Page 1 of For Your Heart
One
DAMON
We waitedfor Simon to come back. As the minutes passed, my vision grew darker and darker. As if Simon had been my light. Minutes became hours, and he didn’t return. He never came home.
Over the next several days, we kept waiting. Every sound in the hall, we’d look up and stare at the door, but the sound would pass. He didn’t answer our texts, our calls, or our social media messages. It was as if Simon had simply jumped off the face of the earth.
Stommer lives a few complexes down from us, but we never bothered to ask which condo was his. We don’t even know his floor. We know nothing because we chose to know nothing.
Simon never came back for clothing. For toiletries. Not even for the bare necessities to live. He didn’t come back for anything.
One thing has become very evident, though. My brother and I deal with grief and heartache very differently. Declan is like a lost puppy. His eyes are empty; I’m not sure he’s aware of what’s going on around him most days.
Thankfully, he secured a job just after Simon left. Ironically, he was hired at Rainbow Dorset University, so he’s working on the same campus as Stommer. He’s in the athletic department, which he says is across campus from Stommer’s building. They’ll likely never run into each other. I’m incredibly glad that Declan found a job when he did. I wasn’t sure what would happen if either of us would have had to be left alone for too long.
Not with the resounding silence in our building that no amount of noise can fill. All that’s there is a hollow spot where Simon belongs.
Me? Every day that passes, I become a much angrier person. All I can feel is my fury at Stommer for causing this. If he’d have preyed on a different fucking student, none of this would have happened. If he’d have backed the fuck off, Simon would still be here.
Instead, he has to show up like a goddamn saint, with our mother here, and pretend that he’s done nothing wrong. This is his fault. His fucking fault. And somehow, he gets to keep Simon.
My anger does nothing to dislodge the massive cyclone of red-hot rage inside me. It churns like a storm, ready to let loose. I’m not sure when it’s going to come out, but I’m almost afraid to let it. It’s stupidly hard to even think straight.
Sometimes it’s hard to catch my breath and I have to stop until my vision clears enough for me to see straight. To stop my mind from tricking itself that the ground is coming up to meet my face. That helpless falling feeling gives way to anger again soon after.
Every day I find a new way that I’d like to kill Stommer. Every hour, maybe. It’s become a new obsession—imagining ways to hurt him. To make him bleed. To just get rid of him so Simon will come home.
When I leave work on Thursday, it’s only three, so I drive into the quaint downtown and park outside the bookstore where Simon works. It’s crossed my mind that I could just follow him home. It’d take a few steps to find which condo he’s in. One day to catch the elevator stopping on his floor. The next to be on that floor when he or Stommer comes home so I can see which door they go to.
But I don’t want to see Stommer. I’m seriously concerned that if I do, I might turn violent. He took the most important thing in my life. The only thing that could hurt worse is losing my twin.
I stop across the road and pull a hoodie over my head. It’s hot out, which means it’ll call enough attention to myself, but it’s not one that Simon will take notice of. I bought it specifically to stalk him with.
No, not stalk. I only stop at his work to see him. Somehow, I have enough presence of mind not to go inside. I wouldn’t compromise his job like that. He doesn’t hate me. I don’t think he hates me. But if I did that, he might.
First, I make sure his car is in the shop parking lot out back. The gray Jetta is easy to spot. It has a little rainbow around the VW logo on the trunk. His support for Declan and I. My chest aches enough that I stop and rest my hand over my heart. Will I have a heart attack from this? It’ll be worth it if it brings him home.
When I confirm that he’s there, I pull my hood up and move as casually as a stalker can, while wearing a white hoodie on an eighty-degree day. I pause at the door and look in. Hoping to catch even a slight glimpse of him.
There are two employees on the floor. One behind the register and another pretending to arrange shelves. He should not be getting paid to shift books an inch back and forth. In as many times as I’ve come here, I can tell they have as much personality as a bag of kidney beans. Seriously, they’re dry and dull on the best of days. They don’t even wear any color!
I stay there for a minute and just stare inside. Hoping for any sign of Simon. Any at all. When I don’t think I’m going to see him and I’ve gathered enough attention, I turn away and head back for my car, the pit in my stomach growing.
The desperation to take him in my arms is another skin I wear. One I can’t seem to shed no matter what I do. Tearing off my hoodie, I toss it aggressively into the backseat and fall behind the wheel. Angry tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to shed them. I’m not going to cry. I won’t. I’m going to get Simon back.
Fuck that asshole if he thinks he’s won.
It takes me a minute to calm down enough to drive home. On the way, I stop for something to eat and then stop again when I can’t see beyond the rage-induced hue that colors my vision. I’m aware this isn’t healthy. I know I can’t keep going on like this. But what the fuck am I supposed to do? Barge into his place of employment and demand he come home? I might consider that if I knew which of the 132 condos was his, but I can’t do that where he works. I can’t.
I can’t make him hate me more than he does already. I hope he doesn't hate me but the way I can't catch my breath says that I think he might. He never came home. He doesn't answer. We don't exist to him anymore.
Declan’s home when I pull in, keeping the spot between our cars empty for Simon’s. Black and white. The spectrum in between is missing.
Trudging upstairs, I push the door open and kick my shoes off next to Declan’s. There are clothes strewn all over the apartment, as if Declan stripped as soon as he walked in and on his way to our bedroom. Following the trail, I find him right where I imagined I would—laying on our bed.
He’s in his underwear, hands folded over his stomach, staring at the ceiling. He’s not home, even if he’s physically here. I feel too much and Declan feels nothing at all.
My stomach growls and clenches and I frown. I literally just ate. Why am I—
