This chapter is vital to the development of the story, but I'm not sure I pulled it off properly. I think its a bit too short, so it will most likely be edited/extended when I don't have as much homework. All feedback is greatly appreciated. Enjoy.
Chapter 4
Zero had once heard someone say that they’d love someone for forever and a day. He had laughed at the time, because only someone so blinded by clichés would want to associate forever with an amount of days.
Those two people would love each other for x amount of days, plus one for good measure. It turns out that x amount of days equated to about 4 months. Conveniently, one of them claimed that forever had ended.
Now it wasn’t so funny. Alistair’s forever had ended, and Zero didn’t love him anymore.
I’ll hate you for forever and a day.
When Zero’s forever ends they’ll have the awkward apology stage, and one day later they’ll be back to the way they were before. Two forevers would have passed them by, but they’ll drink together like nothing has happened.
Right now though, Zero sat alone drinking.
Alistair’s cavernous house in the hills surrounded Zero like an opulent concrete envelope, sending him somewhere he had been before. An obscene amount of times bigger than his old apartment, but still crushing him between loneliness and emptiness, the house had officially been his for a week. Only an hour ago had he walked in the door, and already he felt at home.
It was empty.
It was emotionless.
It was everything his old place was, except it was inescapable.
He sat on the kitchen floor, legs crossed and leaning against a cupboard. So far it was the only place he had seen in the house, and he decided he’d keep it that way just for tonight. There was no way he could handle the whole thing at once.
In time he would explore the whole place, and deal with Al’s deception, and the two would not be separate journeys.
The kitchen was everything a kitchen was expected to be - sink, refrigerator, cupboards, tiles – and Zero knew it would be the only place totally devoid of the manifestations of Al’s death.
It had all started that day in the office of Ethan Conklin. Zero felt like strangling him with his tie, and by the time he left he was wishing he had a tie himself.
There was a letter. Not a comforting one, or really even one that solved a few mysteries, it was more like a vague hand motion in the direction of some answers. Zero had read it exactly 37 times in the last week, and each time he felt like tearing it up. He never would. On the kitchen floor of his new house, he went for number 38.
Dear… [Zero had obliterated the name of the intended recipient]
I haven’t been completely honest with you, but Mr. Conklin will. He’s probably already told you that I have something to leave behind to you, and I do. Some years ago I came into some money. I didn’t deserve it and I thought that none of it should ever become part of my life. Oddly enough, my life consisted of you, my sad little apartment and late night television. I continued to live in my apartment for the most part, but sometimes I would go to my house in the hills, just to remind myself that I’m not perfect, no matter where I am. Late night television had nothing to do with the better parts of human existence, and I figured the best way to keep you clean was to keep my money a secret. I had it all worked out, but if you’re reading this then there’s obviously a problem: I’m dead.
I always swore I’d leave it all to you, even if you hate me for lying over all this time. I know you do; I know you too well. I hope you’ll accept my money and my house, but if you don’t then I won’t be disappointed. Just know that the only reason I lied to you was to keep you clean. You’re the cleanest person I know.
Never forget that you had a friend named Alistair Wintergreen, that he was a troubled man and that he needed you much more than you needed him.
Yours apologetically,
Al.
Clean?
Troubled?
Late night fucking television?!
He was just as ambiguous in death as he was in life, but at least in life you could ask for further explanation.
Sometimes Zero would just stare at the letter, not reading it, trying to see if there was something there beyond the words.
There wasn’t. Sometimes he would look on the back, in case there was something else that had missed.
There wasn’t.
The only thing that now existed of Al was these final, excruciatingly unquestionable words that for the most part meant absolutely nothing to Zero.
He sat there for hours with a bottle of his transparent best friend and the letter, reading it a couple more times before falling asleep on the cold floor he had come to grips with. One room of the house had been conquered, and one small part of Zero was starting to deal with Alistair’s death, but Zero didn’t know it yet.
Gender:
Points: 890
Reviews: 131