The Big Boom [re-writing]

4:01 am [updated]

He kept whimpering, his tail limp at his side.

"Chubby?" I called by the time I was close enough. I clapped my hands gently to grab his attention but he kept on making these curly wails and digging his nose where the stems of the bouquet of wrinkling flowers were cut. I took another step closer, barely able to take his cries. "Chubby..."

As if Christopher knew I couldn't bare to say another word without losing it again, he took the remaining steps to reach him and plucked him from the ground. Instantly, he began barking, jerking his paws in protest and then capitulation, reducing his struggles into dry moans towards Christopher's chest.

When a baby cries, you just want it to shut up, but when a dog cries –to its dead owner – ...God. What could I say at a time like this?

Christopher stared at your headstone, and I knew it was the closest he's ever been to you in so long. It had to be a contrasting affliction of some sort. I expected him to fall to his knees, give in to the grief. He'd break down and grip onto the ground with the comfort of knowing that you wouldn't talk to him now because you couldn't. Not anymore. He'd cry in front of me and I'd try to look away because I never knew what to do in situations like that.

What was he thinking at this moment?

His brown eyes met mine the next second, with the total absence of any feeling that'd be representable at the moment. His face, exhibited and completely unveiled to me, beheld nothing.

And even though I was watching him the whole time, his voice startled me. "You were right, you know."

"What?"

"Chubby was just holding it back like we were."

I licked my lips and then trained my eyes on the ground. "Are you though?"

He didn't answer. His fingers, on the hand that wasn't supporting Chubby, brushed mine by my waist. I looked up at him.

"How far is your university from here?"

"Why?"

"So you can go back."

I had no idea where we were. My tipsy self didn't help with the calculations either. "Far away," I answered.

Christopher thought for a second. "So..."

"So what?"

"What do you want?"

There was the briefest twitch at my lips. "Do you really think I'd know that right now?"

Even in his blinks I could see a smile. "I can walk you back if you'd like," He offered. "Who knows what kind of people you'd meet at the transport stations this hour?"

"It's fine – I don't really want to." I faced my head down again. Feeling cold all of a sudden, I rubbed my hands over my forearms. "I don't know if I want..."

"Would you like to sleep over at my place for the night?"

I looked up. Would that seem wrong in any way? I could consider Christopher as my friend now. My sobriety was pixelated like stepped-on Lego and agreeing to anything without thinking straight seemed as bad judgment as shooting wine directly into my veins.

"Yes, please," I said.

Without any other words to put into the conversation, we exited the cemetery and I followed Christopher on the path we took to here, traveling by foot. I wasn't tired at the least, just drained of something else. Apparently he took the route back to that club we were at hours ago, before the panic of Chubby's whereabouts had consumed us, and trailed our footsteps back to the parking lot where we'd parked Gary's truck.