If this was what being drunk was like, he decided he’d much rather stay sober.

After a ride that managed to be both infinitely long and startling short at the same time, they pulled into a driveway. Jacob sat as still as possible, not moving from his seat as Tristan jumped anxiously from the car. He helped Emily out before bolting toward the front door, leaving the two of them alone in the driveway.

Emily: “You planning to stay in there all night?”
Jacob: “I don’t feel well.”
Emily: “OK whatever you do, don’t throw up in his car. Come on inside and we’ll get you some water. Are you all right to walk?”

Jacob nodded, then instantly wished he hadn’t as the world spun violently out of control again. After a few seconds he got out of the car shakily, holding tight to the doorframe to steady himself as he breathed deeply in the cool night air. He recoiled involuntarily when he felt Emily’s hand on his back, but relaxed slightly a few seconds later.

Emily: “Please don’t fall over, because if you go down, I’m going down with you and I don’t think I’d be able to get us back up again.”

Jacob felt the rare pull of a smile, gone almost as quickly as it came, as he and Emily began their slow and careful walk up the ever-shifting pathway to the still-open front door of Tristan’s house.

He squinted against the interior lights as they stepped through the doorway. Emily hurried ahead to where Tristan stood, silent and alone, staring down at the dying embers in the fireplace.

Tristan: “She’s gone. I looked all over the house, and it’s empty. I was too late.”
Emily: “I’m so sorry, Tristan.”
Tristan: “I’m already forgetting her again, even though it’s only been a few hours. I think that’s the worst part.”

Emily responded by reaching out and pulling Tristan close to her.

Tristan: “It’s all so stupid, really. She’s been dead for so long, and was back for such a short time… it shouldn’t have this sort of effect on me at all.”
Emily: “She’s your mother; it doesn’t matter how long she was out of your life or how briefly she was back.”

It struck Jacob then that his own parents would also be gone, and with them any hope they could have brought for a second chance at a halfway normal life. Things would continue as they had for the last few years since their death, with daily struggles against a mind tattered and frayed.

There was a momentary wrenching ache deep inside him, soon replaced by sterile indifference as he slid slowly onto the couch.

Emily: “Hey, Jacob? Are you going to be all right?”
Jacob: “I want to go home.”
Emily: “Will you be OK on your own?”
Tristan: “I can take you, but really you’re welcome to stay here if you’d like; I’ve got plenty of room. It’s just as easy for me to drop you off at your truck tomorrow evening.”

Jacob paused as he weighed out the options, with more involved thinking that he would have done under more normal circumstances.

Tristan: “I have lots of books you can read, and I’d be happy to make waffles for all of us. Does that sound OK to you?”

He didn’t wonder at the sudden invitation. He knew with certainty it was little more than a misguided sympathy, that the loneliness and dull pain Tristan felt must somehow be echoed inside Jacob himself. He understood with clinical detachment that human beings were social animals, yet he himself could take or leave companionship; he felt no strong pull to either surround himself with people, or to seek out solitude.

It was now, as at most times, the promise of sustenance that decided his course of action.

He nodded once, slowly and carefully this time, and watched as concern was replaced by guarded relief on both their faces.