At twenty-seven, YouTube sensation Ben Leonards is married to his work. If he's not whipping up lasagna with a side of science experiments, he's running statistical analysis of bitcoin during explosive behavior periods.
When a friend asks him to org...
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The vacuum of time sucks me in and doesn't want to spit me out. According to the calendar it's been a week since Tall's death and four days since I've seen Ben, but it feels longer.
It could be because the minutes draw out. I follow my therapist's advice, close my eyes, lie still and count ten breaths, focusing on the air as it travels through my body, and not the thoughts of Tall. I open my eyes and thirty-seconds remain on the timer.
It could be because my days lengthened. I'm helping Angie and Marguerite organize the funeral, on top of my workload and going through things in Tall's apartment in the evening, additional visits with my therapist, the daily crying sessions that leave my eyes raw and streaked with red—my days overflow.
It could be because of the loneliness that crept back into my nights. I miss the previous two weeks when Ben and I spent our nights together, when I showed up in the room I rented, only to pick up a fresh batch of clothes or a mold or utensil from my cookware stash.
I've spent eight empty nights on Tall's bed—the longest stretch since the move. It's been the most my house-mates have seen of me. The very first night Leslie and Shelly accepted my brief explanation about a death of a friend as a plausible one and did not knock on my door again, when the thin walls of the condo and my pillow did a poor job at muffling my sobs. When their attempts at chatting me up when we crossed paths in the morning or evening didn't get more than a one sentence reply or a grunt from me, they got the message and the last two mornings I pushed my French press in silence and poured my first cup into my to-go tumbler without any questions about how I was feeling. I'm surrounded by people every day and yet utterly alone in all the ways that matter.
Evenings are the hardest to be with myself without welcoming the company of self-pity. Tonight the chatter of the TV in the open living-room and kitchen hurts my brain, so I choose to eat in my room while I grade the next batch of papers. I should've insisted on a Teacher's Assistant, but I was so eager to get the job, it didn't seem like a big deal. I forgot how long grading takes. The surface of my eyes is sandy and dry, and I squint at the poorly formatted stack of research proposals from the first-years. I need a break. I spoon the remains of the canned chicken-noodle soup into my mouth and take the stack of my mail off the floor by my bedside table.
Leslie is in charge of sorting through the mail. He throws the junk mail into recycling, stacks my portion of whatever came that day in front of my bedroom door and I transfer it into a pile by my bedside. Today a legal-sized envelope is part of the stack. It isn't heavy but it does not look like spam. I'm tempted to ignore it like I've done with all mail that's not a bill, but it looks a bit too official. If it is spam, those spammers did a damn good job of making it look legit and a bit scary.
I prop the pillow in my bed up, lower myself onto the comforter, because even though Ben said it's fixed, I'm afraid to put any additional pressure on the poor old thing. Ben wasn't as careful with my bed, but he's not here. My calls with him while he was in New York lasted minutes. The group chat has been the lifeline, but not a private one. I've offered to talk, to come over, but Ben said he needed to be alone. I wanted hugs and commiseration, he asked for us to let him be. I did what he asked and I will do it again, because I love him and it's not about me anymore. I wait until I get my hugs from Angie, and I'll stay away if that's what's best, no matter how much I want to do the opposite. The envelope contains several legal-sized pages, stapled at the top.
