I had a hard time walking in the front door of the house Scott and I had picked out together. Our giant naked man poster was still hanging from the balcony in the main room of the house. I could see the damned thing from outside. There was this air of emptiness to the house, and it wasn't just because Alex and I were the only ones there. I walked around looking at all the things that hadn't moved an inch in the year I'd been gone, although there was an empty room. I walked up the stairs with Alex following behind me and opened my room door. The room was clean, like someone had been keeping everything in order for me.
"It's... spotless." I ran my hand across the tightly pulled blanket and breathed in the smell I'd left behind.
"When I got sad I'd clean the entire house and pretend you guys were just still on tour..." Alex nervously rubbed his arm as a single tear rolled down his face. "It's so quiet now." I took my bag from his hand and sat him down on my bed.
"I'm going to make some tea. We can sit and cry together."
He nodded and took a deep breath. I quickly ran down to the kitchen to heat some water and searched for the tea bags I'd bought before the tour. I found them just in time for the kettle to start screaming at me from the stove. I poured two cups of tea and grabbed the sugar to take upstairs with me. I added some milk and honey to y tea and went upstairs.
Alex and I were sitting on the floor with out teacups in our hands and crying about all the ones we'd just cried to ourselves about.
"I can't even call Jake to complain about Scott not being here," Alex sobbed. "I lost my best friend and my boyfriend at the same time..."
I couldn't do anything but sit and listen to him talk. The more he cried and as time passed... everything started to feel like it was my fault. After the incident, it felt like everyone lost contact with me. The friends I'd had weren't there for me, but Alex was always trying to be. He'd send me emails just to make sure I wasn't entirely behind if I ever decided to just show up at home. He'd left out that one of our roommates moved out though.
"Mitch? Are you okay?" He waved his hand in front of my face. "If you need to talk, you can."
I looked down at the steaming tea in my hands and shook my head. As much as I wanted him to feel better, I wasn't ready to face everything yet.
"Okay. It can wait. Want to order a pizza and watch Wizard of Oz while we get drunk off some cheap wine?"
"Thought you'd never ask."
