“I am. See?” I held up the empty carton of ice cream.
“Great. That takes care of your stomach. What about everything that’s building up here?” she pressed her hand to my chest, which admittedly, had been feeling like it was carrying a truckful of bricks over the last few days.
I sniffled and hugged my friend, letting her hold me for a moment before I reached for a box of tissues and settled myself on the sofa. “Will you spend the night?” I asked after a little while of our silence.
“Well, I can’t very well drive home, now can I?” She held up her glass to me.
There weren’t many things left on my list to do. Even if Nic was right and I didn’t need to complete it to feel like I was honoring her memory, I still felt like I needed to finish it. But it didn’t have to take priority. I also didn’t need to keep carrying it around with me. Heaven knows I’d memorized it by now.
Sometimes I’d reach for it when I was missing her and it was a way to get myself thinking about something else. Something I needed to do.
Instead of obsessing over the piece of paper, I started to tear through unpacked boxes, looking for a photo album. Any one of them. I finally reached it at the bottom of one of the heaviest boxes I’d brought over from upstate.
I knew which it was by the cover, it was a small one. From our camping trip around the time I was in grade school. I’d forgotten how much we looked alike. Except her hair was always perfect, her blond shinier and she was always smiling.
I should smile more.
I cried that night. And the next. I took some personal time off work, and it was the best decision I’d made in a while. On Tuesday, I took a day trip upstate to hang out with my dad and the two of us went through some more of her things, remembering the best memories and laughing over them.
Eventually, I cried over August too. Admitting to myself how angry I was at him and how much I missed the man I thought he was all the same.
I spent two days watching romantic comedies, taking bubble baths and leaving my apartment a mess because I was tired of cleaning the life out of it.
I was due to come back to work on Thursday, but Frankie came to my apartment early with coffee and a plain bagel.
Pulling the door open, I groaned. “Do you usually bring a peace offering when you fire employees?” I was allowed time off, but I felt like I’d been really pushing it the last few days.
“I’m not here to fire you.” He let himself in, holding his matching sized coffee.
I sunk my teeth into the bagel and swore I heard a tooth crack. “Did you get this from the cart vendor on third avenue?”
“Yes.”
I chucked the stale bagel in the trash. The coffee was worth the risk.
“How’s Nic, does she hate me?”
“I’m sure she’s great. I gave her the day off.”
“What about…”
“Closed today for unsanitary conditions.”
“Really, that’s what you come up with?”
“It’s New York, if you don’t have a food and beverage place that hasn’t closed for unsanitary conditions at least once, it’s not busy enough.”
I moved into the living room with my coffee and he followed. “Is this about the sketches? You want me to finish them?”
“That’s from two weeks ago—it’s dead. No one will want those now.”
“What?”
“I figured you knew. Troy Hartman got hit hard at last night’s game. He’s in the hospital.”
“Oh no.” I hadn’t been watching the games, but my chest ached regardless of which brother it was.
“Aren’t you guys a thing? Anyway, he’s also announced this morning that he’s stepping down to minors, effective immediately.”
