Heartbeat Repeating - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,22

make sure that nothing happens to that damn thing because if something does, and then Avery gets hurt…

Your fear is not reality based.

The quiet mantra rises above the chaos in his head, stopping the internal flow of words.

Your fear is not reality based.

He takes his phone out and rings his dad’s mobile anyway, and he lets out a sharp sigh of relief when his voice rumbles on the other line. “Are you alright, mi hijito?”

“Yes, Papá, I…” He stops then closes his eyes and gently leans his hip against the precariously put together display table. His head is still spinning in circles, but he knows it’s mostly because this particular day makes him more vulnerable to these spirals. He runs his thumb over the wood carving, and his heartbeat starts to slow down. Hearing his dad’s voice is grounding, and he can breathe a little better. “I’ve left something important in my room. A wood carving of a whale.”

“Is that,” his dad says, and his voice is a little strangled. “Was that meant for today?”

“No,” he says. “No. No, it’s mine. I need to make sure nothing happens to it.”

“I’ll go make sure right now,” he says.

Alejandro bows his head and feels gratitude for his father, because not everyone would understand. He’s met people before in group therapy who are loved by people who think that they can be cured of this. That there’s some magical formula of medication and therapy that just makes it all stop. And he doesn’t expect his parents to indulge him all the time, but it says something that his parents know the times when he needs it more than others.

“Thank you. Just text me if you find it.” He rings off because if he doesn’t, he’s going to spiral further. He needs to be distracted again, because standing at the gift table panicking over a wood carving is not doing him any good.

Nothing will happen to Avery if it’s gone, he tells himself. The universe isn’t going to take him over one small mistake.

He finds his way down the sweets aisle and absently grabs things he hasn’t had since he was a child. Some for him, some to bring home. He doesn’t think about what Avery might say in the face of these gifts that cost a handful of quid compared to what he’s used to. But, deep in his gut, he knows that it’ll be more important than any gold watch or designer jacket he’s ever handed over.

And he doesn’t really want to think about what that implies—not now. Not after the crack in his heart left behind by his realization in the car.

He’s only half aware of walking to the front of the store or of handing off the items. He buys a little canvas bag to put everything in, and he manages something like a smile so they don’t go the rest of their day thinking he was a massive twat. And then he laughs a little to himself as he walks out, because before Avery, he would have never given a single shit what some random stranger working a cash till thought of him.

But things are changing. He’s changing, and more than anything else in the world, that terrifies him.

Every year, he and Connor meet at a park. It’s an unobtrusive little place by a copse of trees with an old wooden frame holding a swing that looks like it might fall apart from a stiff breeze. Only it doesn’t. It hadn’t in the years they took Gabrielle to play there, and it hasn’t in the years that passed since she’s been gone.

She’s been dead longer than she was ever alive, and even in the worst moments, the grief isn’t as powerful as it was in those first few months after she passed. He thinks maybe it’s callouses that make him unable to feel the pain as deeply, but really, he knows that people just aren’t meant to be torn apart forever.

That’s for hell—if it exists.

But sometimes he can’t help but wonder if hell is actually this—living while other people die. Feasting while others starve. Loving while other people grieve. Because there’s no real satisfaction in having more. There’s just the fear of losing it all again, because if this is bad, the other side must be so fucking much worse.

Alejandro likes that it’s cold out. His wool coat is heavy against the wind, and his scarf covers him up to his chin. He’s wearing expensive gloves made of synthetic