by Hawke Oakley
“Good morning,” I said.
“Hi,” he said, his voice hoarse. He looked embarrassed at the squeaky way his voice had come out and cleared his throat. “Morning.”
He glanced over at the fruit and oatmeal I’d spread out on the counter, then shot me a confused glance as I adjusted my tie. “Is this for you?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I thought I’d make you breakfast.”
“Oh.” That didn't seem to make the situation any more clear to him. Perhaps his mind was still in a sleepy fog.
“What’s the matter? Still tired?” I asked.
“No, it’s not that, it’s just…” He rubbed his arm. “No one, uh, ever made me breakfast before.”
As utterly strange that sounded, I decided not to make him feel more alienated by pressing him with questions. “Well, all of this is yours, should you want it,” I offered. “There’s fresh coffee in the machine. Cream and sugar are over there by the strawberries.”
“Thanks,” he said. The fact that this was all for him still hadn’t sunk in yet, apparently, by the way his blue eyes glazed over at all the food before him.
“Well,” I said. “I’ll be off, then.”
“Huh?” He looked up sleepily. “Wait, where are you going?”
“Off to work,” I said with a smile. “Who else is going to scold Nico for being late to his shift again?”
“Oh.” He pondered this for a moment. “Okay.”
“Will you be alright?” I asked.
He suddenly smiled at me, but his eyes weren’t in it. “Yeah. Don’t worry about me.”
“Alright. I’ll see you soon.” I took a note from the counter and scribbled a few numbers on it. “Just in case you need me, here’s my cell, and this one is the bar’s number. Either one should be able to reach me.” I paused, then added another one.
“What’s this third one?” he asked.
“Nico’s number,” I said. “Just in case you would feel more comfortable talking to him than me. I completely understand.”
He shrugged and gave me a lopsided grin. “I, um, feel comfortable with you just fine. But thanks.”
That lit a warmth up in my chest. Those words were surprisingly comforting to hear. I nodded. “Thank you. I’ll see you soon, Seth.”
Phoenix greeted me at the parking garage, as he always did. I told him a thousand times he didn’t need to escort me to the bar, but he insisted in that gruff firm way of his. By the thousandth-and-first time I’d given up telling him not to bother.
“How’s the kid?” he asked.
“A bit disoriented, I would imagine. Tired. Grateful.” I sighed. “He had a nightmare last night. I was so scared. I didn’t know how to deal with it at all.”
Phoenix’s brows furrowed. “What did you do?”
“I held him by the shoulders until his breathing returned to normal,” I explained. “But after I left, I spent the whole night wondering if he would have another one. I barely slept.”
Phoenix laughed. “Look at you. You’re practically chewing your nails off with how worried you are over him. Like a mother hen.”
I sighed. “Phoenix, how can I not be? He shows up one night on the run from some slimy villainous man, with no money, no family to speak of, and no place to stay.”
His face turned serious now as he nodded. “Yeah. It’s a shitty situation for anyone to be in, much less a kid that young.”
I quirked a brow at him. “He’s not that much younger than you, you know.”
Phoenix scoffed. “Yeah, but I’m practically three times his size. Plus, he’s, what? Twenty-one? Barely old enough to get into the bar. That’s still a kid to me.”
“I remember when you were twenty-one. Just five years ago,” I said with a smirk.
“Yeah, I remember when you were, too, old man,” Phoenix said. “Twenty-eight ain’t that much older.”
“Oh, so twenty-eight is an old man and twenty-one is a kid?” I said.
Phoenix chuckled. “Yup.”
I unlocked the back door and we headed inside. The club was always eerily quiet before officially opening. Too big, too empty. Our footsteps echoed on the floor as we went to set up the night’s activities at the office. Since Phoenix had nothing to do when the club was empty, he shadowed either Nico or I until opening. Nico wasn’t here yet, even though he had a starting shift, so Phoenix was stuck with me.
