couch to the kitchen and push onto my tiptoes, reaching for a coffee cup as I try and fail to think up a way past the opening scene of the story I’m stuck on and glance at the time. The clock on the oven flashes an irritating red, reminding me I never set it, and I push the knot in my throat down. I’ll fix things in the morning. Right now I need coffee. I need it if I want to stay awake.
As my fingers brush against the lip of a cup and I hook one through a handle, a gentle rapping on the door startles me.
Suddenly the cup is no longer precariously balanced on the edge of the shelf. Instead, it’s falling almost painfully slowly, clipping the counter on its way down, and exploding into large chunks of sharp edges and tiny chips that scatter everywhere.
“Shit!” I jump back as a broken piece ricochets off of the floor and snags on my calf before skittering to a stop beneath the table.
The knocking resumes, a little more frantic now, and my head snaps up at the sound.
What if it’s Josh? What then?
My blood starts to scream behind my ears as I take a shaky step over the mess and towards the door.Slowly, terrified of whose face I might see, I hold my breath and place my eye against the peephole. A strangled kind of cry catches in my throat and I slump against the door - my breathing now heavy and disjointed - and my fingers move to the chain, unhooking it before I open up.
Ben
Her cheeks are tearstained again and her bottom lip is red and swollen from biting hard as she chews on her own skin.
“Hey.” Mikaela breathes in a way that screams with relief.
“You shouted in there. Everything okay?” I peer over her, glancing into the relative darkness of her apartment and spotting the mess of a broken cup on her kitchen floor.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I just -”
