“Please – but just in here. I’ll be okay doing the bathroom bit by myself.” I stood and stretched before finding some clean clothes.
Closing the bathroom door behind me, I took off Jake’s tee shirt and held it to my face before recoiling. It didn’t smell of him anymore, just a very unpleasant version of me. I promised myself not to waste anything else I had of his, to look after everything, real or memory. Determined to face up to life, I leant on the sink and looked at myself in the mirror. I was a mess. In every way. I remembered back to seeing Cass at her lowest last year and knew it was going to be a road of small steps until I found the complete me again. But I wasn’t alone: I had Cass and my family with me.
The emotional exhaustion still blanketed me and, despite making the effort to go downstairs and be with Mum and Dad, most of the next few days were spent in my room. Listening to Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith. Looking at photos of me and Jake. Reading through all of the texts he had sent me. Yeah, Kema would have thrown a fit if she had seen it.
But I needed it. I was lost in the unbearable absence of him. I needed to do what Cass had said and remind myself of everything good about my time with Jake. As sad as it is to admit, I even tried to recreate moments. I sat in bed, wearing Jake’s hoodie, listening to videos of the sea washing over pebbles, trying to relive being sat on the beach with him. It didn’t work. I revisited every memory, a moth drawn to the softest of lights, incapable of anything but seeking the very thing which could destroy it.
My room became a shrine to Jake. Every photo I had of him, of us, even the blurriest, grainiest pictures on my phone, was printed and stuck up. I lined up on my desk the bits and pieces which represented our relationship: cinema tickets, silly gifts, a note he’d left on the front door. Nothing had any financial value, yet it was all priceless to me.
But one thing sat there, haunting me, needing me to do something about it: Dad had picked up Jake’s rucksack with my things when we left Brighton and it had sat there, in the corner or my room, since we got back. I wasn’t sure whether I should keep it or give it to his mum. I wasn’t sure whether to open it and see what was inside or leave it the way he had left it.
But, when Flynn came home on the Friday evening, I knew he would help me. We sat on his bed, the rucksack between us.
“Ready?” Flynn asked.
“Yes. I think.” Was I? “You open it.” He pulled the bag toward him and unzipped it.
“I hope there’s nothing dodgy in here,” he said, his words and wink an attempt to keep me from falling apart. He pulled out the clothes Jake had brought with him for the weekend, creating a familiar pile of colour and texture. And smell. I took a couple of the tee shirts, remembering how he looked in them. They were now mine. As well as the clothes, there was his small supply of toiletries. I added his aftershave to the pile of tee shirts. Mine. Flynn put his hand in as though he were looking for something else but pulled it out empty.
“That’s it. Clothes and deodorant. Nothing dodgy after all.” We were both quiet with the anti-climax of it. I didn’t know what I was expecting but, deep down, I had hoped for more.
“Oh, okay.” I folded the clothes up and put them neatly back into the bag, leaving out the ones I was keeping. I put the toiletry bag on top and closed the bag. “Would you be able to drop it off at Jake’s house? Or I can ask Dad to? I don’t think I can face seeing them before the funeral.”
“I’ll take it round tomorrow. I was going to check on the arrangements for the wake.” My head still struggled with the words that sounded so final. He picked up the bag and took a second look. “Hang on, there’s a pocket here we missed.” He opened the pocket and pulled out a white envelope. “It’s for you.”
Everything stopped.
For me.
From Jake.
I took the envelope, feeling its weight in my hands. It was heavy, filled with something soft yet hard. It had my name on the front, written in Jake’s familiar scrawl.
I breathed it in, knowing he had touched it, sealed it.
Time stopped, rewound to a moment when Jake was still alive. Still thinking of me.