Chase (#ONC2022) ✅

epilogue

It's evening by the time Chase Collins reaches his new apartment. He remembers visiting the place a month ago, but it seems different with all the boxes stacked neatly upon each other and the knowledge that this is now his home. It is a lot bigger than he remembers. 

He locks the door behind him, stretching out his back and putting his duffel bag down on the linoleum floor with a grunt. 

Chase decides that he will start unpacking tomorrow. Putting some music on and sorting out everything in those boxes doesn't seem like a bad way to start a Sunday morning. Besides, he is much too tired right now to even think about it. It is still early, but perhaps he will go straight to bed. 

The silence filling the apartment is practically deafening. He opens up Spotify on his phone and clicks on the first playlist that appears. The music is a welcome addition to the empty space, drowning out the quiet. He taps his fingers on his jeans along to the beat and starts to habituate himself to his surroundings. He likes it, Chase realizes. He knows that he will quickly grow to love this new home. 

He walks into the bedroom and flicks the light switch on. There are no boxes in this room, and he stands at the doorway for a few seconds, admiring the expanse of floor and the queen-size bed in its center. Chase sits down on the bed and bounces a little on it, testing out the springs. He runs his hand across the cool mattress. 

There is a small crack on the wall opposite him; a peeling bit of paint that contrasts starkly with the smooth whiteness of the rest of the surface. It looks like the shape of a bird: a parrot, maybe, or a finch, like the ones that would be in his grandparents' garden. He remembers the fresh grassy smell of their home, the strong summer sun bearing down on his bare shoulders. His hair was much lighter when he was a kid, almost blond, and it would get bleached in the sunshine over the summer vacation.   

He can't wait for spring to arrive and for leaves to appear on the trees again. To walk outside in a shirt and feel warmth on his skin. But before that, he will spend the final few months of winter in Ohio- for the first time. Chase softly whistles the tune of the music playing to himself and smiles at the thought of everything that lies ahead. Warmer days. New offices and new people. Undiscovered paths to go down on his morning runs. Sure, it is also terrifying. 

But he has always liked adrenaline. 

As he casts his mind back to the summers he spent with his grandparents, he recalls his father telling him once, when he was nine or ten, what dementia was. He thought for an embarrassingly long time after that it was spelled demensha. And at the end of the explanation, Chase asked what the point of doing anything was when it would someday be forgotten. What did it even matter, he'd said, in being a good person if they're gonna forget about right after? 

Because every second of happiness is worth creating, his dad replied. 

It is something that he never ceases to think about. 

Chase brushes his tongue over his dry lips and turns his gaze away from the wall. He should probably find some bedding so he can at least have his bed made. 

He slowly gets off the bed. He recalls him telling Kyle that the spare comforter was in Box 22 last night. Was it really only last night? 

It comes to him like the memory of a different time. But as he reflects, it rushes back to him in full detail. He remembers with absolute clarity and vividness the train ride together and the fast food they ate whilst walking through the bitter cold. He remembers Kyle's tears drying on his own suit jacket and he remembers him standing in his kitchen in the middle of the night holding a pot of mac and cheese. 

Chase wonders what Kyle is doing as he finds a pair of scissors and tries to locate the box. 

Kyle Rivera. How strange it is that those two words are capable of evoking so much. There are just some people you meet who will always be significant. It doesn't matter if you don't see them for years or if you don't hear their voice say your name for eons. For Chase, it seems like from their very first training session to their very first class, they were in it together: where it meant the world. 

After sliding a few boxes around and rearranging them on the cluttered floor, Chase succeeds in finding the one labelled 22 and opens it up. He walks back to his bedroom- it is funny how he has already grown accustomed to seeing it as his room, his space- and dumps the bundle on the bed. 

As he does, a small sheet of paper falls out from a fold in the fabric and drops onto the floor. 

He frowns. Chase walks closer to the bed and crouches down to pick it up.

His mouth opens slightly in surprise when he sees the handwriting on it. There's no mistaking the 9s that look like Gs and the crooked 2s. He's seen pages of this scrawl before: he has copied off it when he forgot to do his math homework and has let his own work be copied by the same person.

It's a number. A phone number, more specifically. 

Chase crumples it slightly in his palm, his eyes straying towards the window. It is utterly dark outside, and he finds himself looking not at the view outside of his apartment, but at his own reflection. He watches himself absently, the ceiling light of the room appearing as a blurry white disc in the glass. His mouth twists slightly as he chews the inside of his cheek. 

He thinks. 

A smile grows on his lips as he looks down again at the paper in his hand. He nods to himself several times. He reaches his other hand out, rummaging under the comforter to find his phone. 

And then finally, he unlocks the phone and begins carefully typing the number into his contacts. 

Maybe this is the closure that Chase has been looking for all this time.

Or maybe not- maybe this is the opposite. A beginning of some kind.

Maybe it's the beginning. 

Et voila!

We are DONE. Officially DONE!! 

I'm pretty happy with this first draft. Especially because this is a story that has been stuck in my head for so many years and I've finally let it be written. 

I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing this- as always, please leave any thoughts in the comments. I am so grateful for anybody and everybody who has followed the story this far. Thank you so so much. 

Much love as always, 

Iz xx