Although, lately, I got the feeling he’d much rather be by Nico’s side.
“That man, Adrian,” I began. The name felt grotesque, like grit on my tongue. “Nico said he was trying to sneak in the back door last night.”
Phoenix frowned. “Yeah?”
“Keep an extra sharp eye out tonight. I know Seth isn’t here, but I still don’t want any trouble.”
He nodded seriously. “You got it, boss man.”
“You know, you don’t have to call me that,” I said.
“I know.” He grinned. “But it’s fuckin’ funny as hell when you get flustered.”
I shot him a playful glare. “I’m going back in time and unhiring you.”
“Fine by me. Lots of places would pay extra for all this muscle.” He made a big display of flexing and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Nico showed up out of nowhere, bursting through the door. “Sorry I’m late – psyche! I’m totally on time today.”
“Yes, early in fact. Maybe I should give you a raise,” I said.
“For real?”
“No.”
His face fell. Phoenix immediately grabbed him in a headlock and messed up his manicured black hair I knew he’d spent at least twenty minutes getting perfectly styled. “Get off me!” Nico cried, swatting at the huge man now lifting him off the ground. “Isaac, help! I’m being murdered by the Hulk!”
I tried to hide my smile as my friends-turned-employees horsed around, nearly knocking everything off my office desk. “Alright, alright, if you’re going to goof off, you can both do it outside.”
They stopped. Phoenix put Nico back on the floor, and he instantly went back to fixing his precious hair.
“How’s Seth?” Nico asked as he combed back his bangs. The genuine concern shone through in his dark eyes.
“He’s alright. Tired, mostly. He had a nightmare last night.”
Nico grimaced in sympathy. “Poor Seth…”
I crossed my arms. “He said something strange this morning that’s been bothering me,” I began. Nico and Phoenix listened intently, their light-hearted fooling around instantly gone. “I laid out breakfast for him and he said that no one had ever done that for him before. However, I got the impression that he and Adrian had been dating before last night’s events, whatever happened.”
I paused as they digested this information. Then I asked, “Nico, how much do you know about Adrian?”
“I know he’s a fucking scumbag,” he spat. Hatred glimmered like daggers in his eyes. “And if I ever got my hands on him, I’d – ”
Phoenix put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down. Nico sighed sharply. “Sorry. I just – I’ve never seen Seth look like such a fucking mess. He’s completely different compared to how he was in high school. He’s like… a broken version of himself.”
As Nico said the words, their weight fell on all of us. The atmosphere turned heavy.
“What happened after high school?” I asked quietly. “I recall him telling you that’s when he met Adrian.”
Nico was shaking his head, eyes turned angrily onto the floor. “I don’t know. He met the guy during last semester, and he seemed really happy then. But at the same time, his grades kept falling. He said it didn’t matter anymore because he’d already been accepted into a college, but now I’m not even sure he went. Fuck.”
Phoenix squeezed his shoulder again, soaking up some of the tension wracking Nico’s frame. “Sorry, I’m just so pissed that I let this happen.”
“It’s not your fault,” Phoenix said firmly.
“That’s right,” I added. “There�
�s no way you could have known. Besides, you said it yourself that you lost contact with him after high school.”
“Yeah, but I could’ve tried harder. Shit.”
Nico was on the verge of angry tears. He wiped them aggressively onto his sleeve. “I mean, even if I knew then, that something was wrong, I couldn’t even offer him a place to stay, because – because my fucking – ”
“Nico,” Phoenix growled. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”
Nico glanced up at him, but said nothing. It was clear he was in a lot of pain, too.
“You don’t have to continue right now,” I said.
“No,” Nico said, shaking his head. “It’s fine. It’s not about me right now.” He took a moment to steel himself, then continued. “Anyway, Seth was always talking about this guy he met, Adrian. Even back then I didn’t like him. Just the way he sounded… Anyway, I didn’t want to sound like a jealous bitch, so I was there to support him. He said he really loved this guy, so I was like, fuck, who am I to get in the way of his happiness?”
