16
Cody
There wasno amount of reflection or retracing of steps that helped me understand how I’d found myself living on another fucking boat.
Making a beeline for the bedroom, I bypassed checking out the rest of the space, trusting it to be much the same as when I’d been inside a few times several lifetimes ago, when Bree was shacked up here with Vinh.
My feet dragged as I dumped the blanket that I’d low-key stolen and my pillow onto the freshly made bed and then set my box on the small nightstand along with my keys.
The light sway beneath my feet was not a welcome sensation, but it was what it was.
I lived here now.
Maybe I deserved this kind of reminder of the last six months.
I eventually mustered the courage to take in the bedroom and had to choke back a sob almost immediately. Thank God noone was here to see it, especially Bree. I’d probably have to do something truly horrible to offset such a display.
I swallowed thickly against the boulder in my throat. My best friend had done more than put sheets on the bed.
A lot more.
The sleek black futuristic-looking lamp on the bedside table nearly did me in. I clenched my fists tightly, glaring at it even as I held back a sob.
I was not going to cry over a fucking lamp.
Even if it was the exact same touch lamp that fourteen-year-old me had secretly coveted for weeks, making extra trips to Fortuna’s arcade to save up for it. There had only been one of them behind the arcade’s prize counter at the time, but before I’d won enough tickets to get it, Bree had announced one day after school that she was getting it.
I’d hidden my disappointment well—or so I’d thought—but then a week later, with the goofiest, most satisfied smile that showed off all the neon-colored rubber bands of her braces, she gave me the lamp for my fifteenth birthday with a bright red Christmas bow on top.
Shaking my head, I walked over to flick off the overhead light and then hesitantly returned to the wretched lamp and pressed a finger to its base. Warm light filled the small bedroom, and I deflated.
With a dignified sniffle, I sat on the bed and rubbed my hands over my eyes before I opened my oldest, most battered shoebox. I was a nostalgic, sentimental asshole, so when Liem sent me that text that said to get what I needed to feel comfortable, this box, my pillow, and the soft knit blanket that smelled like sea, charcoal, and sunshine were what my sleep-deprived mind deemed necessary.
I slipped a hand inside the box and rooted around, pushing aside beads and a pen until I found the faded yellow arcadeticket from the day I’d met Bree. Once I situated it under the lamp’s base, I cautiously explored the rest of the room, keeping my movements slow and methodical, as if that would save me from any more emotional jump scares.
Sliding open the shallow drawer of the bedside table, I found a six-pack of my favorite cherry lip balm, a new thing of sunscreen, and a dark-blue baseball cap with the local minor league team’s logo embroidered on the front. There was a neon yellow sticky note attached that read:
Wear this outside until your hair on the side of your head grows back out, for the love of God
Chuckling, I removed one of the lip balms and applied some before tossing it on top of the nightstand. With one more glance at the lamp, I fell back on the bed and surrendered. I’d reached my limit. I shimmied out of my shorts and shucked off my T-shirt, which left me in just my silk boxers, before I rolled myself into a burrito with the knit blanket and let Liem’s words in his soothing voice lull me to the edge of sleep.
“You have a new home here in a safe harbor.”
“Rest until sunrise.”
“Everything will be okay.”
The last images in my mind before I drifted into a dreamless sleep were the palms of his scraped hands and his deep, dark eyes.
I violently startled awake after what felt like both seconds and eternity later, feeling wild and untethered. I shot my gaze around the room and tried to make sense of my surroundings, relaxing infinitesimally at what I found.
Ordidn’tfind.
No bunk bed beneath me, no buzzing, battered mini fridge in the corner, no work uniforms strewn on the floor.
No resentful looks or deep, sorrowful sighs.
Not the hundred-square-foot room I’d shared with Austin.
