How to be Forever Alone [#Wattys2020]

46.

"You want me to be your best man?" I ask, now that we've migrated to the stairs outside our front door. Just me and Flint.

"Woman," he replies.

The air was brisk and sharp, especially since the sun disappeared hours ago. You could almost imagine us in that one scene in a movie where the characters sit out in the cold smoking a cigarette, except we aren't smoking anything.

"I thought you still hated me?" I continue my questions.

"I don't hate you," he says, "angry... a little, but I've never hated you."

We're quiet for a moment, none of us said a thing, we just took in a few breaths.

Finally, I decided that the silence is too silent, "You know, I really did send you an email."

"Wha-" I think he clued out for a second.

"I sent you an email when I was over there," I nudge him, "it was to tell you I was alright."

"I never got it," he says plainly.

"Never got it?"

"Yeah, I never got it."

"Oh," I say, "well, I did send it."

"I believe you," he tells me grinning.

I'm not sure I had convinced him at that point that I was telling the truth.

"I'm not lying," I go on, "I did send it."

"Claire-" he tries to stop me.

"It's going to bug me not knowing," I say irritated.

"You don't have to-" he tries again.

Nothing was going to stop me from pulling out my phone from my coat pocket, so I do it. I tap it, almost at the speed of light, and find my email. That letter was the last thing I sent through there, but my eye flickered right to my inbox that had one unopened message.

"Email not sent," I repeat the subject line.

Shit!

"I don't think I'm even going to bother with reading the rest of that," I say.

"Of course not," Flint laughs.

He hugs me for the first time in a long time and I hug him back. It was nice knowing that no one really hated me.

This moment brought me back to the last time I had a conversation like this with him. Just about a month ago, it's was probably the same time of night too.

"Do you remember what you told me last time we talked face to face?" I ask him.

"Presumably, something about being rebellious," he says.

"You told me," I quote him, "Go somewhere!"

"Yeah," he huffs, "I meant like a bar over in Gatineau."

"Well, I clearly didn't get that impression," I say, rolling my eyes.

Flint gets up off of the steps and stretches his legs. It was getting colder outside and my legs had gone somewhat numb too, but it didn't make me as uncomfortable as it did for him.

"So how did you meet her?" he asks looking at Tess, who was sitting on the couch inside talking with the others.

I push some of my hair out of the way, "At a party. It was her party. I thought I wouldn't see her again until it turned out that she was Chase's roommate."

Flint wasn't really looking at me as we went on with our discussion, he kind of just stared up at the night sky hopefully trying to find stars. The light pollution in this area tended to mask it all.

"It must have been pure luck," he says.

"It's really the only good luck I've seen in the last little while," I tell him.

"So," he spins on his feet towards me, "that means there must have been some bad luck?"

I didn't know if he was trying to be sincere or, maybe on the off chance, sarcastic, but he definitely was curious. I'm just not sure if I'm ready to talk about it, I'm not even sure if this is something I should be talking to my brother about.

"It's nothing," I try to shove it off.

This time he rolls his eyes, "Anyone who says it's nothing knows it's not nothing."

I wasn't trying to push his buttons, I really didn't want him to be mad at when we literally just hugged it out, but I guess this bickering is part of who we are.

"Fine," he goes on, "I won't ask anymore."

I couldn't wrap myself around the fact that everything always brought me back to thinking about them. The two people, who out of everyone in the world, are still stuck in the corner of my mind. I really hope it won't always be like this, I just want them to fade away like all those loose memories that you have as a child, but the fact that I'm not a child anymore makes me fear that it might never happen.

Jack...

Petal...

Just stop thinking about them!!! Why are you thinking about them?! Your girlfriend is literally inside your house. You have to stop contemplating everything that happened, it's in the past!

Just breath!

Eventually, I found the courage to talk about something else.

"So you really want me to be your best man?" I say.

"Woman," Flint points out obviously.

I shake my head, "You're insane. Can't you ask one of your poetry buddies?"

"Claire, you're like my second best friend," he says sitting back down beside me on the stairs.

"Second?" I was a little offended.

"Well," he smirks, "I'm getting married to my first best friend."

I relax and lay my head on his shoulder.

Something else was still on my mind too, "What do you think dad would think of all of this?"

"I'm not sure," he considers, "I don't want to imagine him angry, but honestly, he'd probably be somewhat worked up about the whole adventure thing you went on. Then, I think he would be proud in some way. He'd love Tess, she's great."

"Really?" I question.

"Yeah," he smiles once more, "you were always his favourite."

"No, I wasn't!" I retort.

"Oh, you were," he states, "you had him wrapped around your finger."

For a second we just stop everything.

"Flint?" I ask him.

He looks down to me, "Yeah?"

"Thanks... for everything."