“That’s understandable,” I said.
“Except, eventually, Seth just started… drifting away. Some days he wouldn’t show up to school. I’d check our usual hang out spots and find them empty. It was the worst when he wouldn’t check his phone. Hell, I don’t know if he wasn’t checking or just not answering me. I don’t know which is worse.”
“Was Adrian cutting you off from him?” Phoenix growled.
“Maybe. Shit, I don’t know. Maybe he took Seth’s phone and threw it in the fucking river for all I know.”
I tried to remind myself that this was all speculation. I always tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, and most of what Nico was saying now was conjecture in the heat of the moment. I had to keep that in mind.
But at the same time, a nagging feeling told me that it wasn’t far from the truth.
“Then you lost contact with him?” Phoenix asked.
“Yeah,” Nico said. “Just one day, it all stopped. At first I was pissed. He was my best friend and he made no fuckin’ effort to talk to me, or meet up with me. Then I started to get worried, I thought maybe I should call the cops or something, but then I thought, what if he doesn’t want to be found? What if he doesn’t want me to find him? So I decided to give him some space, maybe to come around later, but it just… never happened. And I guess after that, I just accepted that he was gone from my life.”
Silence swallowed up the room as Nico finished his story. My chest was heavy with grief for both of them.
“I wish I’d figured it out last night,” Nico muttered. “When Adrian was there, and he kept badgering me to get in through the back door. It all makes sense.” He sighed. “I never met him before, so I didn’t know what he looked like.”
“How would you have known it was him?” Phoenix said. “Don’t beat yourself up over this, Nico.”
“He’s right,” I added. “Seth is safe now. You don’t have to carry the blame.”
He gave a little half-smile. “Yeah. Thanks, you guys.”
Seth
I was almost too anxious to eat. There wasn’t anything I could even pinpoint being anxious about – but that's the thing about anxiety. It’s just there, like something cold crawling inside you, like a worm.
I shuddered. Okay, maybe that analogy wasn’t quite right. I’d rather have the anxiety.
But even though my brain was busy reacting to some threat that didn’t exist, I knew in my mind that it would be impolite not to eat any of the breakfast Isaac had laid out for me. I started with something light and sweet – the bowl of freshly cut strawberries. Isaac had cut the greens and pale top flesh off, leaving only the sweet ripe red fruit behind.
It wasn’t even just the strawberries. Looking across the counter, I saw other fruits that must have been meticulous or time consuming to cut up; pineapple, orange slices, little apple boats covered with plastic wrap so they wouldn’t turn brown in the exposed air.
And Isaac had done all of this for me.
There was way too much food for one person to eat, that was for sure. It almost seemed like when you make pasta, except when you pour too much of it in the pot and you end up with like, way too much. Maybe Isaac wasn’t used to preparing food for anyone else.
I wasn’t sure I liked having that monumental weight on my shoulders. I wasn’t special. I didn’t deserve all of his generosity. Hell, I was still practically a stranger to him. Why was he going out of his way like this?
I ate as much as I could comfortably handle, then began putting everything away in the fridge. The entire time I was gnawed at with guilt – Isaac had done so much for me in the short time we’d known each other, and what had I given him in return except another hassle in his busy life?
Something slipped from my hands. The cold horror shot up my spine a split second before the ceramic bowl hit the tile and shattered.
I stood there, watching the scene play out almost in slow motion. The bowl exploding – the blueberries flying everywhere. It was almost funny. It should have been funny. But years of conditioning lit up an icy panic in my brain. Immediately my hands began to tremble, and my heart started racing. I broke out in a cold sweat.
I braced myself and waited for the screaming to begin. But it didn’t come.
Slowly, I lowered my trembling hands.
Adrian was not here. He was not lurking around every corner, waiting to berate me. I knew that, mentally at least. But that didn’t stop the cold, sick feeling that welled up in my gut. It didn’t stop my racing heart rate or the way my stomach churned like I was going to be sick.
