Clock Chimes

Chapter Four (Part two)

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK CITY, 2023.
Two years after Emma's death.
Six months later...

If Henry searched his memory until the velvety black sky void of stars was bright blue once again, and if he tried hard enough, exhausting himself to the point of crying every tear left in him, he couldn't have found an answer to the burning question numbing his brain.

What got him to this point?

There's not an exact moment that he can lay his finger on. Surely it had something to with his mother's untimely death, his depressing, lonely apartment miles and miles away from his home, his tendency to spend every penny he can scrape up on alcohol, his addiction to heroin, and the fact that his girlfriend had basically dumped him less than seven hours ago. Just a few wild stabs. Maybe it was a mutant, stinking mix of it all.

Well, she hadn't exactly broken up with him, though she may as well have, and Lord knows she'd be far better off without him. This is how it played out.

He's late.

He knows he is; just as he always is these days, and he'd booked a reservation a week ago for this all-hell expensive suit-and-tie restaurant he could barely afford for their "half-anniversary," and he's late.

Last night, he'd relapsed; particularly badly, and he'd gotten so fucking high that he was aware of it, like an out-of-body experience, genuinely scared for his own life. Then the skyscraper high of it collapsed on him like a three-thousand pound weight, suddenly and suffocating. He'd spent the entire night screaming until he was hoarse, hot and cold, and he's sporting a 100.3 F fever right now, and it's 8 PM the next day, and their reservation was at 7:15. He throws on the only suit he owns and a tie that doesn't match, two different socks showing under the too-short hem of his pants, and then he's tearing down the busy streets of Brooklyn.

It's 8:15 when he bangs down the doors of the Italian place whose name he can't pronounce, a solid hour after he'd promised he'd be there. He's breathless, eyes wide and bloodshot as he shouts at the girl at the front desk that he's part of the Mills party. He hadn't been able to tell whether his voice was too loud or too quiet to be heard due to the deafening rushing deep in his ears that's beginning to be normal for him.

The girl's eyebrows raise about three inches higher than they should, a quiet squeak floating out of her mouth--and oh, okay, so his voice was too loud, good to know--and after a moment's recovery, instructs him to follow her as she snakes around circular tables covered with white cloth.

That's when he sees her.

There's Anya Chen, his beautiful, perfect, amazing girlfriend of six months sitting alone at a table for two, legs crossed under her skintight fancy dress she only pulls out of the back of her closet for special occasions, the candle on the table long since gone out.

There's pounding, sickening guilt in his chest, and he thinks he feels tears in the back of his eyes. "Anya--" he begins, sitting down hurriedly. The hostess makes herself scarce so quickly he doesn't even see her go, seeming to understand how much trouble he's in. And he's a douchebag.

"Nice of you to show up." Anya tells him shortly, not meeting his eyes. Her hair is curled. She has red lipstick on.

"Honey, I just--" he reaches across the table for her, the space between them thick and heavy enough that he thinks he could cut it with a knife. His hand makes contact with hers, and she flinches.

She finally meets his bloodshot, wild eyes, takes in his damp hair sticking to his clammy skin, sees the heavy stubble on his jaw, sees the green tinge under the paper-white of his skin. "Bǎobèi, what's wrong with you?" She asks, horrified, taking his hand in hers, squeezing it repeatedly, trying in vain to bring warmth back to it.