Jayce

Jayce

I quickly walk Namid out after he agrees to come back in two weeks to help me again. I don't want to risk my endless crying causing him to change his mind. While I say my goodbye, I do my best to keep my mind as blank as possible. I need to be on my own before I can even begin to process what he just told me.

I lock the door behind him and make my way back to the break room in a daze. Unless I take the time to close all of the blinds, it's the only room not visible from the parking lot aside from Jordyn's office, and I'm definitely not up to hiding in there while I have the breakdown I'm sure is on the way.

A quarter of a million dollars. A fucking quarter of a million dollars. The shop's savings account has a quarter of a million dollars in it. All this time. For eight years, Jordyn had been quietly putting money away for us to buy houses or for our retirement or for when one of us finally found someone to love and needed to pay for a big splashy wedding .

I drop my forehead to rest against my crossed arms on the shitty tempered-glass table and cry until I can barely pull enough oxygen into my lungs to stay conscious. Jordyn took care of me our entire lives. Everyone knew he was always the responsible one, while I was the screwup. It's not like I've ever done anything truly wild. I've never been arrested, never gotten anyone pregnant, never done drugs, but still. I was always the one to run out of money because I impulsively bought something stupid. I was the one who drove my motorcycle just a little too fast, the one who occasionally forgot to wear a helmet, the one who once insisted I knew how to paint my own truck when I was fifteen, only to have our parents come home to seventy-three empty cans of spray paint on the lawn and their son covered in a black, sticky film so thick it took more than a week to wear off. I was the one who flooded my apartment putting in a new dishwasher, accidentally bleached my darks, and spent three weeks' salary on a weekend trip to Vegas. Jordyn didn't do those things. Jordyn drove me home when I was drunk, helped me mop up the flood, and took pictures of me every day while the black paint wore off and then turned them in as a science project. Jordyn was the one who had apparently been saving for our futures. He'd been saving for a future he won't ever have. I should have been the one to go, not him.

What am I supposed to do with this kind of money? I can't buy a nicer house with it; I'll just wander around all my new empty rooms alone. I can't buy a shiny new motorcycle with it; I won't have anyone to ride down the coast and eat shitty roadside tacos with. I won't have anyone to laugh with when those tacos have us both pulling over and running for the bushes twenty minutes later. What am I supposed to do with this money?

What am I supposed to do without him?

It's dark before I manage to drag myself to my truck and head home. I've been at the shop since eight a.m., but I don't remember any time passing after Namid left. It disappeared into the abyss like so much of the past five weeks.

I don't eat when I get home. I pull off my jeans in my bedroom doorway and fall into bed without bothering to finish undressing. I curl up under the comforter, pulling it up over my head until the world disappears. Here, there is only my breath, loud and warm in the small, dark space. I'm left with only my thoughts. Only guilt and loss and emptiness. I shouldn't have yelled at him. I shouldn't have said okay when he grabbed his keys and walked out my door. I shouldn't still be here trying to survive without him.

I don't know how long I cry. I never do.

I dream again. I dream of a boy who convinces me we look enough alike that we should try to trick our teachers into thinking we're each other. I dream about sitting on cold metal stands as I watch a teenager play his first game of high school football. I dream about a man standing at an altar with a beautiful woman in a white dress at his side. I dream of their dog barking as I arrive for their summer barbecue, their two kids running through the gate and calling me Uncle Jayce. I dream of a life cut short, of a future that will never be.