Phoenix

Chapter 3

I called Roger the next day but after two rings it went straight to voicemail. I received a text a few minutes later – Now is not a good time – and I tossed the phone down in frustration. I wondered if either of them had any intentions of talking to me. Maybe they were just trying once again to let this all go, but I thought we had proven pretty conclusively last night that simply wasn't going to happen. I didn't know what chatting about it was going to improve but ignoring things hadn't made them go away, they had only festered. I didn't like having this hanging over me, and I hated that Shannon's manipulations had made me look like such a jackass. I wondered what they had thought about me all these years. No wonder Roger had stopped speaking to me.

Shannon didn't come back home the next day or the day after that either. This was nothing new, he had been disappearing for days and even weeks since he was a teenager, but I had never stopped worrying about him when he did. Even when I was furious with him I still worried. He finally turned up three days later, still in the clothes he'd been wearing at the party, smelling like a nightclub bathroom. There had been a lot of shouting, all by me, and I had demanded to know what the hell happened to him but he had shut me out entirely, refusing to say a word or even look me in the eye. He simply retreated to his room and I heard his shower going a few minutes later. When I checked in again he was asleep.

Of course, as predicted, Chloe had cleared out the minute we had returned from the party, hurling expletives at me as she waited for her cab. I should have felt worse about that than I did, but I had never made her any promises, regardless of what she might have wishfully imagined. I had been relieved when she left, I wasn't in the mood to deal with her anymore, or anyone else either, and I had sent everyone away. Now that Shannon was home and I was no longer worrying about him I was becoming acutely aware of my solitude. I puttered around the house for a little bit before ultimately grabbing my keys, thinking maybe I would go for a drive.

I was stuck in traffic, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel when my phone lit up with a text message. Seeing as how I wasn't moving anywhere I didn't see the harm and so I picked up the phone only to find the text was from Jane. It was simple – Could you maybe come by? I'd like to talk.-- but it was the opening I had been hoping for.

I'm not doing anything right now, just out for a drive. How's now? I texted back. There was no immediate response and the traffic started to move again so I tossed the phone back onto the seat beside me and looked for somewhere good to pull over. I eventually found myself sitting in the parking lot of a gym, tapping the phone screen and waiting. I guess Jane hadn't expected so quick a response. I wondered again what the hell I was even doing here. Why did it matter to me what Jane or Roger thought at this point? Years had gone by. It shouldn't still matter this much. I wasn't sure why it did.

Okay, now would be okay. Sending the address.

Jane and Roger's place (well I assumed they were still living together, even with the spat they'd had I couldn't picture either one of them without the other) wasn't that from my place. I'd have been closer if I'd just stayed at home. It took me about forty minutes from where I was, but since I was kind of taking Jane by surprise it was probably for the best. I ran through so many things in my head that I wanted to say to her. I wondered if I'd have the nerve to tell her any of it though. For as much as I seemed to like the sound of my own voice, I had a bad habit of not really saying much. At least not anything important.

Jane answered the door in blue jeans and a tank top, and I wondered if she had been tanning recently because her freckles stood out in staunch relief on her fair skin. My brain supplied an image of them, a spray of pigmentation down her right side just under her breast, and felt an all too familiar tug in my stomach. "Hi, Jane," I greeted her.