Summer of Like // Farleigh Start x OC

30: Please Don't Go So Quickly

It's the distance that saves me from the nightmares. There's thousands of miles between my apartment and Saltburn - the ghost of Felix's body in the maze can't get me here. I am protected by the entire Atlantic, and even then, the fear would have to sort through the whole city to find where I'm hiding. The nightmares can't get me here.

Farleigh is different. Every night, he wakes up in a cold sweat, shaking with fear. And because I'm not used to sleeping with someone else in the bed, I wake up too. It's become something of a ritual, to stroke his hair as he buries his face into my chest, and hold him until we both fall back asleep.

Still, other than the nightmare's he's adjusting just fine. He's a quick learner when he wants to be, and as soon as I showed him how to use the French press, he started making the both of us coffee in the mornings. He's gotten to the point where he only complains about how cramped it is once a day, and is better about watering the plants than I ever was. For all his worry about whether or not he'd be able to handle it, he's doing just fine.

Granted, he's not working a real job yet - but at least domestically, he's doing great.

And, it's been fun to show him all the pleasures of living in the city. Lottery broadway tickets, helping the neighbor boys, Vinnie and Mikey, break open a fire hydrant so that they and the rest of the neighborhood kids can splash around to beat the heat, the stray cats that wander up and down the fire escapes. The food is the best part - after eating English food for a year, I've missed real flavor.

Two gyros in a brown bag under my arm from the Greek deli a few blocks away, I am hurrying back home, already imagining Farleigh's face as he tastes the magic that Mr. Andino cooks up. The traffic on the sidewalk is fast paced, and I can't help but smile as I drift along with the tide. God it's good to be back-

A buzzing from my pocket steals my attention, and I switch to autopilot, digging my cell out of my jeans glancing at the display on the screen, an international number. Venetia.

I quickly press my phone between my shoulder and my ear, relief flooding my system. "Hey baby." I say. "How've you been? I'm so glad you called, I was getting worried, you weren't returning my calls-"

"Evelyn?"

A voice that is decidedly not Venetia crackles through the phone speakers.

"It's Elspeth." She continues. "I thought that I should call..." She trails off. Even through the tinny speakers of my cell, I can tell that she's distraught. She sounds like she's on the verge of tears.

"What's wrong?" Panic makes its way up my throat. "What happened? Elspeth?"

Elspeth takes a deep breath. "I'm so sorry to tell you over the phone, darling, but I thought it was only right that you should know. Venetia is- she's gone." Her voice cracks.

"What do you mean?" I ask. "What do you mean, gone? Elspeth-"

"She's dead, darling." Elspeth says, sounding weak. Tired. "Cut herself open in Felix's bathtub last night. It was utterly horrid."

My heart stops, and I stumble. A stranger walking behind me pushes me back to my feet with a grumble. I regain my footing unsteadily, and keep going. "She's-" A lump forms in my throat. "She's dead?"

"Unfortunately so, darling." Elspeth says. "I thought it right that you should know, and I wanted to let you know that the funeral will be held next Sunday, if you can make it. She would have wanted you there, I think. She really did care for you, you know. You were the only friend she ever brought home for the summer..."

She prattles on, but I don't hear her. My vision blurs as tears fill my eyes and spill down my cheeks in rapid succession. She's dead. I should have stayed. She asked me to stay. If I had stayed I could have stopped her- fuck. Fuck. She begged me to stay. She might still be alive if I had stayed-

"Evie darling?"

"Yeah?" I say, my voice cracking around the lump in my throat.

"You will come to the funeral, won't you?"

"Of course." I choke out.

I don't hear whatever else she says, only the beep when the line goes dead. I tuck my cell back into my pocket, and turn the street corner, my feet leading the way home from memory. She's gone. My mind conjures an image of her in a bathtub, blank eyes staring up at the ceiling, the water a bloody red. Gone. And I just saw her not even a week ago.

I remember meeting her at Cambridge, introducing myself since we would be sharing a bathroom. Suitemates. How fast we'd become friends after that - lounging around together in my dorm room or hers, going out to the pubs, making fun of each other when we'd heard the other bring a boy home - or a girl, in my case. How she would do my makeup before we'd go out drinking. How I'd nurse her back to health whenever she was hungover. The gentle way that she would lay her head on my shoulder, the feeling of her over-bleached hair between my fingers. All the times that I pressed a quick kiss to her shoulder, her forehead, her hand. The day in the field, where she pressed her lips to mine.

Gone.

I don't realize that I'm home until I'm slotting my key into the lock and pushing open the door. Farleigh is lounging on my couch, leafing through one of the books from the little bookshelf in the loft. Kerouac's On The Road. He smiles when I come in, though his face quickly changes once he meets my eyes. He's on his feet in an instant.

He pulls the bag with our lunch inside out from under my arm and sets it on the kitchen counter. "What's wrong?"

"V." I say, still working around the lump in my throat. "I got a call- from Elspeth- she's dead." My voice fades into a whisper. "She killed herself in Felix's bathtub. The funeral's next Sunday."

His smile falls. "What?"

"She's dead." I say, tears slipping out of the corners of my eyes and down my cheeks. "She-" I sob. "She begged me to stay-"

Farleigh shakes his head. "No, we just saw her..."

Another sob wracks through me, and I collapse into a seat at the table. I loved that girl. And when she needed me - when she asked me to stay with her, I couldn't. I press my palms into my eyes. Can I even say that I loved her when I let her die?

I hear the other chair scrape against the floor as Farleigh sits down. I wipe away my tears to look at him. The shock on his face is the same one that he wore the morning we found Felix's body. "She can't be dead."

"She asked me to stay." I sob. "She- she begged, Farleigh, and I left anyway."

I see reality begin to hit him as a few tears escape from the corner of his eyes. "Both of them?"

I don't say anything. There's nothing left to say. Felix and Venetia are both dead.