How to be Forever Alone [#Wattys2020]

53.

By the time we got home, my mother and I, it was still pouring rain outside and we were sure it would last throughout the night.

I kicked off my shoes and rushed up to my bedroom, trying not to slam my door behind me but still shutting it as quickly as possible. I was in complete darkness for a moment before I turned my light on, which promptly flickered and went out. The whole house had lost power and I was sure the rest of the street had too. You couldn't even hear the humming of the furnace, but you could definitely hear every footstep in the house.

"Claire, are you all right?" my mom yells from the living room.

"I'm fine," I shout back to her after I open up my door again.

"I'm going to get some candles from the kitchen," she says, her voice getting quieter as she moves away from her initial stance.

It was any a good time as ever for me to go see Flint, so I walk downstairs and start putting my shoes back on.

My mother is carefully holding a long beeswax candle, protecting the flame with a cupped hand.

"Now where are you going?" she asks with a bit of a blatant attitude.

"I'm going over to Flint's," I reply, finishing tying my shoes.

She didn't say a word as I hastily ran out of the house, rather she slapped her one unoccupied hand on her thigh and rolled her eyes.

Under the storming clouds, I tried to cover my head with my jean jacket as best as I could, but by the time I had walked, well almost sprinted, to Flint's place my hair had grown all curly and stuck to my face.

I press the button to his apartment a few times to get his attention and also because I wanted to get out of the cold weather.

"Hello?" I hear his voice from the speaker.

I press the button again to talk, "It's me, Flint."

I could hear his audible sigh, "What do you want?"

"Can we talk?" I ask him.

"Talk about what?" he questions.

"Stuff..." I say, feeling like I might have second thoughts about all of this. "Well, it's not just nothing... Can you let me in?"

"Okay," he replies, probably guessing I wouldn't leave if he didn't.

His apartment building has no elevator, so I'm stuck climbing the somewhat rusted staircase with gritted teeth for traction.

Flint lives on the third floor all the way down the hallway and when I get there I knock on the door not to loudly to disturb his neighbours. When he opens it I notice he's all alone and wearing pyjamas I bought him a few Christmases ago.

"Where's Robin?" I ask. "I thought she went home after the consultation."

"Oh," he stutters momentarily, "she's going out with friends tonight."

I didn't say anything after that, at least not for a few minutes. It got weird fast, just not doing anything and Flint just kept brushing his hair with his right hand. I don't think I even tried making eye contact at all.

Breaking this awkward tension, I say, "You have power."

"Do you not?" he asks.

"No."

"And you left mom all alone?" he pries.

"Yeah."

"She's probably freaking out," he goes on, "you can't keep doing this."

I brush him off, "She's fine. I bet she called Rick over."

"You have no power. How would she be able to call him?" he argues.

"Well, she owns a cellphone, doesn't she?" I state. "She could also, you know, literally open the door and yell for him. He lives across the street."

"Fine," he grunts.

If only he had officially admitted to his defeat, it would have been the cherry on the cake.

He moves towards the cramped living room and sits on his second-hand upholstered chair beside the lamp he used to have in his bedroom when he was still living at home. I, on the other hand, sat on the long couch facing the TV. It was comfortable, well, as comfortable as a couch from Ikea could be a few years down the road. Nothing in the room matched or followed a monochromatic theme like my mother always kept the house. Instead, Flint's style of decoration is almost rebellious, but it made me feel weird. It doesn't remind me of growing up in that old house with my brother. He has no pictures of us up on his walls and it scares me to think that he's pushing it all away and moving on without me.

"So you want to talk?" he asks.

"Yeah..." I say somewhat hesitantly.

How do you tell him? Maybe don't tell him everything.

"Tess didn't leave because of a family emergency," I tell him.

"Yeah, that was quite obvious," he says waiting for me to say something relevant. "So?"

Eventually, I just open my mouth, "She won't talk to me and I don't blame her, but I want to know if she's okay. I think about her almost every second of the day and when I'm not I feel like I'm abandoning her. I don't know how long I can last. I didn't mean to hurt her like that-"

"Hurt her like what?" Flint cuts me off.

Well, now you have to tell him...

"Back in Ireland," I try to hold it in as long as I can.

"Claire, what happened in Ireland?" he pushes.

My eyes begin to water up just thinking about it.

"I met a guy," I say, "his name was Jack. I thought I really liked him. I left him after we got into a sort of fight and I thought I would never see him again, but..."

"But what?"

"That day in the market, he was there. He had been looking for me and he finally found me."

"But what does this have to do with Tess?" he asks.

"He kissed me," I say the words almost burning my throat. "He kissed me in front of her and at least a hundred other people, and then I ran off and just left her there. How could I do that? She's my girlfriend and I didn't stop him, and she found my advice column-"

"Advice column?"

"That journal you gave me," I reply. "I hate it! It keeps ruining my life, but I can't stop."

I stand up abruptly trying to process everything I'm saying, and it completely terrifies me. My legs are on pins and needles and I'm trembling when Flint wraps his arms around me. I just sob into the creases of his arms, letting it all come out of me like an overflowing waterfall.

"I miss her," I say my voice quivering, "I love her..."

Flint continues to hold me in his arms and I'm absolutely grateful. I was sure he was whispering in my ear telling me it was all going to be okay, yet all I could hear were muffled sounds.

When he finally lets go of me, he makes sure that I'm looking at him.

"If she loves you as much as you love her, she's probably read every message you've sent her. She knows you're sorry. And it doesn't hurt to send her one more letter," he tells me.

"You think so?" I question, wiping away the few straggling tears from my face.

"Yeah, I do," he nods.