Carah: No new posts or videos, no messages or emails or voicemails
Carah: Did you fall off the face of the fucking earth, or what?
Carah: Figured I’d ask here, since you’re not responding anywhere else, and Marcus has been offline too
Maria: I haven’t heard from either of them in a while
Peter: Same
Summer: Every Sunday, Alex sends me a link to his favorite music reaction video that week
Summer: It’s usually the same Phil Collins song each time
Carah: In the Air Tonight? OH LOOOOOOOOOORD
Summer: That’s the one
Summer: It’s like being rickrolled, only with an unexpected beat drop three minutes into the song
Summer: Philrolled, I suppose
Summer: Alex’s knowledge of music seems to have stopped somewhere in the eighties or early nineties
Summer: Anyway, my point is, he didn’t send me a link on Sunday
Summer: I wrote him because I was worried
Summer: I haven’t heard back, and now I’m even MORE worried
Maria: Want me to stop by his house? I can do it tomorrow.
Carah: I’ll come with you
Marcus: Hey everyone
Marcus: Alex is going through a rough patch right now
Marcus: He appreciates your concern and sends his love, but no house visits
Marcus: Give him a little time, and he’ll be fine and back online
Carah: If someone hurt Alex, I will fucking GUT them
Maria: Get in line, my good bitch
Mackenzie: Whiskers’s claws are very sharp and could probably disembowel someone
Mackenzie: Couldn’t they, Whiskers, couldn’t they
Peter: Damn
Peter: Whiskers goes HARD
Peter: Marcus: whatever Alex needs, we’re there
Peter: Apparently that includes Whiskers and his Claws of Death
Marcus: Alex knows
Marcus: He knows, and he will fucking love you for it forever.
29
BATHED IN WARM, EARLY-MORNING SUNLIGHT, LINDA SANG along to her playlist as she spread butter over Alex’s toast and sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on top.
“Home sweet home!” she howled, in her best imitation of Vince Neil. “Tonight, toniiiiiiight!”
Alex joined her, and the kitchen rang with their high-volume, off-key rendition of one of her favorite songs. In that moment, he could have been a kid again, riding along in the backseat as he and his mom rocked out to hair-metal bands.
Music purists hated that shit, and he didn’t give a fuck. With each ripping guitar riff, each dated synth solo, he thought of his mother. He thought of their road trips together, and their school-day breakfasts together, and their matching feathered mullets inside her locket, and he settled more comfortably into his own skin for a fleeting moment.
He missed his mom. He’d been missing her for over a decade. And from now on, they’d be spending more time together. The shame of his failure to help her might never leave him, but she deserved better than a son she saw once a year.
If he stayed in L.A., he’d try to visit every other month. And if he moved near her … well, they could see each other as often as they wanted. Every week, or even every day.
It was Friday morning. His flight back to L.A. left in a matter of hours, and they still hadn’t talked about his possible future in Florida. He couldn’t delay any longer.
As she slid the plate of cinnamon toast in front of him, he set his elbows on the round kitchen table and looked up at her. “Thanks, Mom.”
“It’s your last day here, and it’s your favorite.” She ruffled his hair, exactly the same way she had for almost forty years. “If you wanted, I’d make you an entire loaf of cinnamon toast.”
He’d felt like an exhausted old man since Lauren left him, his entire body stiff and aching. In contrast, his mom had been energetic and cheery during his visit, her movements easy, her black eye fading. Bike accident or no bike accident, she was in better shape than him at the moment, and he was glad for it.
Sitting in the chair beside his, she dug into her oatmeal, still humming between bites.
“Listen,” he began, picking at the crust of the nearest toast slice. “I was thinking.”
“That spells trouble.” Her standard response, offered with her usual grin.
He tried to return her smile, but couldn’t. At which point, she set down her spoon and studied him with disconcertingly sharp gray eyes.
“Sweetheart …” Her hand covered his. Squeezed. “I know you’re hurting. I don’t know why, and I didn’t want to press, but I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
He stared down at his plate until his blurry vision cleared. Then he laid his free hand over top of hers to make a hand sandwich, as they’d always called it.