Page 54 of As the Years Pass

“Don’t care,” he says, grabbing a plate and hurrying to the table. We eat our mac and cheese pizza and play Guess Who until the sun comes up.

Chapter Twenty-One

Emmet

Hungover is an understatement.

I haven’t felt this bad in years. My body aches, my stomach is sour, my head is pounding, and my eyes feel like they’re being stabbed by a thousand little needles.

I have no idea what time it is, but it’s relatively quiet, and I’m most definitely not home.

It takes a moment for me to remember everything from the night before.Adam.I’m at his house, on his couch. I listen for a sign he’s away, but hear nothing, so I assume he’s still asleep. I look around for my phone and find it on the floor. There’s 5% battery left, but it tells me it’s nearly two in the afternoon.

I carefully sit up and put my feet on the floor. My back is stiff, and I have to piss so bad. Once I’m on my feet, I steady myselfand make it into the bathroom to pee and wash my face. There’s mouthwash in the cabinet, so I rinse my mouth with that, then go in search of Adam.

There’s a large lump in his bed, which must be him. After a quick check to make sure he’s breathing, I go back into the living room, order a car, and put on my shoes.

“Hey.”

Adam is standing in the doorway looking as bad as I feel, but I still give him a smile.

“Hi.”

“You look like shit,” he says.

I chuckle and it hurts my head. “So do you.”

“Are you leaving?”

“Yeah, I need to shower and get to the bar.”

“You could shower here.”

“I have mac and cheese all over my shirt.” I point to the stains I saw when I was in the bathroom.

“I’d say you could borrow mine, but I don’t think they’d fit.”

“Yeah, probably not.”

We had a great night together, but a lot of things happened that I need to process. There’s one thing that’s bothering me though, one thing that has nothing to do with last night, but I need to get it off my chest because this is Adam and I used to be able to go to him for everything.

I stare at the floor and let it out.

“My mom died.”

“What? When?” he says, coming into the living room and sitting beside me on the couch so close our legs touch.

“On Christmas. It’s why I wasn’t answering you.”

“Fuck,” he breathes out, scrubbing a hand down his face. I see the pain there from the corner of my eye.

“I’m sorry, Emmet. What happened?”

“She was sick for a while, but we found out a few months ago it was cancer. It’s why when you asked I said it was complicated. A lot of people thought she’d died already and I never corrected them because it was too much to explain. Her and my dad moved to Florida so she could spend her last days there. She told me not to visit her because she didn’t want me sad, but I had to see her one last time. I needed one last Christmas with her.”

“So that’s why you went to Florida.”

“How’d you know I was in Florida?”