He opened his desk drawer, got out the small bottle of ibuprofen he kept there, popped the lid off, and shook a couple of pills into his palm. At least, that was how he envisioned it in his mind. What really happened was he scattered pills all over himself, his desk, and the floor.
When he went to clean up the mess, pills crunched under his feet and knees and slipped out from between his fingers. By the time he’d gathered the majority of the pills back into their jar and accidentally pulverized the rest, he’d banged his elbow on his chair and hit his head on the desk.
He stepped into the hall, meaning to go to the kitchen for water, and he noticed the office was eerily empty. It was like working on Christmas.
That was when he remembered today they had an off-site company-wide team-building thing. Fuuuuck. His partner was going to give him shit for being antisocial again. When his phone started buzzing, he dug it out of his pocket and answered it without checking who it was.
“Yo, it’s me. How are you doing?” asked a familiar voice that did not belong to his partner.
“Hi, Quan. Everything’s . . .” He glanced at the pill bits all over the floor of his office, and look at that, one of his shoelaces had come undone. “Everything’s fine. Why are you calling?”
“Mom says I need to fly back from New York to see you because it’s an emergency. What’s up?”
“There is no emergency.”
“How’s Esme?” Quan asked in a neutral tone.
“Fine.”
Quan kept quiet and waited.
When Khai couldn’t take it anymore, he said, “She’s not coming back. She found an apartment by the restaurant that she likes better than my place.”
“How are you with that?”
“Fine. I’m just . . . fine.” And he wished he wasn’t. If he could manage some manner of dramatic emotional upheaval and prove he was heartbroken at her loss—and therefore in love—he could keep her.
But nope. He was A-OK.
“Want me to come home early?” Quan asked. “We can do shit. I dunno, go pick up chicks at a tax convention or something.”
“No, thanks.” He didn’t want to do anything that involved women for a long time, and the thought of “picking up chicks” made his headache worse, even though it meant he got to go to a tax convention.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay then, but if you need anything, you can call me whenever. If I don’t pick up, I’ll call you back as soon as I can,” Quan said.
“You don’t need to tell me this. I already know.” Quan was the most dependable thing in Khai’s life.
“Just reminding you. Okay, I’m gonna let you go now. Bye, little brother.”
“Bye.”
As soon as the line went dead, he looked around the vacant office, took a step, and almost ended up facedown on the floor. Sighing, he went down on one knee and grabbed his laces, but he tried multiple times and the things wouldn’t tie. What the fuck was wrong with him? He had to be coming down with the flu. Fed up with the entire process, he took his shoes off and carried them with him as he left the building and walked home. No way he was driving or going to a team-building thing like this.
The trek was long and hot and weird with no shoes on, and he was pretty sure people slowed down as they passed him. He didn’t feel at all like a Terminator today, not one in good condition, anyway. When he reached his place, he was sweaty, dehydrated, and badly in need of a shower, but after the door swung open, he stood there, unable to enter.
His entire body resisted going inside. His head spun, his heart slammed, and his stomach twisted. The house was too dark, and the musty air made him want to throw up. It didn’t make sense. He’d been in there just this morning. But he’d been too focused on possible Esme catastrophes to notice anything else.
He sat down on the concrete steps outside and smeared the sweat away from his clammy face. This flu really sucked. He was exhausted. He could sleep and sleep for ages. But he had to shower and air out the house first. That musty heaviness, whatever it was, had to go. Maybe one of Esme’s fruits was decaying in the trash and there were mold spores floating everywhere.
Gritting his teeth, he got up, stepped inside, and tossed his shoes to the floor, not caring where they landed. He couldn’t breathe. The air was thick and oppressive, all wrong.
Mold spores, mold spores.
He marched to the kitchen and yanked the trash out of the cabinet. Empty. What the hell? He searched the kitchen for other locations where fruit could be moldering away. None.