Free Not Looking for Love: Episode 3 by Lena Bourne Page A

dead?"
    "No, they took her away before I got home," he says, stroking my back gently. My fingers are digging into his side, because if I let go I might float away and never come back. My mom just died and I'm such a bad person for wanting to feel better, to forget her.  
    "How do you know then?" I insist.
    He sighs, and his arms tense around me. "For a long time, after my friend David, Janine's boyfriend, died, all I could see was his dead body on the floor of his apartment. But that passed, and now I can remember other things too. Which can be worse, I won't lie to you. But it's getting better."
    "Worse?" I stammer. How can it be worse?
    "Death is hard."  
    "It is," I manage. He's been through so much of it, and all I want to do right now is make him feel better, tell him it will all be alright. But how can I do that, when I don't even know if I ever will be?
    "We can talk about something else," he says.
    "OK," I mutter.  
    I let him lead me to the bed, and curl up beside him, my head on his chest. I'm still holding onto his side, because the abyss is closing in fast like it's feeding off his pain too now, growing vaster and scarier. If I let go of him we'll both get swallowed up forever.

    Scott's phone ringing wakes me the next morning. He's lying on his side, with his back to me and my arm is draped across his stomach. He curses as he reaches for the phone, and I wrap my arm tighter around him, so he won't get up.
    "What?" he mumbles into the phone.
    "Don't fucking tell me you're still asleep," a guy yells into the phone so loudly I can hear the words clearly. "We'll be at your house in fifteen minutes and you better be ready."
    "Oh, shit, I forgot," Scott says and moves the phone so it's farther away from me. "Maybe I'll just go next week."
    "You really are a piece of work, Scott, you know that? You forgot? How could you forget? You don't get to forget. And no, you're coming today. You're the last person who gets to miss any visits. Fucking shit, forgot? And I'm here in Westchester at the crack of dawn, so no way you're not fucking going." The guy on the other end is not even pausing to take a breath, and he's yelling so loudly I'm half sure he's in the room with us.
    Scott hangs up and tosses the phone back onto the chair that serves as his nightstand.
    "Who was that?" I mutter.  
    "Mike," he says, and turns so he's lying on his back. The phone blares back to life, but he makes no move to pick up.
    "And you just hung up on him?" I ask.
    "He was yelling. It's the best way to handle him, trust me," he says and brushes a few strands of hair off my face.
    "Maybe you'd better pick up," I say, just as the ringing stops. "Where do you have to go anyway?"
    "To visit my brother, Derek," he says, as though speaking from very far away until I'm sure I'm going deaf. "But I'll go next week, don't worry about it."
    His phone chimes with a new voice mail message, then starts ringing again.  
    "You should go, if you already had plans," I say. "Don't think you have to stay on account of me."
    He slides his hand under mine, so it's resting against my stomach. "Maybe I want to stay on account of you."
    The phone bleeps again with another voice mail, and starts ringing again almost immediately.
    "Is this the same Mike who broke the lock on the downstairs door the last time you wouldn't pick up the phone?" I ask.
    "It is," he says.
    "So he'll just do that again, right?"
    "He might," he says and chuckles.  
    "So pick up the phone," I say and snuggle closer, because I don't actually want him to go anywhere. The muscles of his stomach strain as he reaches for the phone again, and picks up.
    "Don't ever fucking hang up on me again, Scott!" Mike yells.
    "Don't fucking yell at me, Mike," Scott says, his voice cold and harsh.
    "I'm picking you up now, so get dressed," Mike says.
    "I'd rather go next week."
    "No. You're coming, and I'll drag you to the car if I have to," Mike says.
    "You just try that," Scott says as though he'd like nothing