Abandoned

The house is empty.

I didn’t think much else besides that when I opened the front door. The glass coffee table, scattered with assorted pieces of mail, still rested in front of the couch, both of which still rested in front of the flat-screen television. The pine tree still sat by the window, cool light from outside hitting its glittering decorations.

I stomped the snow from my boots and pulled them from my feet. My jacket fell to the floor in a heap as I shrugged it off and flopped onto the leather couch. The entire house was silent. Too silent.

God, I hate it here.

I couldn’t stand it. Being here, alone, in the silent flat with the thermostat just starting to kick on. It didn’t matter how warm the building itself was, with Andrea missing, everything felt cold. I don’t even know why I came home at all; I could have stayed outside for the good it would have done me. She always made this place brighter, her smile, her laugh, her rosemary chicken she would make on Sundays. I missed that smell, and there’s no way I could make it myself – I’m much better at baking. A tradeoff, I guess, for her being terrible at it. The last time she tried making cookies she set off the smoke alarm. Half the building was evacuated, and she was mortified. I felt so bad that I baked brownies for the whole building later, the caramel chocolate chunk ones my mother passed down through her family… They were always Andrea’s favorite. But now… now she won’t be able to eat them, not with the chemo drugs they’re going to put her on, she’ll be too sick to…

Oh God. Oh God, what if the chemo doesn’t work? What if she doesn’t recover all the way?

What if she doesn’t come back?

Michael, stop. Please stop. She’ll come back. She has to, she has to get through this alright. At the worst she’ll have chemo and a mastectomy, she’ll live. She’s a strong woman, she’ll be alright. She has to be alright.

She has to be alright, because I don’t want to lose her. I don’t want to be alone in this cold, silent flat. I don’t want to be abandoned. I don’t… I can’t…

I can’t do this.

I threw the coat back on, slumped my feet into the boots once more, and slammed the front door on my way out to the park.

The snowfall is light, but the cold sure as hell isn’t, judging by the wind that keeps biting through my jacket. Cities are freezing in the winter, with the wind confined to moving between the tall buildings and the chilly river sucking yet more warmth from the surrounding air. There were maybe three people I passed while walking, all of them with their heads down and their hands close to themselves, enduring the cold. This was stupid. Why did I come out here after I just got home? Who in their right minds takes a walk in the park in the middle of December? The trees are barren anyway, and the whole place just looks dead. Empty. Cold.

Andrea…

The wind began to pick up, and the snow came fast and thick, a flurry of ice. If she were here with me it wouldn’t be nearly so bad, I thought as I glared at the freshly fallen snow coating the tree branches. At least she’d make the chill a little more bearable. She needs me, and I can’t be there for her. I have to provide for the both of us now. She needs me… and I need her, and without her, I…

Stop thinking about that. She isn’t going to die. You won’t be alone.

But I am.

I am alone, right now, standing in the middle of a park, in the middle of a flurry. There’s nothing here for me, this park is just as empty as my house, and just as lonely. I could be out here forever and nobody would care enough to find me. Except for her, but she’s not here, now is she?

The flurry began to intensify, and the snow fell even thicker, obscuring my vision. God, it’s getting bad out. Really bad out. I thought we weren’t supposed to get a big snowstorm until next week. I can’t stay here, it’s looking like it wants to be a blizzard, and there’s no way I’m going to stand out here in a blizzard. She wouldn’t want that for me. She needs me.

But cancer doesn’t care about who needs what, does it? Cancer doesn’t care about your life, or your family, or anything. Cancer doesn’t care about how alone you are, or how abandoned you feel, or how cold out it is. Cancer doesn’t care.

But I do, I thought as I began to jog back home through the snow. I care. Maybe I even care too much. Maybe it would be better if I didn’t feel at all. Maybe it would be better if I just stood out here and froze so much that it numbed everything, so I didn’t have to worry about Andrea, and so I couldn’t feel how much being without her hurts.

The wind picked up and the cold began to sting my ears under my hat as I wiped the tears from my eyes. Maybe my eyes would freeze shut if I left them there, I don’t know, I’m not a chemist. I don’t know if tears freeze or not. Either way, they’re just one more thing keeping me from seeing the path back home, them and the snow pelting my face like tiny shards of glass. It was so bad out that I barely noticed the bench when I came to it, or the thirteen-year-old boy sitting there alone, hands in his lap, staring down at the ground as if he were waiting for someone.

