Page 83 of The Devil Wears Tartan

Only one.

It comes the day after that night that ended with so much horror:

Chris is okay. We’re home now. He’s staying with us for a few days. My mom is okay too. Thanks for driving me. Thanks for everything, Moira.

That’s all I get after the dozens of texts and calls I spent the night sending, and I don’t get anything in response to the dozen more I send once she texts me back.

Three whole days go by in silence.

I reach for my phone in the middle of a Netflix binge that’s taken up my whole evening. I can’t remember the name of the show. It’s supposed to have a good lesbian subplot, but I can’t keep up with the story. I’m five episodes in, and I don’t know any of the characters’ names.

The sight of a text notification on my screen makes me sit up straighter in bed, my heart jumping into my throat as I swipe my passcode in.

My heart sinks right down to the bottom of my stomach when I see the message is only from Lydia:

Any news?

Part of me wants to type something sarcastic and nasty, to inflict some of the pain poking holes in my chest on someone else, but the rest of me knows she’s only trying to help.

I type out a simple ‘nothing’ in answer.

Three dots pop up in a little bubble to let me know she’s typing a reply, but I toss my phone back onto my bedside table before the message comes through. I don’t want to talk. I want to lose myself in mindless, overdramatic queer TV, but not even that seems to be working out for me.

On my laptop screen, two women get very close to kissing while sitting in a car together. I can tell this is supposed to be some pivotal point of the narrative, but my heart does not swell along with the soundtrack like I’m sure the director intended.

Instead, my eyes prick with heat at the same time my stomach lurches so violently I jump out of bed, sure I’m about to be sick. I stagger to my bedroom door, but by the time I reach for the handle, the urge passes, replaced by a hollow sensation that seems to suck me up from the inside like a black hole.

I sink to the floor, landing on my knees on my striped carpet, and flop to the side to curl up in a fetal position. That’s when the tears finally start falling.

“Dammit,” I curse between sobs.

I thought I was past the crying phase.

I give in and let my emotions swell until I’m gasping for breath and shaking with the force of my sobs. I feel like I’m surrounded by tiny but brutally sharp spears, ready to jab into me no matter which way I twist on the carpet, no matter which way I let my thoughts turn.

There are only dead ends, and every single one pierces my skin with the painful reminder that she’s gone. Just when I’ve finally realized exactly what she means to me, she’s gone, and she doesn’t want to come back. She won’t let herself come back, and when it comes down to it, there’s nothing I can do about that.

I lay curled on the floor until my cheeks are puffy and my whole face is streaked with salty tears—and snot.

“So much snot,” I mutter as I push myself up to a seat.

A moment of head rush clouds my vision, and when it clears, I scan the room for tissues. I’m still sitting there in my snot-strewn state when there’s a knock at my door.

“Moira, honey,” my mum says, her voice muffled by the wood, “I brought you tea and shortbread. I’m coming in, okay?”

Before I can clear my throat enough to protest, she pushes the door open and then freezes once she’s taken a step inside.

“What are you doing on the—oh, honey!”

My general slovenliness probably makes the reason I’m on the floor clear enough. My mum sets the mug and plate of cookies she’s holding down on my desk. I start to push myself up to my feet, but before I can even get out a grunted ‘I’m okay,’ she’s kneeling on the floor in front of me and pulling me into a rib-squishing hug.

I tense for a moment, but when her hand starts rubbing circles into my back, all my muscles go slack, and heat starts to prick my eyes again.

“Mum,” I say, my voice thick and cracked, “you’re gonna make me cry again.”

“You cry as much as you need to, honey.” She pulls me in even tighter.

I don’t know how long we sit like that. A lock of her grey-streaked hair is practically suffocating me, and I’m sure I’ve gotten her soft knitted sweater all covered in snot, but neither of us cares. I breathe in the ‘fresh rain’ scent of the laundry soap we’ve all been using for years, and some of the little spears surrounding me drop to the floor. The pain eases, if only a bit.

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