My shaky knees gave out and I fell to the floor. Pieces of broken ceramic were everywhere, like a minefield. I remembered the time I broke one of Adrian’s glass cups by accident. The way he appeared, as if from nowhere, and startled me onto stepping barefoot onto a piece of glass was something I’d never forget.
My hands reached absentmindedly for my foot now. Through my sock, I touched the scar on the bottom of my foot from that time. That was the first time something like that had happened, and the scar made sure I never forgot it.
I curled up beside the cabinet, holding my knees tight against my chest. Breathing was difficult. My chest was heavy, bogged down. Every deep inhale felt like a lead weight. I shut my eyes, but that proved to be a bad idea almost instantly. Without visual input, my mind was free to run wild – and of course, images of Adrian were what it conjured up.
I groaned and pushed myself back to my feet. I had a mess to clean up, and sitting here having a panic attack over it wasn’t helping. I willed my hands to stop shaking as I searched the cupboards for a dustpan. Maybe I was too distracted to see it, but after five minutes of looking I couldn't find one. I settled for carefully picking up the individual shards with my fingers and throwing them out, one by one.
It wasn’t so bad. At least it wasn’t glass.
Despite that, I still nicked my fingers in a couple of places. It wasn’t glass, but the ceramic edges weren’t pillowy soft, either. When the floor was spotless, I shuffled to the bathroom and washed my hands, wincing as the cold water stung my wounds. For a moment I thought about calling Isaac and asking him if he had any bandages, but remembered he was at work and probably wouldn’t want to be disturbed.
I went back to the kitchen floor, on my hands and knees, and double checked for pieces I might have missed. There were still a few miniscule shards. After throwing those out, I triple checked. To be on the safe side, I checked a fourth time.
When I was satisfied the floor was totally safe, I went back to my bed – the guest bedroom, I corrected myself. It was not my bed. There was no way I would let myself slip into the habit of calling this place my home. This was Isaac’s home, and the only reason I was here at all was a massive stroke of luck and generosity.
I curled up on the bed. I was careful to keep my hands close to my chest, so if they trickled blood, it would only stain my shirt and not Isaac’s sheets.
>
It was quiet. It was so fucking quiet.
I shut my eyes and rustled the comforter, just to break the silence. Goddamn expensive fancy condo and the soundproofed walls. The windows were probably soundproofed, too. I couldn’t hear any sirens or street noise from outside. Suddenly I felt like I was going crazy. I threw the comforter off and paced around the room. No droning of the TV, no voices from the living room – I started to panic again. I wanted to speak, to say something out loud to break the soundlessness, but I didn’t want to hear my own voice. I hated it.
I thought about turning the TV on, just for white noise, but I didn’t want to touch Isaac’s belongings without his permission – and there was no way in hell I was going to bother him at work just so I could hear Young and the Restless in the background.
I thought I heard the window rattle and I jumped. I hadn’t pulled the curtain back, and the uncertainty of what was on the other side sent a massive spike of anxiety pulsing through me. My mind knew I was being ridiculous – what could be on the other side? Wind? A bird, maybe? But my body didn’t care – it was so used to running on fight-or-flight that it instantly jumped to the conclusion that yes, Adrian is right outside the window, and he’s coming for you.
I shuffled quickly to the living room, where the blinds were open. I kept pressed to the wall closest to the door, just in case.
Just in case what?
Just in case.
I kneeled down to the floor, making myself as small as possible, and waited.
Isaac
“I’m home.”
It sounded unusual coming out of my mouth, but I didn’t want to just barge in while Seth was here. I could tell he appreciated a little warning, whether it be to a hand on his shoulder or my presence in the apartment.
Even though I’d managed to sneak off early (it was a quiet night, not unusual for the middle of the week – Phoenix and Nico could handle it), it was still late, which is why I was wondering why all the lights were still off.