Page 38 of Weight of Shadows
Booked a flight. Coming to see you next month. Tell your boyfriends to clean up.
I laughed, quiet enough not to wake anyone, and typed back:No promises.
I poured four mugs of coffee. Black for Rowan, who would drink it whenever he finally surfaced. A splash of milk for Julian, who was particular about it in a way that made Theo roll his eyes every morning. Too much sugar for Theo, who claimed he needed it for creative energy and who Julian said was going to lose his teeth by forty. And mine, plain, in the chipped mug I'd brought from the old apartment because I liked the imperfection of it.
I carried them to the bedroom on a tray I'd found at the back of a cupboard, the kind of small domestic object that suggested someone had once lived here who believed in breakfast in bed. Julian took his mug without looking, his fingers wrapping around the ceramic while his other hand continued its silent piano. Theo stirred at the smell, his eyes opening halfway, his face creased with pillow lines.
"Time is it?" he mumbled.
"Early," I said.
"Unacceptable," he said, and closed his eyes again.
Rowan didn't move. His coffee would be cold by the time he woke up. I'd reheat it without being asked, the way Julianreheated it yesterday, the way Theo would reheat it tomorrow. We had a system. It was imperfect and unspoken and it worked.
I sat on the edge of the bed with my mug in both hands and looked at the three of them. Julian reading music in the air with his fingertips. Theo burrowing back into the warmth of the blankets. Rowan, immovable, his breathing deep and even, his hand still resting on Julian's knee even in sleep.
The weight on my chest was still there. It would always be there. The grief hadn't vanished when the door closed. It had just changed shape, settling into a place where I could carry it without it carrying me. Some mornings it was heavier than others, and I'd wake up reaching for the wrong side of the bed before I remembered where I was. Some mornings the fog looked less like weather and more like a memory pressing against the glass.
But those mornings were getting fewer. And on the mornings that weren't those mornings, I had coffee and three men who slept like a pile of undignified cats and a sister who was booking flights and a town that was strange and broken and mine.
I took a sip of coffee and watched the light shift through the fog. It was grey and thin and uncertain, the way light always was in Hollow Vale, but it was there, and so were we.
The weight was still there. It would always be there. But it was lighter now. It was the weight of shadows, not the weight of the thing that casts them.
~ Stay Tuned for More Adventures in Hollow Vale ~
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