Page 39 of That One Moment

Caiden opens the door to his one bed flat. As we walk inside, he’s immediately greeted by loud meowing. He falls into a crouch and scoops the furry creature into his arms. The missing tail cues me into who it is he’s holding, and a wave of nostalgia hits me. I was surprised how much I missed seeing the little guy when I visited my mum and Duncan. Everything in that house changed after Cooper died, and the cat leaving with Caiden was just one more reminder that we would never be the same people again.

I walk further into the room and place my keys and phone on his kitchen counter. It’s clear of everything bar two small cacti and an empty fruit bowl.

Standing with my back to the narrow counter separating the kitchen from the rest of the house, I take in the small living area. In it sits a blue sofa, a worn out rug and a small coffee table. The only other furniture is a set of floor to ceiling shelves which Caiden has filled with pot plants. Thick green ferns cascade towards the floor from one of the higher shelves and beneath them sits a row of succulents and some other plants I don’t recognise. The other thing I notice is how tidy it is. There’s no socks on the floor, no clothing hanging over the back of the sofa. Not even a dirty glass in the sink. Everything is neat and orderly.Just another way he and Cooper are - were - so different. My boyfriend was a chaotic mess at times.

“God, I am so sorry, Ford.” Caiden stands up and buries his nose in his cat’s fur. It dawns on me then, as I take in his home, that if he’d have died on that bathroom floor, Ford would have been left here alone. Would anyone have known to come and get him? Did Caiden even think about that?

Frustration mixes with the confusion I already feel being near Caiden again, and I can't stop myself from lashing out at him. “I guess he got lucky,” I say unhelpfully, then stroll past them both, going further into the room. My eyes land on a yellow and white cage on a table behind the sofa.

Drawing closer to the cage, I bend at the waist and peer through the painted bars. Two tiny black eyes stare at me from a bed of tissue and sawdust, before a little orange hamster emerges. The creature comes closer and rubs its nose between the bars, its whiskers twitching as it scents the stranger approaching.

“What was your plan, Caiden?” Behind me comes a thump and pitter patter of paws on hardwood, and I straighten and turn to find him watching me, chewing on his bottom lip. He’s standing behind the counter, leaning against it. Ford jumps up and meows again before losing interest and jumping back down. Silence exists like a whole other being in the room, and it itches at my skin, agitating me to the point that I feel restless. I crave some sort of reaction from Caiden. Something that says he’s just as unbalanced in this moment as I am. “You know, for Ford and this guy.” I gesture to the hamster’s cage. “Or did you not think about them?”

Shut up, Jamie.I hate myself now as much as I did at Cooper’s funeral. I’m a thousand layers of a person made up of a thousand feelings. Anger sits top and centre, no matter how wrong and misguided it is.

“But that’s not surprising is it?” I walk towards him, slowly closing the space so there’s nothing but the counter between us. “Because that’s how you’ve always been. Fuck the consequences. Fuck what happens to anyone else.” I poke and poke but he doesn’t bite. He just chews on his lip, flips his tongue around his piercing and narrows his eyes at me.

“You’re selfish, Caiden,” I state. His jaw clenches. “At least admit that. That night-” I start, but he cuts me off.

“Shut up. Just shut the fuck up, Jamie!” Both his hands are now fisted on the counter and his nostrils flare as he stares daggers at me. “You don’t know half of what I feel. You don’t know me, or what I've been through.”

A humourless laugh escapes and it’s all I can do not to roll my eyes. “I don’t know how you feel?” I ask incredulously. “You’re really saying that, tome?” I bang my fist to my chest. How the hell can he believe that I don’t understand? “I lost the love of my life. I never even got a chance to say goodbye.” Tears sting my eyes but I take a deep breath to keep them from falling.

I won't let him see me cry.

“He was my best friend, Jamie!” Caiden yells. “I lost my brother. My twin. The other part of my fucking soul. I was barely hanging on before that night. Don’t you dare fucking judge me for my actions now.” He swipes at his eyes before leaning his elbows on the counter and covering his face with his hands. “You told me you wished I’d died and I wished the same,” he says, his voice muffled behind his hands. “Would it really be so bad if you got what you wished for?”

My stomach sours and my throat tightens. I should never have said those things to him, but grief made me heartless and angry. “Don’t say that.”

He looks up at me and his blue eyes are red rimmed. My phone rings and a photo of me and Rachel flashes up on the screen. It’s a photo we took in Paris last year. She’s kissing my cheek whilealso looking at the camera. To an outsider, we look like a young couple madly in love.

It’s a facade though.

That day, an hour before that photo was taken, a girl about my age walked past us with a song playing through their phone. A song that reminded me of Cooper. Inside, behind the fake as fuck smile, my heart was still broken and my resolve to move on was slipping. In the three years since his death, I have become a master at wearing disguises. It’s exhausting, and as much as Caiden frustrates me, today is the first time in months that I’ve dropped the mask.

He makes me want to stop pretending.

Moving quickly, I snatch up the phone and shove it in my pocket. Caiden straightens, then pulls off my hoodie and throws it at me. I can't help the way my eyes snap to his naked chest anymore than I can stop my next breath. “Just go, Jamie. Get back on your high horse and get back to your life.” He waves his hand towards where I’ve just hidden my phone.

I shake my head. “No. I’m not leaving. You don’thaveanyone else and you shouldn’t be alone. Not after -”

He chuckles but it’s dark and devoid of humour. “Not after I tried to kill myself? You know why I wanted to die, Jamie?” He doesn’t pause for me to answer. “I wanted to die because I miss him too damn much to keep living. And really, I don’t deserve to be here anyway. I punish myself day in and day out because I fucked up.Icost Cooper his life.Me.”There’s a part of me that wants to argue with him because I’ve blamed him for so long but I’ve also walked through that night in my mind a million times and it’s not as simple as that.

Caiden takes a shuddering breath. “But you know why I changed my mind right when it mattered most? Because nothing in thisfuckingworld can guarantee me that I’ll see him again. Nothing. Not the fact that we were twins. Not all his talk of thefucking stars. Nothing.Look for me in the stars- that’s what he said shortly before he died, and I do, all the fucking time but he’s not there!”

My heart squeezes. Not only out of sadness for him but out of understanding. Because I look for Cooper all the time, in everything. And mostly, I never find him.

“I’m home and I’m safe and I have someone else I can call.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and turns the screen on, all without looking at it. “So you can assuage your guilt or fucked up familial obligations and get the fuck out. I don’t want or need you here, Jamie.”

The words ‘no’ and ‘I’m sorry’ are on my lips, but I’m not sure me being here is doing him any good. I can’t help but think I’m making everything so much worse. His walls are rising and he’s pushing me away exactly like he’s always done.

“You’ll call your friend if you feel like -”

He cuts me off. “Yeah, I’ll call him. Forget about me, Jamie.”

“Can I call your dad?” I offer, my voice hopeful. I know how badly Duncan misses him and his dad could be the support he needs.

“No!” He blanches and looks away from me. “Seriously, please just leave. I don’t want you here.”

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