Page 13 of Slow Burn (The Boston Beauties)

Mr. Cahill nodded but wasn’t able to speak. Abby composed herself and stood, leading the detectives out while the rest of us sat in silence, listening to the detective tell her that they would be in touch with any further information.

We were all quiet, and one by one left the room. I had been staying in the guest room since the day we had found out about Jessa’s disappearance. To be honest, I was happy for it, I wouldn't have been able to be alone out there; the memories of Jessa and I there would have just been too much.

Colleen was still not fully functioning, and Steve counted on me a lot to help with her, something I was happy to do. Breton had moved back to the city a week after the disappearance but made a point to drive out as much as possible, as he was finally trying to finish his Masters this semester.

It was unusual for Steve and Colleen to remain on the Cape past Labor Day, but she wasn’t ready for the change yet, and I was here to watch over her for periods when Steve had to be present in the city for meetings. It had been better for her to be here, as in the city she’d be alone most of the day.

Towards the end of September, the neighboring property they had purchased for Jessa was officially signed over to the Cahills. None of us were there for the closing or a final walkthrough; the Cahills’ real estate lawyers took care of everything and dropped off the envelope with the keys to me one afternoon.

As much as I was keeping it together for the Cahills during the day, at night I was a complete disaster. I was drinking too much, not sleeping enough, and when my anger took over, I needed an outlet for it.

During a particularly bad episode, when I couldn’t sleep, I made my way downstairs, took the keys to the neighboring property that were still in the envelope on the counter being ignored by everyone in the house. Grabbing my hammer and safety glasses from the garage, I went to the reno house to release all that pent-up negative energy on everything in my path; doors, walls, counters, railings. I did this a few times that week, and it proved to be somewhat of a help until I realized that I was supposed to renovate this place for her—and that just made me sad all over again.

At least she wasn’t here to see that I was essentially destroying something that I had been looking forward to rebuilding for her, for us. The parallel between renovating the house and my relationship with Jessa was a bitter blow. I was no better than Matt was in these moments.

Now she was gone. Matt fucking took her from all of us, and I finally understood that there was nothing I could do to change a damn thing.

On one of my lowest nights, I’d been drinking while I cleaned up after an especially bad day of demolition fueled by my anger. I lashed out at Steve when I got home, who was sitting in the downstairs TV room alone, watching The Amazing Race and going over some contracts he had next to him on the sofa.

‘You did this,’ I slurred. ‘You let her go away, and you didn’t stop her.’ He had sat there, looking completely devastated, and the moment I said the words, I knew I couldn’t take them back, and he never tried to defend himself.

‘You could have asked her to stay.’

‘I did,’ I screamed. ‘I fucking begged her, but she wanted to save your reputation,’ I said before I went to my room.

It wasn't his fault, but at that moment, I needed someone to blame, and he was the closest thing.

They say you lash out to the ones closest to you, the ones you don’t need to ask forgiveness from, because you know they love you enough that the words don’t need to be spoken. Steve was it for me.

It wasn’t until November that my depression really started to sink in. Colleen and Steve moved back to the city and closed up the summerhouse for the winter. After I refused to stay in the huge house alone I moved into the reno house. I was living in the space that I had wanted to share with Jessa.

It wasn’t a good thing that I was alone. I noticed this and even hired a guy named Joe, who was an independent contractor but was reliable, skilled and kept my mind occupied during the day.

I’d been texting and talking a bit to Zoe and visiting Boston when the Cape got a bit too much for me. Just like I was, she was having a really hard time with Jessa’s death. Apparently, she’d already lost a best friend to cancer when she was a teenager, and this was opening up new wounds all over again for her and she wasn’t taking it well. Just like I was channeling my anger into labor, she was pushing herself hard with her training for the next Olympics. Maybe too hard as I knew she had a pulled muscle at the moment. When she was stressed, she made mistakes—we all did.

Boston was a great distraction and Breton always made sure I was entertained and my mind diverted as much as possible from Jessa. But, there was only so much running I could do. Jessa always caught up with me.

While I was still angry at Matt, at the situation, at not getting my happy ending with Jessa, I felt myself slip further into depression when the talk of the trial started. It made it all too real for me. The gloom had been building for a while but took over towards the end of November when Abby first mentioned I would be summoned to testify, and I couldn't deal with it all. I had to get away from Boston, from Cape Cod, from all the memories of Jessa that were tormenting me.

But for the short-term, I turned to my new vice and only coping mechanism. Good ol’ alcohol, like I did most nights at the bar.

Lisa, a bartender I met this past summer through Breton and spending a good amount of time hanging out there, was happy to indulge my sulking. She kept me fed and my glass filled. On more than one occasion, she had to drive me back to the reno house.

As had become our routine over the past few weeks, when I was in a particularly foul mood and stayed for more than two drinks, she asked me to hand over my keys as she gave me my third drink, and I knew she’d be driving me back to the reno house later. Then Joe would haul my hungover ass to get my car in the morning. But tonight was different, Lisa’s car was in the shop, and she asked if she could drive me home in mine.

‘It’s not mine, but seeing as the owner’s dead, she’s not really going to object,’ I stated, nursing the water she had served me as she closed down the bar for the night. She stopped in her tracks and looked up to me.

It didn’t escape my notice either, this was the first time I’d ever spoken about Jessa. I think it was the first time I’d said aloud that she was dead. It was a blow, and if I wasn't already drunk, I’d have taken a bottle to bed with me. Lisa went back to closing, I went back to my ice water and brooding.

I was sitting in the passenger seat of Jessa’s Audi as Lisa drove me home. ‘I’ll drop your car off tomorrow,’ Lisa informed me.

I looked over to her; she was cute in a plain, overworked, underfed, kind of way. ‘Or you could just come in, save a trip.’ I looked at her, eyebrow raised suggestively.

‘I’m not going in there,’ she replied, ‘it’s a construction site.’ She paused and looked at me. ‘Where do you sleep anyways?’

‘I wasn’t planning on sleeping,’ I was frank. ‘But I’ve spent most of the time renovating the first floor, so I have it all roughed in now. It’s livable, or at least most of the downstairs is. There’s no full kitchen yet, but there’s a bedroom and a new bathroom.’

‘You’re drunk,’ she stated bluntly. Fuck, it had been over a year since I’d been laid, not since my ex-girlfriend Heather back in London. I was apparently desperate for a distraction, for a release, for an escape from the thoughts in my mind. I was clearly out of my mind seeing as I was willing to fuck Lisa in Jessa’s house at that.

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