Without anything else to do in my nearly empty apartment, I pulled my laptop from its drawer, ordered takeout, and curled up on the couch with a fuzzy blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I slipped in the memory card. The screen was black for a moment and then a blue of color began to take shape. It was flashes of us, Connor and I, over the course of our short relationship. There were shots of us sniping at each other and then we were curled up on the couch, tucked against each other. My heart ached as I watched Connor slip his arm around me, as easy as breathing. There was a kind of happiness on my face that I had never seen before. One of the last shots was of us on the train, pressed warm against each other and smiling. Then there was breakfast, heart-achingly sweet and domestic in Connor’s apartment. Then, at the end of the footage, the end of Alex’s documentation of us, it was just Connor, sitting languidly at his kitchen counter. “Okay, is it on? It is? Okay so, the first thing I want to be clear about is that Sadie Harlow is the best thing that’s ever happened to me…”
Chapter 19
Connor
I tipped the sweating beer bottle against my mouth, clinking it against my teeth and wincing as I swallowed the lukewarm alcohol. Alex stared at me, turning back his own bottle. The bar was loud around us and though I could see women staring at us, I couldn't really see them. I could only see Sadie, who was god-knows-where. I sighed, glancing up at him where he sat across from me. “What, Alex?”
Alex shook his head at me, looking innocent as he said. “Nothing, man. It’s nothing. But are you good?”
“I’m great,” I told him dully, feeling the familiar ache in my chest that had been there since Sadie left. Her things were still in my apartment, even a day and a half after she left me and she left the show, and some part of me hoped that she would come back. “I’m amazing. I’m just peachy.”
“So, it’s been two days,” Alex began, shaking out his brown hair. “You talked to your dad yet?”
“Talked to him?” I scoffed at that, shaking my head. My father was the last person I wanted to have a heart-to-heart with. “Talked to him about what exactly?”
“Well, you said Sadie thought that he hired the mugger or whatever, right? Why not just ask him?” Alex asked, finishing his beer. He twirled the cap between his fingers, raising an eyebrow in thought.
“My father might be a lot of things, but I think this is a little overkill even for him.” I sat back, thinking of the betrayed look on Sadie’s face, and squeezed my eyes shut for a moment.
Alex shrugged, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd in the bar. “You won’t know until you ask. People are surprising, man.”
Alex order us two more beers and we finished them off in silence. I left the bar through the crowds of inebriated people and ducked into Nora’s car, slumping down in the seat.
Nora turned for a moment to speak to me. “Are you alright, Connor? Am I taking you home?”
I thought about it for a moment, my intoxicated brain struggling to remember what I wanted to do. There was something. I remembered in a drowsy, half-awake sort of way what Alex had said about my father. I knew that I needed to do something.
“Take me to my dad’s office,” I slurred, sinking into the seat. “Take me to my dad.”
Nora got us there quickly, shooting worried glances at me in the rearview mirror. I pretended that I didn’t see her. Somehow, I stumbled my way through the empty interior of the building up to the offices and found my father’s office with a light still bright under the door. Even though it was late, I knew that my father would still be at his desk. When I opened the door, he was scratching his pen over a stack of papers. He looked up and even through my alcohol haze, I could see how terrible he looked, pale and ghoulish. I wondered what his doctors had told him lately about his illness. Did he have years? Months? Everything he had done would catch up to him soon.
He raised an eyebrow, his voice low. “Son? What are you doing here at this hour?”
“What did you do?” I asked him carefully, squeezing the back of one of his chairs and struggling to keep myself upright. The room spun a little and I blinked quickly to steady myself.
“Are you intoxicated, Connor? Well, I’m glad to see you having fun.” Elias huffed a laugh and then pushed the papers over the desk. “Here, son. You deserve it, putting up with what you did.”