Page 44 of In Another Time

Marcus took a swig from his beer. “You holding up?”

I shrugged. “I’m here.”

“That don’t mean shit, and you know it,” Jordan said, dragging his toothpick across the rim of his glass. “You good?”

I didn’t answer right away. Just looked down at the glass in front of me, half-empty but still untouched. “I’m breathing. That’s all I got right now.”

Jordan nodded. “That’s fair.”

Marcus leaned in a little. “What did your pops say earlier? He looked heated.”

I let out a low sigh. “Asked about Anya.”

Jordan raised an eyebrow. “She really ain’t show up.”

“She said she doesn’t do funerals,” I muttered.

Marcus and Jordan exchanged a look. “She serious?” Jordan said, sitting back. “Man, come on.”

“I’m dead ass. She said it’d be too hard. Too emotional. Said she’d support me from home.”

Jordan whistled low. “I ain’t tryna throw salt, but bruh, that’s. . . wild. I know damn well if I died, and my girl didn’t come, my ghost would be petty as hell.”

I cracked a half-smile, but it didn’t last. Marcus was quieter, more thoughtful. “You sure y’all built for the long haul, O?”

“She’s been good to me,” I said. “She’s not cold. She just. . . processes different.”

Jordan scoffed. “Nah, there’s processing different, and there’s being absent when it counts. Today? That was one of those days. Your brother. Your blood. Gone. And she couldn’t show up just to hold your hand?”

I didn’t have an answer. Not a real one.

Marcus finished his drink and set the bottle down. “It ain’t our business to tell you what to do. But sometimes, silence speaks loud. And her not being here? That said a lot.”

I let the words settle. Let them hit how they needed to. Then Jordan changed the subject. “You hear anything new from the cops?”

I nodded. “Yeah. They got ’em. Motel out by the county line. Both of them facing first-degree.”

We went quiet again. All of us staring at the bottles, the scuffed bar top, the shadows dancing along the walls. There was nothing left to say. At least, not out loud. Eventually, they stood to leave.

“Call us if you need anything,” Marcus said.

Jordan dabbed me up. “Don’t sit on that shit too long. You got time to figure it out—but don’t wait until it blows up.”

They walked out, leaving the door swinging shut behind them. I stayed where I was, still leaning on the bar, letting the silence take over the way it always did after the last body left.

When I finally locked up, the night air outside slapped me in the face—cool, sharp, cleansing.

I leaned against the hood of my car, looking up at the sky. Black canvas. No stars.

Jordan’s words rang loud in my ears:“Don’t sit on that shit too long. You got time to figure it out—but don’t wait until it blows up.”

And then, without thinking, I reached for my phone.

I opened Instagram and scrolled through my messages until I found Lennox’s name. My finger hovered over the keyboard, but I didn’t know what to say. I’d already told her I was sorry for her loss. What else could I say without crossing a line?

But even as I thought that, I couldn’t deny the pull I felt toward her. I closed the app, locked my phone, and took my ass home.

The drive home was quiet but the kind of quiet that got under your skin. My thoughts were loud as hell. I’d turned the music off halfway through the ride because nothing sounded right. Not jazz, not soul, not even the old slow jams that usually helped me feel grounded. Everything felt off.

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