Page 25

Chapter Twenty

I t takes us a few moments to have enough brainpower to tell the crowd clogging the sidewalk that Beanevolence isn't opening today. Some dickbag whines that he drove three hours to get there, and Hadi flips him off as she locks up.

My phone vibrates a minute later, and I'm treated to the horror-show of pictures of me gathering likes at the top of the hashtag. In it, I'm sitting with my back against the counter, face dead white, hair a bigger wreck than usual, mouth kiss-chapped and eyes swollen.

I look like I've been crying.

I am crying.

I wipe my face with my sleeve. Stand up. Sway on the spot. Make a fist.

Hurts.

Oh right, the pin.

I shove it in my pocket, because otherwise I’ll throw it against the wall.

Go to the kitchen. Look around.

Empty.

Hollow.

My phone beeps a few more times, and my own devastation plays out as the picture of me—posted with the caption "Trouble in paradise?", nosy fucking clueless bastards—is shared around.

"No." Hadi plucks the phone from my hand, turns off the notifications, shoves it in my back pocket. "Hey. Colin? Colin! Hey!"

It takes a few tries to get my eyes to meet hers.

"First, Rule Seven, okay?" I nod stupidly as she cups my shoulders in her hands.

The edge of her finger brushes scars on my bicep and I suck in a hard breath. It doesn't hurt.

It just hurts.

"Say it, Colin."

"I'm worthy of love."

"Yes, you are."

Hadi gathers me up in a hug, and I proceed to soak the tail-end of her hijab clean through. When I've exhausted myself, she pulls herself up to sit on the workstation and lets me lean against the wall, giving me space to be sad.

"Sorry," I say at length, scrubbing at my nose on my sleeve.

"You don't have to apologize for crying, duh."

"No, I know. I mean for fucking up your business."

Hadi heaves a sigh. "You didn't fuck it up."

"I'm the one who let Dav into the kitchen in the first place. I'm the one who suggested he try roasting the beans with his breath. I'm the reason he kept doing it. It's all my fault, and now they've taken everything from you—"

"I haven't lost anything but a few day's revenue," Hadi says, the corners of her mouth turned down in a deep scowl. "And I can bounce back."

"I'm such a fuck-up," I heave, the confession like slime crawling up my throat.

"Colin—"

"I'm a disaster."

"Stop—"

"I can't do anything right, I can't—"

I can't breathe.

I swallow around the bile and brutal honesty, bite my bottom lip hard enough to taste blood, and Dav isn't here to kiss it away, to soothe, to squeeze all of the dumbass out of me, and he's gone, he's gone, he's not coming back, they always go away and never come back, and I can't, I can't—

"Colin!" Dr. Chen shouts right into my ear, and I jerk on the spot.

My lungs burn, my mouth is dry, my eyes are gritty when I blink.

I swallow hard.

"Doc," I crackle.

Hadi touches my hand, and I jump. I'm on the floor, curled around my knees, fingernails puncturing half-moons into my shins above my socks. She gently uncurls my fingers from around my own leg, presses my phone into my hand, raises it to my head.

"Hey, Colin," Dr. Chen says from the other end of the line. "You back with me?"

Hadi puts a glass of water into my other hand. I take small sips, and when I’m ready, say: "Yeah, Doc."

"Good. You wanna start talking about it?"

"Not really."

"It will be now or later, Colin."

"Later," I decide.

"I’ll call you in the morning," Dr. Chen says.

"Let's focus on getting grounded and balanced again, okay?

" She takes me through the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise, and we talk about triggers and the first time I disassociated, the day after Dad's funeral, how it had lasted for long enough for Gem to start researching professional help.

"Our first date, Doc," I joke weakly, wrung-out. She chuckles.

When I hang up, Hadi sits on the cool tile beside me, presses her back to the fridge door, and shows me an email on her phone. "Guess what's showing up tomorrow?"

It's the big, fancy, industrial-grade bean roaster Dav paid for.

The one he replaced.

The one that will replace him.

I bite the inside of my cheek, and try not to puke.

I’m not gonna succeed.

"I need… sorry," I say, and run to the washroom.

On my way back, I find Dikimbe pressed up against the big window, peering inside. Mauli is kneeling by the door, tongue half-stuck out of their mouth as they try to pick the lock with what looks like a manky old chopstick.

I stalk over to let them in. Mauli lunges at me, dark eyes shining with pity, crushing my ribs in a hug that lifts my feet off the ground.

"Bro," Dike says, phone in hand, flashing that wretched picture. My guts cramp again, but I take a deep breath to keep the panic and tears back.

