CHAPTERTEN
Sebastian
“She’s back home safe,” Theo says, strolling into his place a little after seven.
“Great,” I mutter, not even glancing up from my tablet.
“Tell me again why couldn’t you pick her up yourself?”
“Because I couldn’t, okay?”
“Right. You should just go over there and fuck her, get it out of your system so you can focus.”
“Stellar advice there, Theo. Thanks.”
“What? It’s what you would usually do,” he argues, resting his elbows on the counter of his kitchen and looking over at me.
“Yeah, well. This is different.”
“Because she’s our missing princess?”
“No, because she… because her father ki—” I cut myself off, not allowing myself to say it out loud.
“I know, Seb,” he says, standing once more and pushing his hair back from his brow. “But—”
“But what, Cirillo? Tell me how I should be handling all of this.”
“There’s no right or wrong, but… you’re not the only one who’s lost people.”
Silence stretches between us as I try to read into his words. The realization hits me.
“Fuck me. You’re on her side.”
“What? No. Never. But did you ever consider that maybe she’s hurting just as much as you?”
I raise a brow at him.
“This isn’t about her,” I snap, jumping from the sofa and storming from the house.
“Seb, come on, man,” he calls after me. But I’m done. So fucking done.
* * *
It’s not as late as the last time I was here so it’s still light—although barely, with the heavy rain clouds darkening the sky—as I make my way down the old bumpy paths to get to the two gravestones I usually only visit once a year. It’s still raining, but nowhere near as hard as it was earlier. But everything since my previous visit here has been so fucked up that it’s the only place I can think about being.
With a bottle of vodka and a joint ready to go, I lower myself to rest against the same stone I was sitting against that night.
“Everything’s fucked up,” I mutter in the hope that someone might just actually listen to me. “Mum’s a disaster. I’m a fucking disaster.” Resting my arms over my knees, I lower my brow to my arms and suck in a shaky breath. “This wasn’t how it was meant to be,” I whisper.
Lifting my head, I stare at the stone opposite me.
Christopher Papatonis
Loving husband and father
Grief consumes as I stare at it, pain from the fact that I have no memory of the man Sophia and Zoe talk so highly of. Mum too, when she’s able to.
But that is nothing compared to the pain that rips through me when I glance over my shoulder at the stone I’m resting against.