Page 17 of Indiscretion

That’s my pain and grief talking, yes. I’m well aware of it.

Today, however, I don’t have the mental energy to think past that pain and argue with myself. For now, the psychologist has chucked his concern into the fuck-it bucket, put up aGone Fishingsign, and I’m on my own.

Thus, I clean.

I start in the bathroom and work my way through the apartment, to the living room, then the kitchen. I clean and scrub and reorganize, until it’s after seven that evening, and I’m exhausted and drunk because I’ve been working on a nearly full bottle of Grey Goose I forgot was in my freezer. I’m praying we don’t have some sort of national emergency that will require me to get dressed, return to work, and pretend to soberly adult.

The burner phone remains on the breakfast bar, where it sits with my personal and work phones, which are charging.

I could simply not charge it, let it die, stick it in a drawer, and forget about it, leaving Elliot’s response to me forever rendered a Schrödingerian paradox.

Going dark.

I swirl the remaining few swallows of cold Grey Goose in my coffee mug and stare at it.

I’mreallyfucking drunk right now.

Like, drunker than I think I’ve ever been, even in college.

And I’ve been pretty damn fucking drunk in my life.

In a mood like this, I’m sorely tempted to call Elliot, ream him a new one, lay all the blame for my current mood right on top of him, and then tell him to go fuck himself once and for all.

Elliot needs you.

It’s impossible for me to tell if I hear that in my voice or in Jordan’s now.

I used to believe Elliot needs me.Doeshe?

Really?

What doIget out of this anymore? Something-something altruistic greater-good, something-something…

I walk into the bedroom and stare at the picture of me and Jordan hanging on my wall. On my personal phone and backed up on a secure hard drive are hundreds of pictures, tame and not, of me and Jordan together over the years.

I have no picture like this of me with Elliot.

I have no personal pictures of me and Elliot, tame or otherwise. Sure, there are plenty of official photos or press photos where we’re both captured in the same frame but we’re not “together” in them.

The closest thing I have is the picture Shae used for their Christmas cards two years ago, including me and Elliot on them, along with Kev, and Yasmine, the kids’ nanny. Jordan bowed out despite me wanting him in it, too. He actually went over my head to Chris and begged off doing it.

The only time Jordan ever did anything like that.

Jordan never would tell me why, but I suspect it’s because he and I had plenty of pictures together, and he was good and kind enough to want me and Elliot to haveonewithout him in it.

Hanging on my bedroom wall, next to the picture of me and Jordan, is a framed drawing Jordan made for me, in charcoal pencil, of me and Elliot. We’re sitting on a rock, my arm draped around Elliot’s shoulders, his head tucked against me, both of us smiling. It’s a partial duplication of a photo on my phone, one taken by my sister out in California five years ago.

And the actual photo was of me and Jordan, our second Christmas together, and the first where I took him out to meet my family.

My beautiful boy with his infinite heart. Despite me asking him not to buy me anything that Christmas, because I knew he was trying to save up his money, he still made that for me. I immediately had it professionally framed.

Elliot’s never seen it in person, although I took a picture of it and showed it to him.

I blink back tears as I study it now. Jordan perfectly captured Elliot—with his glasses on, of course—and in it, my fingers are tangled in his hair. Jordan even adjusted the proportions it so it’s Elliot’s build.

Because Jordan loved me so much and knew how much I secretly resented not having a picture of me and Elliot together…he created me one.

Honestly? I consider this my most precious possession. Irreplaceable.