Page 13 of Beneath the Indigo Sky

“I can’t believe he…I just…”

I reach across to rest my hand on his arm. It’s thick and warm and strong, and there is so much sadness and disbelief, but underneath it all, something that feels almost like amusement.

“I can’t…I don’t want to…I need to work, you know?”

I nod and squeeze his arm tighter.

“But I…I can’t believe he never said. I mean, I can…but I can’t, you know.”

My thumb slides along the flannel of his shirt for a moment before I realize what I’m doing. As soon as I notice, I quickly pull my hand back to my lap.

“Well. I’m just happy I found good news instead of bad. Everything is incredibly organized. You’ll need to pay a bit more attention to scheduling in the future, and you’ll have to make sure you pay all of your utilities and vendors on time moving forward, but I’d be happy to show you where all those accounts are if you’d like.”

His gaze is so intense that I want to look away as he searches my face. I’m not sure what he hopes to find.

“Could you, maybe? I mean, I know you have your own life, but I…I’d pay you of course. Would you have any interest in me hiring you to do things like that?”

God, he’s endearing. How is it possible for such a giant, fragile man to be so…likable?

“I’d love to. I don’t really think you need a lot of help, so maybe we could start with…I don’t know…twice a month and see how that works?”

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.

Namid

Jayce is five minutes late. While I tend to be late for just about everything, I made sure to be ten minutes early today, and now it feels like I’ve been waiting for so long that I’m sure something must be wrong, and I’m starting to worry. It’s been two weeks since I was last here at Jayce’s shop, and he was in such bad shape when I left that I’m terrified of the possibility that he’s somehow gotten worse. Worse for him might mean… No. Surely, he’s just late.

I can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when his truck pulls up next to mine. Jayce hadn’t hesitated when I’d asked if we could meet on a Saturday again since I’d be a bit uncomfortable if there were customers at the shop while I was working. He hadn’t even snorted with laughter or asked me to explain or looked at me like something was wrong with me the way most people do, so, while I’m absolutely a night person, when he’d asked if nine was okay, I wasn’t about to make any snarky comments about the fact that I consider nine a.m. to be nighttime.

I hop out and make my way over to him as he exits his truck and reaches back in for something.

“Sorry I’m late,” he mumbles, with his head still buried inside the cab.

“No worries. I only just got here myself.” It’s just a little white lie. I don’t want him to feel even worse if he happens to be one of those people who feel guilty about wasting five minutes of another person’s time.

When he turns around, he’s holding two paper cups, one that looks like it holds a human-sized beverage and one that looks like it’s been miniaturized. The heady aroma of espresso and cinnamon curls up into the air and combines into something heavenly. He holds mine out without a word.

“Thank you.” I moan in gratitude as I take the cup.

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