Bait

I have nothing to go on and I know it. I’ve got a deactivated profile which listed Malvern as his location and nothing more. He could’ve been lying about that.

The nightclub could be miles from anywhere he knows. He could have scoped out my route on street view for all the sense my scheming makes.

He could be living miles away and I could be a distant memory. He could be regretting ever agreeing to meet me.

But I need to know.

It scares me how much I need to know.

So I make a decision.

A batshit crazy, based on nothing concrete whatsoever decision.

And then I sleep.

For once at least this week, sleep comes easy.PhoenixLife without Serena is bullshit tough.

Cameron is restless, back to wetting the bed at night, and I feel a dick for ever sending her away.

I feel a dick for taking Cam into work every day and trying to amuse him with a laptop full of cartoons. I feel a dick for being in work at all.

But the world keeps on spinning, and I keep on spinning with it.

It feels like shit. This whole fucking week feels like shit.

I take the speech therapist outside the therapy room on Friday morning and fight the urge to slam the prick into the wall.

“He can speak,” I hiss. “My sister heard him.”

The asshole nods. He fucking nods at me. “That’s entirely plausible, yes.”

“Plausible? You’re telling me that’s fucking plausible?”

I could tear his head from his body when he sighs. Shrugs. “Trauma is difficult to treat, Mr Scott. Cameron may be choosing not to speak. There’s little we can do about that. There’s nothing physically wrong, it’s the emotional condition we are working to understand.”

My eyes burn. “You’re the speech therapist. Make him speak.”

He laughs a little, until he sees how serious I am. “I can’t make him speak, Mr Scott. With all due respect, maybe you should be talking to his counsellor.”

And I do.

I talk to everyone who’ll hear me before the day is done. His doctor, his child psychologist, the bereavement counselling service. They all say the same bullshit thing.

In his own time.

Slowly, slowly.

This is a complex situation, Mr Scott.

A complex situation in a sea of the same old fucking bullshit.

I’m struggling to keep it all afloat. Floundering in the riptide. I work my ass off, just like every other week, and dedicate the rest of my time to Cameron. I take him everywhere I go. I try everything I can think of to get him to speak to me.

And in the end, I achieve nothing.

The business is still chugging long, just as it was before. Cameron is still the same mute boy who wets the bed at night. Serena is still gone. Mariana is still dead.

And I’m still drowning. It’s a slow death, slipping deeper into the icy depths of monotony. It’s water torture, one cold drip at a time, stripping my soul from my bones.

My demons are screaming at their bars and I don’t even have the freedom of running up the hills to keep their cries at bay.

By the time Friday evening finds me I’m as exhausted I’ve ever known. Cameron is asleep on the sofa at my side, his cartoons still blaring on screen as I stare numbly at the wall.

My phone is on the coffee table, calling me, begging me to reach out to my black swan, but I don’t.

I can’t.

I jump a mile as the handset starts vibrating, my heart thumping like crazy at the irrational thought that it could be her.

It’s not. Of course it’s not.

Serena’s number flashes up.

I ignore her for the hundredth time this week, but she calls back, then calls back again after it.

“What?” I bark when I finally relent enough to answer.

Her sobs knock me sideways. “Please, Leo. Please just let me see Cam. I understand you’re angry. I get it. But please let me see that little boy.” She pauses, and in that moment of self-hatred I wish I’d have been in that fire until the end. “I miss him so much,” she whispers.

And he misses her.

I wish I could tell her I do too.

“You can see him,” I offer. “When?”

Her sobs take her breath. I wait. “Tomorrow?”

I clear my throat. Hold everything back. “Sure,” I say. “Morning?”

“Please.”

I look at my sleeping boy, and I know it has to be this way. “See you in the morning,” I tell her.

And then I hang up.

I carry Cam up to his bedroom and kiss his head as I tuck him in. “At least you won’t have to tolerate another morning in the office, champ,” I whisper.

We can’t go on like this. Not any of us.

Somehow, at some point, we all need to start living again.

Me, Serena, Cam…

Even Jake.

I guess that’s why I find myself out in the yard at gone midnight.

I guess that’s why I take the cover from the pool and start the clean-up process I’ve been putting off for months.