Page 27 of We May Be Fractured

The Surprise Birthday Party

[Now playing ? Dangerous Night—Thirty Seconds To Mars]

T he thing about Nyle was, he never quite took ‘no’ for an answer.

So, when Aaron walked through the door on Friday evening after a shift at RPM, he got ambushed by a flurry of paper streamers.

“Surprise!” Nyle’s voice rang out, high-pitched and jubilant.

Aaron stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the spectacle before him. Behind Nyle, all happy and cheery, stood Maeve, Ria, and a few others he didn’t recognise.

“Happy birthday!” Nyle exclaimed, ushering Aaron into the living room.

The room burst into a chorus of hellos as Nyle turned up the music, setting the mood.

“You didn’t think I’d let your birthday go uncelebrated, did you?” he asked.

“I said there’s nothing to celebrate.”

“And I said maybe you haven’t celebrated with the right people.”

“The ‘right people’ being you and these strangers?”

Nyle invited Aaron to relax and stay put before disappearing upstairs.

Maeve slid over to Aaron, wine glass in hand, a smudge of lipstick on the rim. “Hey, Aaron!” She greeted him playfully. “Why didn’t you tell anyone it was your birthday? We could’ve had a little celebration together on the day, you know.”

“I’ve already told Nyle I don’t care about birthdays.”

Maeve burst into laughter. “Oh, come on. A birthday is the perfect excuse to go wild!”

“I had other plans.”

“What, like a solo TV show marathon in bed?” Leaning in closer, Maeve lowered her voice to a murmur. “We could team up for that…”

Aaron hesitated, not sure how to deflect. “Perhaps another time,” he said, more to get away from the conversation than anything else. He excused himself and headed to the kitchen island.

As he stood there, munching on the crisps, a wave of irritation washed over him.

Nyle setting up this surprise party was one thing, but Landon and Fell being part of the conspiracy stung.

They’d been around him all day and hadn’t breathed a word about it.

He spotted them in a corner, casually chatting and laughing with Ria.

The sight added to his growing annoyance.

“Hey, I’m back.” Nyle popped up next to Aaron, his grin as mischievous as ever while hiding something behind his back. “Did you miss me? I’ve got something nice for you.”

Aaron didn’t need to be a detective to guess it was a gift. Sure enough, Nyle revealed a flat, rectangular package with a little bow in the corner.

Instead of grabbing it, Aaron froze.

Suddenly, he was back in that bloody hospital room, Tori lying on the bed with a similar package by her side.

The party, the music, the chatter—it all started to swirl and merge into a dizzying blur. Like spinning too fast in an office chair, the world around Aaron turned into a whirlpool of shapes and sounds. A wave of dizziness and breathlessness washed over him as if he still spun out of control.

“Can you…hold on to it for a sec?” Aaron spoke slightly above a whisper, his words a surprise even to himself. He patted his back pocket as if his phone was buzzing. “Need to take this call. Sorry.”

“Aaron, wait—” Nyle tried to stop him, but Aaron was already on the move.

He hurried out to the garden, trying to look as composed as possible. But as soon as he was outside, he unloaded the full weight of the unease that had been building up.

He staggered towards the wooden fence at the back, his steps unsteady.

Leaning forward, he rested his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath.

The night air should have been refreshing, but it seemed to hardly touch his lungs.

He even unzipped his hoodie in a desperate attempt to breathe easier, but it was no use.

His chest tightened, each heartbeat echoing painfully.

“Aaron?” Someone called his name, but it sounded distant, unreal.

Clutching the fabric of his jeans, he cursed under his breath. He should have run farther. The garden was close, too close for anyone to follow. But his legs were jelly, barely supporting him.

“Aaron…”

He didn’t have to turn around to know it was Landon; the distinctive metallic jingle of the buckled straps around his boots gave him away. Aaron hoped Landon would take one look at him and leave him be, but his determined step told a different story.

Aaron still struggled to breathe when Landon’s hand suddenly appeared in front of his face, catching his attention. He looked up, his vision initially blurry until Landon’s face came into sharp focus against the night sky.

“Not now,” Aaron rasped out.

Ignoring him, Landon firmly gripped Aaron’s shoulders and pushed him down. Unsteady as he was, Aaron couldn’t resist the force and ended up with his butt on the damp grass. He tried to stand, but Landon’s hands were there again, holding him down.

“Fuck you,” Aaron spat out, his breath still coming in short bursts.

“Close your eyes and breathe. That’s how you stay alive.”

“Screw you.”

