Chapter Thirty-Three - Halloumi Heartbreak

FIVE MINUTES UNTIL sunset.

Sitting on my knees, I clasp my hands together and place them to my lips. The street dims as the light falls behind the city's horizon. A haze of orange and yellow rises from the baking cement, but all I can focus on is the counter with the four cheeses laid out across it.

Every wheel that'd been tossed into the truck is piled up around me. If I'm wrong… No, if I'm right and these aren't the guys, then they'll wake up in the stacks—naked, confused, but uneaten.

My phone shakes, yet another call from my mother falling to voicemail. She's going to be so angry with me.

So what? Why should I care if she's mad at me? I'm mad at her.

Even still, sitting here in the rising dark among the remains of my store, I put her feelings first and stuff mine back on the shelf. Maybe it's easier for me. If I'm only worried about someone else's pain, I don't have to feel mine. What if she doesn't want to see me again? What if she tosses all of my things in the trash and changes the locks?

What if I have nowhere to go?

Why isn't that thought as scary as it should be?

Two minutes.

They'll come back. They have to. They've lived longer than countries. Some stupid girl and her overbearing mother can't have hurt them. Right?

The clock is an out-of-focus blur. All I can see are the rinds of the cheeses that are whole, and the broken skin of the ones that aren't. Four of them. Four wildly different men.

The sweet one, whose eyes always sparkle below his messy straw hair. He seems so uncertain of his place in this world, but with a brush, he can paint entire worlds to brighten the darkest room.

The charming one, always with the perfect line and risqué touch. He was the first to welcome me without knowing what threat I could be. Maybe he courts danger because it's easier than accepting what he's done to survive.

The life of the party, his smile incapable of dimming even in the harshest storm. He flits like a butterfly that's also a bear. Nothing can hurt him except the deepest cut of all—betrayal from those he loves.

Lastly, the one with outlandish blue hair, who holds his tongue and hides from the spotlight. But for all of his standoffish grumping, he loves his friends and would do anything to protect them.

Each of them let me in, trusted me to shield them, and if I…

I gulp. My fingers dig into the back of my hand as I stare harder at the cheese.

If they don't wake up…

They have to. They will.

"Cam? I found a bottle of wine." I nod to the only one not broken or ‘misplaced' by the garbage collectors. "Cheddy? We could go dancing again." He was so light on his feet last night I'd thought I was going to fly away. "Brie? This store needs something better than a new coat of paint." If I close my eyes I can see it—all four walls covered in his sunrise. Oranges, yellows, pinks, and reds streaming across the ads and signs for cheeses. It's so lifelike, I can almost feel the warmth caressing my cheeks like a palm and a pair of lips about to kiss me.

The light fades and I look up. Darkness has claimed the street.

"Roq…" I take a breath. How do I apologize to him? He was the one who told me to guard them, and I failed. I abandoned them for a fucking nap. I should have known my mother would copy my key, would find a way to break in. She's orchestrated every measure of my life since I could talk. The second I tried to take back the baton, of course, she'd step in to change the beat.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't stop them. They threw away your cheese." Bending over, I slap my palms over my eyes. Tears drip down the lifelines. "Even if it was perfect before…" It's my fault. I cost them their freedom, their humanity. "I know you're going to hate me when you find out. That you'll take them and leave. Find somewhere to begin again. But that doesn't scare me."

My breathing grows faster and faster. I'm huffing into my palms, horrors twisting my brain into a living nightmare as I watch the four cheeses. "I need you to be okay. I need you to come back from this, because if you don't…"

You did this.

I know.

You didn't lock up right.

I know.

You forgot to knock on the trash can lid. Five times.

I know.

It's all your fault. You killed the only men who could ever love you.

Love?

The gremlin falls silent. I fight to blink away the tears, the numbers a glowing haze. Slowly, the fog lifts.

Five minutes past sundown.

An inhuman squeak tears up my throat. My phone rings and it tumbles from my hands. When it strikes the ground the ringing stops. I stand on shaky fawn legs and take a step closer to the counter. "Cam?" I call out. "Roq? Brie?" A sob wracks my body and I fight to stop it just as I scream, "Cheddy!"

They aren't here. Naked and laughing, or yelling, or arguing. No goofy blond man hefts an entire palette of cheese one-handed. He isn't chastised by Roq, or encouraged by Cam. Brie doesn't quietly present me with one of his new paintings while he picks at a salad.

They're gone.

Instead of four outrageous, impossible men, the cheese stands alone.

"No!" Screaming, I slam my hand into one of the shelves. Pain sunders up my arm, but I feel dead watching the flimsy wood break and wheels of cheese go tumbling to the floor. As they roll and bounce around, almost like they're alive, it hits me. Roq said something about them being put away. What if they can't come back when they're under something? What if they need to be freed?

In a laughing, blind panic, I race around the room. Cheese flies everywhere. I switch from hurling them off of the stacks one by one to pushing the whole thing over. Garbage-soaked wheels of cheddar roll across the floor. Bries and camemberts tumble out of their cases and land with a splat. None of them are my guys. Where are they?

I fling my arm across the shelves, clearing them. As more cheese hits the ground, I look back waiting for the impossible.

Humans can't come from cheese. Everyone knows that. It's science. It's impossible.

"Gah!" I shriek at the cheese refusing to become a foot or a hand—anything to prove I'm not insane. Tearing through the place, I upend every wheel, every slice, every cube until the floor is covered in nothing but cheese.

The clock strikes midnight and I'm alone.

Numb, I wrap my arms around the charcuterie board and sink to my knees. Salt burns down my cheeks and pain bites at my knuckles. I hold the board against my sternum like it's a blade about to pierce my ribs and tear through my dying heart.

You did this. You killed them.

"I know."