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It was the first time he felt pain that wasn’t his own, and it was goddamn unbearable. He knew then he’d do anything to make it up to Victor, and even if his mother hadn’t died and left her house to rot, he still would have offered Victor the chance to leave and start over far away from that ugly world they’d been part of.
And once Emil’s cracks appeared, they all started falling apart. His drinking got worse, and all the walls he’d built up over the years were tumbling down.
Before that phone call, he hadn’t given his mother a passing thought unless he was wasted and close to passing out. Those were the nights he couldn’t shut off old memories of everything she’d done. Of the nightmare he’d lived that had somehow become his normal.
He’d cry into his pillow and rarely remembered it come morning.
But now she was gone. For good.
It was over.
According to the report he’d gotten, she’d died alone in her home, surrounded by years and years of literal and metaphorical garbage. He wouldn’t think about her. He hadn’t gone to see the body. He waited for too long—weeks that turned into months, until Victor and now Oliver were ready to set sail across the country, and Emil could pretend like he was just heading that way to look for a new start.
It wasn’t entirely a lie. It just wasn’t the full truth, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever tell his friends.
“…Mr. Nilsson?”
Emil blinked back to the present, realizing Sandy Smith was speaking to him. He cleared his throat. “Can you please repeat that? I was a little lost in my thoughts.”
For the first time, her face showed an expression: annoyance. “I’ll have all the paperwork and a copy of the deed sent to your hotel.”
He did his best not to wince. He knew she wasn’t calling him out on his inability to settle down, considering he’d been in Rhode Island for almost a full year. It wasn’t like Sandy knew or cared how Emil lived his life. But the shame was ever present, and he was running out of excuses every time Victor asked why he still hadn’t picked a condo.
The truth was, he didn’t really know why he couldn’t take that first step. He’d given up everything he’d known for the last several decades, and he was bound and determined to never look back on the man he was.
But something kept him rooted to a place of impermanence, and he had no idea how to change it. He watched Victor and Oliver fall deeper in love—watched them get jobs and buy a home and make something of themselves. Envy raced through him, molten hot and vibrant green, but he couldn’t seem to make himself change.
Maybe he was doomed to be the fuckup he was in the past. Maybe that was his future.
“I’m still at the hotel,” he finally said, realizing he’d been quiet for too long again. He dragged his fingers through his hair, then glanced up at the front door of his mother’s old house, which was sitting crooked on its hinges.
It was a strange little property. There were a few homes that had clearly been built within the last decade. They were modern and beautiful. And then there were places like this: old family properties damaged beyond repair. It almost felt like a metaphor for his life, and he fought back a laugh.
“Do you happen to have the number to a service that might clean this place out?” he asked, glancing to the house on his right. It was one of the newer ones—a thin layer of snow over dead grass and a perfectly stacked pile of wood a few feet away from a chopping block.
Sally blinked at him and, without missing a beat, stuck out her hand. “Not my area. Have a good weekend, Mr. Nilsson.”
And that was that. He was dismissed.
He watched her walk away, his gaze fixated on a run in her peach-skin-colored pantyhose and the way the hemline of her pants was slightly crooked. The crunch of gravel under her heels was oddly soothing, and he felt strangely bereft when she got into her car and left him to the silence of his mother’s yard.
He turned back to his current burden and looked up at the attic window. It was fogged over with dust and God only knew what else. He pictured the face of a poor, trapped soul looking out of that window.
Hers maybe? Or his.
This wasn’t the home he’d grown up in, so it saved him from the pressing weight of reliving his childhood trauma. But inside, there would be evidence of everything he’d gone through. Remnants of her life, and her disorder, and how she died.
The only thing the mess wouldn’t contain was answers. Why had she been like that? Why hadn’t she ever gotten help? Why hadn’t she loved him enough to stop?
Why was he the one chosen to be born into that chaos?
Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he scrolled through his contacts, but he didn’t know anyone who could help with messes like the one she’d left behind, so he turned to Google instead. “Company that cleans up after hoarders,” he said aloud as he swiped his thumb over the keyboard.
Several places populated.
He adjusted the location, then wandered over to the steps and sat. The wood beneath him bowed and groaned like one wrong move would send the whole thing into collapse. He started across the sad, unkempt lawn to the street and then to the bend in the road, which led far away from here, and he desperately wished he was on it.
But what else could he do? He was an adult, and these were responsibilities he’d been running from for far too long.