But nobody else was around, and nobody noticed.

Concerned, I drew closer. He wasn’t wearing a jacket or gloves. He wasn’t even wearing any shoes. All the kid had on was a sheer-looking, grey-and-ice-blue striped long-sleeved shirt, and some torn-up looking black jeans. His hair was an odd silvery-grey color (perhaps he’d dyed it that way), and he looked preoccupied with himself, lost in thought about something.

My concern quickly became worry as I walked over to the bench. He’d freeze to death out here in clothing like that. Did his parents even have any idea where he was? Moreso… what if he didn’t want his parents to know? He didn’t look like he’d been hurt in any way, but he seemed troubled and lonely, and was shivering besides…

“Are you alright?” I asked. “You look upset. And cold.”

The boy looked up with storm-colored eyes, his expression stony.

“I’m fine,” he murmured in a voice like ice. “Not upset at all. What makes you think I’m upset? And I’m not cold.”

He resumed looking down at the snow falling around his bare feet.

“What do you mean, you’re not cold?” I asked, sitting on the bench. “You can’t be warm enough dressed like that! You don’t even have any shoes on…”

“I said I’m not cold,” the boy snapped, fixing me with his steely gaze. “Not from the weather, anyway. I’m always here in the evenings in the winter. I like winter.”

“But…” I looked at the boy, concerned, but his strangely distant, cold eyes told me nothing. There wasn’t a hint of sadness or upset in them, I noticed. And the more I looked, the more I realized that there wasn’t much emotion in them at all. It was like looking into the eyes of a human ice sculpture, like icicles were forming on my heart. What the hell did this kid go through to give him such hardened eyes, and at such a young age?

“Alright,” I said, curling my arms against me. The wind continued to bite through my winter gear, chilling the tips of my fingers and nose, and the snow continued to fall thick around us both.

“So, what are you doing out here in a snowstorm?” the boy asked, and I felt his eyes on me. “You don’t look like you’re enjoying it much. Actually, you look kind of lonely.”

“Funny,” I said, looking at the boy, “I could say the same about you. I was on a walk, actually… then the wind started picking up, and I was actually on my way home when I noticed you.”

The boy shrugged and leaned against the bench’s back. “Again, I like snowstorms. And you look a lot more worried than me, sir.”

He glanced over to me expectantly, waiting for my response, and looked away again when I gave none.

“You don’t have to talk about it if it hurts,” he said, looking out at the snowstorm again. “But maybe you should.”

“Maybe,” I said, still looking down at the snow on the ground. “It’s just… my wife… she’s in the hospital, that’s all.”

“That really sucks,” the boy responded, yet his tone seemed entirely pitiless. “Sorry about that. My mom was in the hospital, too. She had some sort of blood disease. She got really sick one night, so they took her to the hospital. But there just wasn’t much they could do at that point. She was too weak; she didn’t make it through the treatments…”

I said nothing. What could I say? What could I even do? My gaze turned towards the boy again, and I listened on in quiet shock.

“My dad… my dad was devastated. He started hitting the bottle hard. Couldn’t handle losing mom, I guess. He never treated me badly; he wasn’t a mean drunk or anything. Usually he just sat in the kitchen and cried. I didn’t want to bug him, so I would just make myself dinner and go sit in my room.”

The boy trailed off here, and looked down at the ground a second before looking up again.

“I found him lying on the kitchen floor in his own vomit when I came home from school one day.” His eyes looked impassively to me, gauging the pity there. “He hit the drink again, swallowed a whole bottle of pain meds, fell asleep, and didn’t wake up. I guess he just couldn’t take the pain anymore.”

“So who do you live with, then?” I asked, still recovering.

“No one,” the boy said dismissively, shrugging. “My grandparents died about eight years ago and the rest of my family’s either dead or out of state. And me? I have no money to go anywhere. I live on the streets, not far from the homeless shelter.”

“Oh my God,” I stammered, trying not to cry. “That’s… that’s awful, I’m so sorry to hear that…”

The boy shrugged again, and turned to watch the snow drifting over the river. “Gotten used to it by now. Sorry if it hit too close to home, what with your wife in the hospital and all. That’s gotta be just as rough. Why is she in the hospital? Can I ask that?”

