Page 13 of My Best Friend Is Broken

“Yeah? We could try the café down the street. It has terrible music but good pastries.”

He considers this seriously. “What kind of terrible music?”

“The kind that sounds like rich kids trying to be edgy.”

“Ah. The worst kind.”

“But the croissants are transcendent.”

“Transcendent croissants might be worth suffering through musical torture.”

He almost smiles. Almost. It’s progress.

The morning feels soft around the edges, golden and safe. Liam has his legs tucked under him, the oversized t-shirt making him look younger than his twenty-three years. His long hair is falling to his shoulders in waves that catch the light. He needs a proper haircut, but I’m not brave enough to suggest it yet. The thought of taking him to a barber shop, of sitting in a chair while a stranger approaches with sharp tools, makes my stomach clench on his behalf.

“Do you remember,” he says slowly, “that time we tried to make breakfast for your mum on Mother’s Day?”

I groan. “The Great Kitchen Disaster of Whitefield Road.”

My insides all do something strange and conflicting. Talking about Mom is still… difficult. Wonderful and terrible all at the same time. And with Liam it is even worse. It is more wonderful because he knew her so well, and a thousand times more awful, because I’m not sure if he knows.

I shove all of that aside and allow the conversation to flow as it should. I want to steal this moment of brightness. Sorrow can wait.

“We set off the smoke alarm twice.” Liam says.

“You set off the smoke alarm. I was the responsible one trying to clean up your mess.”

“I was fifteen! And you told me eggs were easy!”

“Eggs are easy. You just don’t put the heat on maximum and then walk away to watch TV.”

He laughs again, more freely this time. “Your mum came downstairs in her dressing gown looking like she thought the house was burning down.”

“It nearly was.”

“And she took one look at us covered in flour and eggshell and just started laughing.”

I remember. Mum had laughed until she cried, then hugged us both and ordered pizza for breakfast because everything we’d attempted was completely inedible. She’d kept the card we made her on the fridge for years.

“She said we were the sweetest disasters she’d ever seen,” I say softly.

“I miss her,” Liam whispers.

He knows. Someone told him, and selfishly, I’m relieved that task hasn’t fallen to me. Especially since I still can’t say the words without bursting into tears.

The unspoken words hang between us, heavy with all the time that’s been lost. Mum died two years into his sentence. A stroke, quick and painless. I’d wanted to tell him, but prisoners aren’t allowed to attend funerals unless it’s immediate family. I couldn’t bear the thought of him sitting in his cell knowing she was gone and being unable to say goodbye.

“She would have loved to have seen you,” I tell him. “If she could have.”

He nods, but doesn’t look at me. His fingers have found a different thread to worry at.

My phone buzzes on the coffee table. Then again. And again.

I glance at the screen, and my blood turns to ice water. Seven missed calls from Dante. Three text messages, each one shorter and more threatening than the last.

Need to talk.

Now.