Or at least, as deep a breath as I can with Mauli still squeezing me.

"Where is that asshole?" Mauli growls. "Dragon or not, I'm gonna kick his ass."

"No, you’re not," Hadi says, entering from the kitchen with a tray filled with mugs, milk, and a pot of tea. Ugh. Hot leaf juice.

Mauli walks me over to the sofas and dumps me on my ass, then brandishes their chopstick, ready to stab. "You sure? What happened?"

They both look to me. I shake my head, and let Hadi tell it. Well, as much as she knows, anyway. There are some things Dav asked me to keep secret, and I may be wrecked, but I'm not a disloyal asshole.

"Let's get you wasted," Mauli says when Hadi's finished. "Day drinking solves everything."

The tea pot is empty, and the morning light is giving way to the harsh glare of noon, and I feel gray and hollowed-out. Face-down on the table, my phone vibrates. Someone is trying to call me. I don't feel like answering. I don't want to talk to anyone but—

Dav.

I lunge for the phone, flipping it over, and—

"It's Mum," I say, staring at it dumbly. "It's… it's not him… it’s…"

I hit 'ignore.'

I can't do that right now.

"He'll come back, you know," Hadi says softly. All casual-like.

The sentiment is echoed by Mauli and Dike.

"Sure," I say. I’m not sure I believe it, though.

The next morning, I stay in bed, stare at the ceiling, and don't let myself squeeze Dav's pillow to my face.

One, because I refuse to be that pathetic.

Two, because it probably doesn't smell like him anymore.

Three, okay, I am that pathetic, but I won't give into it.

24 hours, and nothing.

No phone call. No email. No well-dressed, coiffed dragon on my doorstep with a shame-faced grin, dorky socks, and an explanation.

Nothing.

(Is it 24 hours when it becomes a Missing Persons case? No, that's 48. It's the first 24 hours after a kidnapping that are the most vital. Is it a kidnapping if he just got in the goddamned limo and went with them?)

In the afternoon, Hadi sends me a picture—the roaster is in.

It's the sports-car of bean roasters, bigger than the last one, and sleek in a way that makes me wonder if it might actually launch into space if I press the wrong button.

As she oversees the installation, we work together to craft the perfect post to explain the emergency closure that's both upbeat enough that it will encourage people to come back, and isn't so abrupt that it reads like Beanevolence failed a health inspection.

Or isn't the kind of honest that makes Lieutenant Governor Asshole come back.

Hadi wants to put him on blast.

I would like her to not get disappeared, too.

Because that's what it is.

Disappeared.

I call Dav, and his phone rings out. I text, and there’s no read notifications. Dav has no social media I can find, and I never got his home phone number or address. "Dragon estate Canborough Niagara" brings up literally zero results when I search for it.

Nothing should get zero hits. There’s a puzzle here, and that’s a piece of it, but I don’t know the shape of the whole thing yet.

On the second day, the grief hits me like a sucker-punch as soon as I wake up.

Not everybody you love will leave without a goodbye , Gemma had said.

Ha fucking ha.

I'm glad Katiya's in Europe, because it means I can lay around as long as I want, lunging for my phone when it buzzes, and ignoring every phone call and text that comes from anyone who isn't him .

On the fifth day, Hadi abuses her spare-key privileges again, and the gang drags me to the Brass Monkey.

I drink red wine that wasn't made by Dav, and feel recklessly angry enough to eat a slice of chocolate cake.

I puke in every trashcan between the bar and home.

That night, I clutch my stomach and hate my self-destructive bullshit, and miss Dav so hard it feels like someone has heated a metal cage and wrapped it around my lungs.

Sometimes, on the days when my grief is at its worst, I get these… these flashes of images that sear into my head. Of… of Dad.

Dad as a corpse.

Dad as a rotting corpse, in a box, in the ground. I can't stop picturing his flesh gray and sagging off the bones of his skull. His brains and his tongue, liquefying—everything that made my father a person , I person I loved and who loved me back—putrefying, gone forever, and unable to come back.

And now I can't turn off the thoughts of Dav like that.

Dead. Corpse-still, unblinking and pale. Laying in a ditch, or at the bottom of the ocean, or buried in cement, whatever it is they do when dragons disappear someone.

Day six, I have a panic attack in the morning, a call with Dr. Chen from under my sheets in the afternoon, and I spend the night looking at old photos, desperately missing all the people who are supposed to be beside me and aren't. I only have a few pictures of Dav.

The two Hadi took, three stupid selfies, and one I snuck of him on the back deck of the café, when he'd turned his face up to the sunset after a long day.