Free Come See About Me by C. K. Kelly Martin Page A

to imagine Bastien there with me. I was terrified that
his presence would be missing from my midway between sleep and wakefulness
state from then on but he’d visited his aunt’s house in the past; I wasn’t
entirely disconnected from him. Bastien had attended classes in Oakville as
well as Toronto. This was the town he’d called “kinda sleepy but with some
breathing room.” There was no reason I couldn’t feel him in this place.
    We could be in
this leafy, quiet place together. I tried to tell myself I’d done the right
thing and that anyway, there was no other choice, but the gloom clung to me
like a layer of sweat that wouldn’t be cried away.
    I wished Abigail
had already returned to Vancouver and that I wouldn’t have to face her that
evening. I wished I was back in Toronto with the dogs barking and all our
things hanging in the closet together, Bastien’s dirty dishes still in the
kitchen sink.
    By the time
Abigail arrived home I had a hardcore headache from wishing so hard and she
fetched me the Tylenol from her private bathroom and then drove me around
Oakville, pointing out the village-like downtown area, the train and bus
station, local shopping mall and nearby supermarkets. Abigail didn’t keep a car
in Oakville anymore, instead renting a sedan whenever she was in town; she’d
warned me beforehand that one of my biggest challenges would be transportation.
Since I didn’t really plan on going anywhere that didn’t strike me as a major
problem, but Abigail had thought of everything and even had a bus schedule and
map for me. Emergency numbers too. The home alarm code (to be set at night) and
telephone number for the security company. Contact info for countless
restaurants that delivered. A current waste management guide detailing garbage
and recycle pick-up days. Phone numbers for her neighbors and the manager of
the Oakville Bulla store, should I ever need them. Abigail’s email address.
    Thank you, I
told her. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. She was so good to me. And still I
couldn’t wait to be left alone in her house. Just me, Armstrong and the TV.
    That was all I
could handle.
    All I can handle.
    Those things in
themselves feel like a lot. Often I don’t leave the house, and often I don’t
eat how I should, but I nibble, I sleep, I answer my parents’ calls, I clean
Armstrong’s cage and take in the flyers that pile up in Abigail’s mailbox so
her assistant won’t have to. I drink coffee. Walk in the sun (sometimes). Take
out the garbage. Do laundry. Stand at the shore of Lake Ontario and stare. And
always and forever, I’m thinking of Bastien—the boy I’m glad I finally noticed,
even though it meant he broke my heart—and how I would give anything to wake up
and hear him in the shower, running late for class.

Six
     
    With Abigail back in town for
eleven days starting September thirteenth, the house that I’ve had the luxury
of thinking of as mine for the past couple of months becomes a stranger.
Abigail says I shouldn’t mind her and just do what I normally do, but her
presence makes what I usually do seem like not nearly enough. On her first full
day back, while she’s at Bulla, I walk to the supermarket and buy three
shopping bags full of human food. At five o’clock I cook two chicken breasts
(slathered in a store-bought marinade) and leave one in the fridge for her with
a container of Greek salad. I only finish half of my own chicken but eat more
of the salad.
    When Abigail
gets home after seven she says she ate on the run while at a work and that I
didn’t need to go to the trouble but that she appreciates it. She’s phoned from
Vancouver from time to time so we’re already caught up (not that there’s much
news on my side) but we chat further about how I’m settling into Oakville. The
topic makes me nervous, because I still don’t know what her original offer that
I could stay “awhile” means, just that I’m not ready for it to end.
    I miss our old
apartment,