I turned away, hands in my lap, staring down at the ground.

“She’s… she’s got a stage three cancer.”

“That’s really rough, sir,” the boy responded cooly. “It’s gotta eat you up inside, right? It’s gotta hurt. It makes you feel cold, doesn’t it? Like you’d rather be numb than ever feel that pain again. But it scares you too, right? You’re scared because you don’t wanna be all alone.”

I looked up at the boy, unnerved. How did he know so well? Was it his own experiences? And his eyes… why did his eyes feel so much colder than they did before? So much more precise…?

I nodded numbly, and kept listening.

“You know, it’s not all bad, being lonely,” the boy continued, turning back towards the riverfront. “Gives you more time to think. More time to worry about just you. Provide for yourself, and not have to worry about someone else. Your wife’s still alive, and she still needs you, because she’s gonna get hurt. Chemo’s nasty stuff and she’s probably just as alone as you are. Hell, she’s not even sleeping in her own house. Maybe you should stop worrying about how lonely you feel, and start worrying about how lonely and scared she must feel.”

The words hit me like a punch to the chest, and the more I thought about it, the more it hurt. It ached and burned like frostbite in my chest. But the more it hurt, the more sense it made. Andrea was probably just as lonesome as I was, and just as scared. And she needed me there. She needed me to visit her. She needed me.

She needs me.

“You’re right,” I murmured quietly, staring at my hands. “You’re right. I should visit her tomorrow. She shouldn’t have to feel alone in this…”

“You’re in good company, anyway,” the boy muttered. “It’s not like there aren’t a bunch of people with sick family in the hospital. And that’s more than I have. If you want, I’ll walk home with you, it’s cold out and you could use some company.”

The boy’s eyes continued to bore into me coldly, almost harshly. I didn’t like it.

“I’m alright, I think,” I said, “I know my own way home. But maybe we should get you someplace warm.”

The boy’s face fell for the first time, looking almost worried, and for the briefest moment I saw loneliness in them, loneliness and upset and a flash of winter’s harshness.

“No… that’s fine, I don’t need help,” the boy responded, wounded. “I just… I thought you were probably cold out here, and being cold together is better than being cold alone…”

“Again, I think I’m probably fine on my own, but you –”

“I don’t need any help!” the boy suddenly screeched, grey eyes turned once again to hardened steel. “You’re the one that needs help! I can’t help you, and I don’t need your help anyway! I’m not scared of being alone like you are!”

The wind picked up around us, and the boy stomped off into the howling storm.

“You can freeze to death for all I care…”

“No, wait!” I cried, looking for the boy in the storm. He’d freeze to death in this weather; he needed help! “Where are you…?”

But it was too late. The storm died down, the snow began to fall in soft flakes again, and the boy was gone.

“You’ll freeze out here…”

“Who’s gonna freeze out here?” A female voice behind me asked, and I turned around, startled. The woman’s blue eyes looked at me with concern from over her scarf.

“Oh… you startled me,” I responded, relieved at there being another person out here beside me. “There was a young boy around here, about thirteen years old, striped shirt, barefoot… did you see him? He’s homeless and he needs help, he told me he was out here every evening, sitting on the bench over there…”

I pointed at the bench, but the woman only looked at me in confusion.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the woman responded, “But I’m out here running every evening and I have never seen any thirteen-year-old boy in a striped shirt anywhere around here. But if he really is homeless, I hope he’s alright. This isn’t any weather for a kid to be running around barefoot in... Hey, are you okay? You look sort of pale…”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” I stuttered, cold chills trailing down my back. “I’m… I’m just really cold, that’s all… you saw that snowstorm earlier…”

“Yeah, that’s the lovely lake effect weather for you,” she said, shrugging. “You should get inside; you look like you’ve been out here a while and might be getting hypothermic. Stay safe, alright? People drive like assholes in the winter.”

“Yeah… yeah you too, take care…”

The woman nodded slightly and began to jog off, and I watched for a bit before turning towards home myself. I can visit Andrea tomorrow. But for right now, I really needed to lie down and get some bed rest. It’s only been two days since the diagnosis and I’m already worrying myself sick.