Nick

Nick

Second floor

I feel dread creeping through me as I take in the scene in the attic. I ran up here when I heard the screaming, after dragging Antoine, semi-conscious, to the sofa in my apartment.

He’s here. Ben is here. He doesn’t look well, but he is sitting up. And he is alive.

This can’t be right. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not possible.

Ben is dead. He’s been dead since Friday night. My one-time friend, my old university mate, the guy I fell for on that warm summer night in Amsterdam over a decade ago and have been thinking about ever since.

He died and it was my fault and in the days since I have been trying to live with the guilt and the grief of it: walking around feeling only barely alive myself.

I look to my stepmother, expecting to see my own shock reflected in her expression. It isn’t there. This doesn’t seem to have come as a surprise to her. She knows. It’s the only explanation. Why else would she be so calm?

Finally I manage to speak. “What is this?” I ask, voice hoarse. “What is this? What the fuck is happening?” I point to Ben. “This isn’t possible. He’s dead.”

You see, I know it for a fact. I had plenty of time to take it all in: the unspeakable horror of that lifeless shape in its makeshift shroud. The undeniable fact of it. Of the blood, too, spilled across the floorboards and soaked into the towels: far more blood than anyone could lose and live. But it’s more than that. Three nights ago, Antoine and I carried his body down the stairs and dug a shallow trench and buried him in the courtyard garden.