Hitch Pepper

3.3 | Normal

IN THE WAKE of death, the pain never lessens. It only gets easier to manage. I managed the pain in three ways—avoiding thoughts of Phil, keeping myself busy, and spending time with Hitch. With this steady routine, things began to look better.

I still missed Phil with each passing day, but Hitch and I had finally made it through the transition period of our loss when February came.

It was there that we found a new normal, a good normal, one where we actually spoke to each other and acted like people rather than ghosts.

We spent our mornings on the back porch with our cigarettes and coffee, our dinners at the dining table catching up on our days, and our nighttimes talking to each other to sleep over the wall of pillows that separated us.

It was in this period that I slowly began to heal. I stopped feeling as guilty as I once had because I finally accepted that Phil was dead and that I couldn't time travel and save his life. He was dead and I couldn't do anything about it but move forward.

So I did. I moved forward.

I took whatever jobs I could at my uncle's landscaping business, and juggled work with my final semester of classes at college.

With Phil gone and half of our rent suddenly unaccounted for, Hitch had to take on more hours at the record shop to help out. Sometimes, that meant that she wouldn't be able to come home and make dinner like she normally did, so I would show up on her break with food from whatever restaurant we agreed on.

Usually, she'd beam at me when I walked in holding our food, but on one particular visit, she didn't even notice me, because Stanley Gibbs was standing in front of her at the checkout counter.

I almost didn't recognize him from the last time I had seen him at that party he had spooked Hitch at. His hair was cut shorter, and he had shaved his mustache. He barely had any other remarkable features, but the alarmed look on Hitch's face let me know exactly who he was, because I had never seen anyone else evoke such an expression from her.

He was speaking to her in a low voice, smirking as Hitch stared at him. She was as white as a sheet.

"Hey," I called out, making Stanley look my way and Hitch jump like a skittish cat. "Everything good here?"

Stanley narrowed his eyes in displeasure at me but smiled despite it. "We're good." He turned to look at Hitch. "Aren't we?"

She didn't acknowledge him, her eyes locked on me.

I moved closer to the two, setting the bag of food on the counter before crossing my arms and turning to look down at Stanley. "You should go," I told him.

He scoffed. "What, are you the manager or something?"

I had little patience for him at that moment, especially with Hitch looking as frightened as she did. I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. "Bother her again and I swear I'll knock your teeth out," I threatened, walking him toward the door. I shoved him out into the chilly air and watched as he nearly stumbled into my car where it was parked in front of the store.