“At least you’re still quick with your comebacks. Can’t be that bad, then.”

Aaron wanted to fire back another insult, but he only managed a frustrated grunt.

“Stay here,” Landon commanded, punctuating his words with a pointed finger.

Aaron bit back another sharp retort. He wasn’t sure he could move, even if he tried.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” Landon said. “Just…breathe.”

Closing his eyes, Aaron tried to calm himself. It was hard at first, and he coughed a bit, but slowly, he started to improve.

Soon, the sound of Landon’s boots approached again.

Aaron opened his eyes to Landon crouching before him, holding a spoonful of dark sauce extended towards his mouth.

“Swallow this,” Landon instructed, his expression serious.

“What’s that?” Aaron tried to get a whiff of whatever was on the spoon, but Landon swiftly pulled it back.

“Just take it. No questions.”

Exhausted and not in the mood to argue, Aaron reluctantly accepted the spoon and downed its contents. Instant regret followed as his throat went on fire.

“What the fuck?” he gasped, tears springing to his eyes from the burn.

“Worcestershire sauce,” Landon replied calmly.

“Fuck you.”

“You really need to work on your insult game. They’re getting a bit repetitive,” Landon teased.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Aaron said dryly. “As soon as my taste buds stop feeling like they’ve been set on fire.”

Landon made himself more comfortable on the ground, crossing his legs. “Okay, now that the sauce has given you a kick, try to focus on five different things you can see.”

Aaron shot him a long, irritated look. “I see a dick.”

“Good.” Landon barely smiled. “You don’t necessarily have to say them aloud. Just find five things to look at and focus on a detail. Now that you’ve found one, concentrate on another four, then give me a sign when you’re done.”

Aaron wanted to breathe fire on him, but he played along. First, he settled on Landon’s face, particularly the stark silver piercing in his split eyebrow. He probably got that scar from a nasty bump. Maybe the piercing was a slick cover-up.

His gaze, drifting right, paused at the stretched earlobe, large enough to peek through.

Next, he glimpsed a rose tattoo peeking out from under Landon’s collar, beside it, the words ‘Hell Is Other People’.

This made Aaron curious about the other tattoos hidden under Landon’s clothes.

Maeve had mentioned that ink covered Landon’s torso, and Aaron wondered about the stories it might tell.

A small skull centred Landon’s T-shirt, circled by the words ‘We know what we are, but not what we may be’. A bit of Shakespeare, from Hamlet. To his surprise, Aaron hadn’t spotted it before.

Landon’s usual attire was a lot more low-key compared to Nyle’s flashy get-ups.

But now Aaron saw something more in his subtle choices, as with the tattoos.

They weren’t random; they represented a piece of who Landon was.

This idea struck a comforting chord in Aaron.

It seemed like Landon didn’t do anything without a meaningful reason behind it.

Once he’d mentally ticked off the remaining things, Aaron nodded slightly.

“Now, find four things you can touch.”

Aaron didn’t fully understand Landon’s game, but he went along with it anyway, finding the distraction somewhat helpful.

The first thing was easy, the spoon still in his hand. He focused on its cool, smooth metal under his fingertips, its curved shape oddly comforting. The sensation reminded him of his pendant, so he reached up to the familiar shard of glass.

Next, he glided his hand along the teeth of his hoodie’s zipper, which was fully undone.

Finally, Aaron extended his hand to a few damp blades of grass. The moisture and the texture grounded him in the reality that he was in a garden, not teetering on the brink of a high-rise building. The sense of vertigo started to ebb away.

With another nod of his head, he indicated he was finished.

“Three things you can hear,” Landon prompted.

At this stage, Aaron went with it, stopping his attempts to figure out Landon’s game.

The most immediate sound was the thumping of his own heartbeat, a rhythmic pulse echoing in his ears, strangely in sync with the faint strains of music coming from inside the house. Aaron concentrated and picked up the melody and lyrics of the song, though he couldn’t place the title.

“Done,” he said.

“Two things you can smell.”

That was the easiest. The scent of Landon’s coconut shampoo had initially put him off, but Aaron had grown accustomed to it. That, and the persistent tobacco smell on Landon’s clothes, created a unique, if somewhat unusual, fragrance.

Landon didn’t wait for any sort of acknowledgement and moved on quickly. “One thing you can taste.”

Aaron rolled the flavour around in his mouth, the strong, tangy taste of Worcestershire sauce still there. The lingering burn, surprisingly, helped combat the nausea. The shaking in his arms and legs had lessened, his breathing now steadier.