Does she remember the day in Year 10 he was sick from school, and his Dad was staying late at work so he called to ask if he could stay over, but she wasn’t home at her apartment?
On the fourth day, Jae’s texts turned into calls. Seth ought to tell Jae what happened, instead of refusing to reply. Hadn’t he told himself he’d try tostopbeing a dickhead whenever he was going through something?
At least he can start by being a better friend. By the third ring, Seth answered.
He didn’t say anything at first, and Jae let him just breathe into the receiver. Seth started to realise that Jae truly was a good friend, for letting him just breathe into the phone.
After a couple of minutes, Seth told Jae everything. It was the first time he’d said it out loud, and voicing it seemed to only root it in reality.
“Sorry, I sound like such a- I sound like -” Seth didn’t want to put his fear of vulnerability into words. So what if he was on the verge of tears, because of his situation?
Still, the voices of his high school peers floated in his head.
“You don’t sound like anything, Seth,” Jae said, his voice soft, “You just sound like you. And you’re hurting. Anyone in your situation would. I’m here for you, man.”
Strangely enough, his phone call with Jae made him feel much, much better. That night, he logged online their game and spent all night gaming. It was the first time since Nina’s goodbye that he laughed.
On the fifth day, Seth got out of the house. Did some groceries, even though the fridge was still fairly full.
He went for a jog that evening, and while his muscles still felt rusty from years of lack of exercise, the movement alleviated him. Just like it did, that time he went for a jog a couple months ago.
When he saw Nina again.
He rested against the park bench, the same one that he’d sat upon that day he saw Nina again with Spencer. He waited. And waited.
The sun had its curtain call, painting the sky vermillion, and still.
Nina and Spencer never showed up, and Seth walked home, alone.
On the sixth day, is when everything exploded. Seth thought he woke up, feeling okay. More okay than before. He went for a jog in the morning. Worked on his capstone project. Jogged a little more.
It wasn’t until the afternoon, when he was downstairs clearing the dishes from lunchtime and prepping ingredients for dinner, that he heard a thump upstairs. From where his room was situated.
Concerned that something had fallen from his shelf - one of his Marvel figurines or even his games - he’d run up the stairs. And saw his Dad standing in the middle of his closet, reaching up into the floating shelves.
On the floor was his old school bag, and a couple of his yearbooks. The sight of it set off a flare.
A flare that blazed, bright and blinding, until he was consumed with memories of Nina once again, a montage of moments from the past and the present, merging into one ball of regret.
“What are you doing in my room?” Seth yelled. He couldn’t control it, the frustration. The anger in his voice. The everything.
His Dad’s face morphed into one of surprise.
“Sorry Seth - I would’ve asked you to help me but you were making dinner. Just wanted to see if you had my -”
Seth didn’t give a shit what he needed to get.
“You haveno rightjust going through my things.”
His Dad’s eyes widened, taken aback by his son’s outburst. Holding up his hands in surrender, he stepped out of the closet.
“Okay,alright.I won’t go through your stuff again.”
But it was the casualness of it all, the fact that his Dad had felt he had the right to just go through his stuff, like he had that sort of comfort with him. That comfort left long ago, when he’d stayed at work into the night, and snuck into the house after a night at the bar when he thought Seth was asleep.
His Dad didn’t even realise that the top shelf of his closet is where he kept his memories, all of which were made in the backdrop of their failure of a marriage. His school bag and yearbooks still lay on the floor, a taunting of his own failure. Nina’s face flashed once more in his mind.
“What’s going on?” his Mum called, from the master bedroom.
