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DEKE

I shut the screen of my phone off and placed it on the nightstand. The neon clock on the wall read 2:03 a.m., but I wasn’t sleepy. All I could think about was Davina.

After that last email she sent, though, it was pretty clear she wanted to be left alone. I thought we were having a moment, but I went and fucked it up, just like I always did.

I mean, she brought her assistant into it with no laughs, no smiley faces—nothing. Then again, Davina didn’t strike me as an emoji-using “LOL” person. She was straightforward, and I liked that about her in person ... but she was hard to read by text.

Normally, I’d have turned over and fallen asleep, but a woman showing disinterest in me was rare—and I’m not saying that to be cocky. Okay ... maybe I am a little. But even married women found a way to sneak a flirt with me.

Not Davina, though, and it intrigued the hell out of me.

I turned over with an exhale, peering out the wall of windows. The lights on the skyscrapers blinked in the night, and the clouds were thick and heavy in the sky. Rain was on the way.

As if he could sense the decline of my mood, Zeke walked around my bed and placed his head on the edge of it. He’d have jumped on if I didn’t have a rule about him being all over my expensive bamboo sheets. The last time I let him on my bed, he clawed at them while I was sleeping and ripped them.

“What’s up, man?” I scratched behind his ears after he let out a light whimper. “I’m all good. Promise.”

Zeke burrowed his head into my palm, and I caved and let him onto the bed. I lightly scratched his head while grabbing my phone with my other hand.

I scrolled through my photos until I found my Favorites folder, then tapped on one of the last pictures taken of me and my brother, Damon. I was fourteen, and he was seventeen. Everyone always said we looked alike. A tightness hit my chest as I stared at it.

All this talk of grief while thinking about Davina and her loss struck something in me. Normally I’d catch a wave of grief, and it would pass. I’d distract myself, hit the court, drop a few buckets, and forget about it. If that didn’t work, I’d focus on the good times we shared. But on this particular night, the good times were distant.

People claim grief is a process—like it’ll end one day and never be thought of again—but that’s far from the truth. Grief is an ongoing cycle and is totally reliant on your mood and vulnerability.

When you feel good, grief can be dealt with. You can go about your day, accept it for what it is, and move along. But when you’re down and reminded of your loss—when you’re alone at night with no one to talk to and nobody to hold—grief is like a colossal wave. It rises higher and higher, and no matter how sturdy your ship is, it’ll smash into it and wreck it, leaving you to drown.

To put it simply, Grief is a bitch, and she likes to hit you where it hurts. I swear she’s Karma’s two-faced sister.

When the screen of my phone darkened, I slid it off the bed. It landed with a soft clatter on the hardwood floor, and when Zeke went back to his pillow, I turned my back to the window, pulled the sheets over my head, and swallowed my sorrow.