What do the stars feel when they look at Us?

Chapter 35: Part 3, Pt. 2

It was early January, four years after everything with Matilda went down, when I realized that something had gone wrong in my life.

It wasn't necessarily due to bad decisions or lack of effort.

I believe I did everything I could.

It was the evening of the belated New Year's gathering at work.

Gathering at work was a quite formal term for what it actually was.

Because work was a local gas station.

And the gathering consisted of my co-worker, and really, only present friend Brendan and the owner of said establishment, who told us to call him "Tommy" the first day we came in.

His real first name was Mason. But he didn't like the name. Eventually, he explained that a friend he had once, with the same name, murdered someone.

Except for the few screws he had loose, he was an incredibly kind and generous person.

That's why every year, at some point in early January, we closed early, went outside to the parking lot, grabbed the old, rundown plastic table that was always standing in the same, overgrown corner of the property, so Tommy could slam a crate of beer onto it and call it a "New Year's gathering".

Every year we placed bets on whether the table would break or not.

No one had ever won.

This year, Brendan was the only one who believed it would break.

And as Tommy, yet again this year, ruthlessly slammed the box of beer onto the table, it shattered into three fine pieces.

Bren cheered like a little kid.

It was hard not to be happy for him.

Later that evening, as we sat next to the broken parts, he announced he would go back to his home town because his mother had gotten sick.

There was nothing to do but wish him good luck and hoping she'd get better soon.

Goodbye.

Tommy said he'll go look for a replacement. And that in the meanwhile, shifts will be harder. But he'll get his wife to help out, like she did before they got the kids.

Everything would turn out just fine.

Just like that, within a few days of moving companies and muscle growth, Bren was gone.

I accompanied him to the train.

We hugged, did our little stupid jokes that you wouldn't really understand even if I explained them, and I waved until the train disappeared behind the grey buildings surrounding the grey train station, beneath the grey sky and everything it swallowed.

My hair had become long enough to fit into a bun.

-

As I walked back home to my student apartment that day the realization that something had gone wrong with my life slowly crept up on me like a shadow.

I just couldn't figure out what it was, quite yet.

-

The next morning I got woken up by my phone ringing. It was Linda.

"Were you drunk again last night?"

A quick look at the calendar that had been exactly lit through a small gap between the curtains told me it was the 8th of January. And based on what I scribbled underneath the date I should be working the night shift today.

"How do you know?", I asked her after I cleared my throat and took some breaths of fresh air through the window I opened.

I had to climb over clothing and moving boxes.