Chapter 6: Lovers While We Sleep
The knock on my hotel room door is sharp and hard, but I'm up, I am, I am. It's ten to five in the morning, and I'm awake and good to go.
"Who is it?" I call out as I head to the door, eyeing the room to locate a few still scattered items that have not been packed yet.
"Sisky."
When I open the door, the kid is standing in the corridor, holding his old, squared suitcase in one hand, his leather satchel in the other. I thought he'd be the last one up, moaning about lack of sleep and middle of the night departures at ungodly hours, but he looks surprisingly ready to leave London behind.
"Come in." I head back inside. "I've still got a few bits and pieces..."
I hear the door closing behind me, a soft thud as he puts his luggage down. My suitcase is still on the bed, my clothes a mess in it.
"Where were you last night?" he asks.
I press down suit jackets in the suitcase, hoping they'll miraculously take less space by me doing so. "Hmm?"
"Last night. Yesterday. All of it, really. You weren't here. I tried to find you."
"Spencer's." My notebook is on top of the pile. I haven't written anything in it, though I took it to Spencer's, and I took it out in the taxi back, thinking maybe words would pour out. But nothing has. Like the well's gone dry. And so instead I just sat in the backseat, watching the heavy rain wash the streets of London.
"Spencer's," he repeats, tone somewhat dead.
Against my better judgement, I ask, "Why?"
I try to sound clinically disinterested. I hear Sisky sigh and see him move to the armchair that's just in my peripheral vision. Something's wrong, I can tell that right off the bat, but I don't know if I truly want him to tell me. I made myself scarce on purpose yesterday, and I've done such a good job not thinking about the band's day off and what everyone got up to. I even managed to sleep for two hours before the four o'clock alarm.
"You should've been here last night," he says at length.
"Yeah? Did you guys have a good time?"
"No, I mean..." His knees have started bouncing. "Look, Ryan... I don't know how to tell you, so. So I'm just gonna tell you." He twists his hands. Unpleasant news, clearly. "Brendon and... Dallon. They weren't around last night either, and Bob said that they'd gone out. Which, you know, is fine. But, uh. I saw them coming back. Or well, I saw them outside Brendon's room."
Coming back from their date.
I then know what Sisky's witnessed, what he's going to say: a goodnight kiss. Press of skin on skin. Guess it's official, then. Guess it was a successful date, guess Dallon was everything Brendon hoped for and then some. Guess they're meant to be. Good. Good, good, good. My insides burn, but I knew it would happen. I've accepted it. Almost.
Not at all, really.
"I don't want to be the one to tell you," Sisky then says, sighing. "But you need to know."
"I already do."
"No, you don't know this. You don't."
"Sisky –"
"I think they'd gotten caught in the rain, they were soaked through. And they were laughing and- and standing really close to one another. And they were holding hands." He pauses. "And then Dallon went in with Brendon."
I stop in my packing then. I stare at a tie, a dark blackish brown with red dots on it, one of my favourites. I stare at it. My brain can't process anything else. "What?"
