Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,67

cooked. We played board games. We got smashed every now and then for the hell of it. It was like we’d been forced to be together almost 24/7 because of the pandemic, and we’d accidentally become friends for the first time since we’d known each other.

Friends with benefits, of course, and the friendship and benefits were both keeping me sane these days.

Thank God for Tristan.

I wasn’t even surprised anymore when I thought that. The tension between us seemed like a distant memory now, and he’d become a source of calm through all of this. Hell yeah, thank God for him.

“It’s so weird, isn’t it?” Tristan said out of nowhere.

I turned to him. “What is?”

“Just…” He gestured at the empty parking lot. “How much everything changed, like, overnight.”

“Yeah. It’s kind of surreal. Especially since it doesn’t actually feel like everything’s changed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” I thought about it, trying to find the words. “You always see these movies about pandemics and shit, and it’s like mayhem, you know?”

“Like The Walking Dead.”

“Right. And with bodies in the street, and people being horribly sick everywhere you turn. But then it happens in real life, and…” I made a sweeping gesture at our surroundings. “Everything’s closed and quiet, but it’s…”

“Peaceful.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly it.” I exhaled and stared out the windshield at the eerily peaceful and deserted parking lot. “And then I find out my mom might have it, and it’s hard to get my head around it.”

“I think it would be hard to get your head around it anyway,” Tristan said softly. “Even if everything was a smoldering wreckage and there were bandits wandering around like a bunch of lost Mad Max extras, it’s still tough to believe when it actually hits home.” He paused. “I mean, when I was in Afghanistan, my parents heard all kinds of horrific shit that happened over there. I told them not to watch the news, but they did it anyway, and they were always telling me how worried they were about this or that. Then after I came back…” He pulled up his sleeve and gestured at a thin, silvery scar just below his elbow. “That was still stitched up. My mom asked what happened, and I told her I got hit with a piece of shrapnel during a firefight.” Sighing, he pulled the sleeve back down. “She kind of freaked out. Started shaking and crying. I was right there in front of her, totally okay and safely back home, but she’d been worrying about this war going on and me being too close to it, and I think it was kind of an abstract thing for her. Because where she was, everything was fine. No mortars. No one needing to wear trauma plates just to eat lunch or go to the shitter. And when she saw that cut on my arm, it suddenly hit her how real it was.” He paused. “I don’t know if that makes sense, or if it’s even the same thing, but—”

“No, I think you’re right.” I sighed. “It really is like watching a war going on somewhere else while everything seems… Okay, it doesn’t seem normal right now, but it’s not exactly a warzone either. And then someone I love—my mom—gets hit by the shrapnel.”

“That’s rough, dude.” He shook his head. “Really rough.”

“It is.” I pushed out a long breath and pressed back against the seat. “But, um, thanks for… I mean, all of this. Getting me out of the house, and letting me vent.”

Tristan smiled in a way my heart couldn’t quite decide how to deal with. “Any time.” We held each other’s gazes for a moment, and then he broke eye contact and started the engine. “Do you want to head back? Or just drive around?”

I thought about it. “We could just drive around.”

“Okay.” He put the truck in gear. “We could go out to Bar Harbor. I don’t know if anything is open, but…”

Shrugging, I said, “Why not?”

We stopped by a trash can and got rid of the bag and wrappers. With just our sodas remaining, we headed out onto the road.

I sat back in the passenger seat and exhaled. I felt…not great, but better than I had earlier. As far as the situation with my family, nothing had changed. No one had texted me to say that Mom was finally getting tested. No one had said she was showing symptoms. Everything was in the kind of scary limbo I’d only ever felt while waiting to