CHAPTER 109: COMPANY

Chapter 107

Jack

I sit in the living room, lighting yet another cigarette.

The flame touches tobacco ,that tiny flare, hungry and bright, before it dies and becomes nothing but smoke.

Fitting.

I tap the ash into a chipped dessert plate I dragged over from the kitchen, because apparently I don’t even deserve a real ashtray in my own damn house.

The ember burns down slow.

Everything burns slow now.

Was the house always this quiet?

I genuinely don’t know.

Silence stretches like cold marble over every surface — the furniture, the floors, my ribs.

Even the air feels wrong.

Like it isn’t circulating anymore.

I don’t smell Ciel’s cooking, I swore I smelt cookies and walked to the kitchen ready to steal some but was met with silence.

I don’t hear Nolan’s vacuum, the hum that always somehow made this place feel like a home and not just... walls.

Instead, I hear my cigarette crackle.

And my bones.

Maybe my sanity too.

It’s been two days since they left.

Forty-eight hours.

I counted.

And in that time I’ve discovered something unpleasant:

I knew they meant the world to me but now that they’re gone?

I severely, catastrophically, underestimated what they meant.

There’s an emptiness in my chest that feels physical.

Like someone carved out my lungs and forgot to replace them.

I sit ,one hand limp over the couch arm, the other balancing the cigarette like it’s keeping my fingers warm and my mind tethered.

My shirt is wrinkled. My hair hasn’t been washed. I haven’t shaved.

I’m not falling apart.

Not yet.

But I’m leaning over the edge, looking down.

I drag the cigarette, feel the burn deep in my chest, and exhale slowly.

Smoke curls up into the empty space like it’s trying to give shape to the silence.

I groan, scrub my hands across my face, and force myself upright.

Enough.

Enough wallowing.

Enough drowning in my own head.

I snuff the cigarette out with more force than necessary.

Get up. Move. Function.

The kitchen is too clean. Too still.

No cereal box left open by Nolan.

No mug with tea halfway drank by Ciel.

No tiny baby spoon on the counter.

I pull bread, slap together a couple of sandwiches. They taste like cardboard but I eat them anyway. I need calories, not comfort.

When I open the fridge for juice, I see them — tiny baby bottles lined neatly on the shelf door.

My heart punches my sternum.

For a second, I can’t breathe.

Lanny’s bottles.

My son’s bottles.

I steady myself on the counter, swallow thickly, then pour the juice before the emotions chew me alive.

He’s okay.

He’s safe.

He’s with his other two fathers.

They’ll keep him safe, because I can’t right now. And that truth stings like hell but I take it.

I eat. Drink. Head to the home gym.

Push my body until my lungs claw and my arms shake.

Pull-ups, deadlifts, bag work — sweat pours down my spine and with each rep, the ache inside me dulls just a little.

Then the shower.

Hot water.

Steam.

The sound of my breathing echoing off the tiles.

I lie in bed after, and the sheets are wrong. Too cold. Too big without a tiny omega curled against my side muttering in his sleep and drooling on my arm.

I sleep four hours.

That’s... more than I expected, honestly.

It’s morning.

The sky outside looks like polished silver.

Quiet waves.

Soft dawn light sitting gentle on the horizon.

My chest aches.

It’s been a while since I ran the beach.

So I lace up, pull on joggers, shove in my headphones — no shirt, no hoodie — just skin and sea breeze, and I start running.

Sand warms under my feet as the horizon slides open in front of me.

Cool air hits my lungs, sharp and grounding.

The ocean roars in its slow, ancient rhythm — like it knows secrets and doesn’t care that mine could kill me.

I run until my legs burn and my heartbeat is loud enough to muffle the memories.

When I’ve had enough, I sit on the sand, the waves snaking close but never quite touching me.

I take a sip from my water bottle. It tastes metallic.

Everything tastes muted lately.

I stare at the ocean ,endless, restless, unforgiving , and my reflection stares back at me in the shimmer of sunrise.

I remember walking here with my son.

Tiny giggles, chubby fists clutching sand like he owned the earth.

Ciel waddling behind him with a towel, muttering about sand getting everywhere and "Jack, I swear to god if he eats a shell I will fight the ocean itself."

Nolan trailing behind them with the stroller and a thermos like some suburban war general, yelling at seagulls like they were street criminals.

I chuckle once.

It dies fast.

We built sand castles.

We wore matching bucket hats because Ciel insisted "family aesthetic matters."

I kissed Nolan here slow, warm, salt on his lips.

I kissed Ciel here and he smiled into it like sunshine really lived inside him.

I run my finger across the sand beside me, tracing nothing.

Feeling everything.

This stretch of beach used to feel like home.

Now it feels like a memory I’m squatting in.

I don’t know how long I sit there just breathing, existing.

But eventually, something inside settles enough for me to stand.

The ocean roars behind me as I walk away, shoes dangling from one hand, water bottle in the other.

My big empty house sits ahead, growing larger as I approach , sterile, silent, hollow.

I go up the tiny stairs leading from the beach and open the door, stepping inside.

I shut it quietly behind me , a habit now, there was a time the tiniest sound would wake Lanny, we learnt how to be silent then...the hard way.

Except my house is not as silent as I expected it to be.

I have company.

I walk further into the living room and loudly place the metal water bottle on the nearby table.

"I wasn’t expecting company."