The Pact (Scömìche)(completed)

29 Fire and ice

OK so this is intense, and long. Buckle up.

The storm finally breaks.

Flowers were the first sign of contact. On the fifteenth, a mixed bouquet of lilies arrived, but no card. On the eighteenth, Scott received an orchid, pink spotted with white. A basket of fruit arrived on the twenty-first.

Scott went back to his parents on the twenty-seventh and enjoyed Thanksgiving with family and lots of good food. He declined alcohol and maintained a rigid schedule of exercise and meditation, clinging to his routine in a sea of uncertainty.

It was when he lay in bed alone that anxiety broke through his veneer of calm. Once he dreamed that baby Shira climbed out of his arms and crawled away, and he woke up in tears. But mostly he dreamed of fights.

Mitch morphed into Luca, who sneered before shoving Scott backwards to fall endlessly through grey clouds. Scott watched Bailey try on wedding dresses, but when he tried to talk to her she turned away, unable to hear him. He shouted her name and watched her fade into white smoke, and he was alone again.

Scott had started preparations for a limited tour the next year, and was getting to know the young artist that the record label wanted to open for him. The music for a new movie was nothing more than a few doodles and themes, and he had lots of work ahead to flesh it out. He had plenty to worry over, but in the end only one thing mattered.

On the thirtieth of November in the afternoon, three deep pink roses were delivered with a hand written card. Scott's stomach did a slow flip. This was really happening. Mitch was in LA.

Mitch had always said that details were important. The flowers were a reminder of their last meeting. Scott put them into a glass on the kitchen table as he had done weeks before, half a lifetime ago. They had no scent. Why did he persist in sniffing every rose he saw? He couldn't help this spark of optimism that this time, things might be better. It had always been his defining quality without which he would have given up long before even conceiving the idea of Pentatonix.

Scott came to know the hours between one and three a.m. too well. They were the hours in which he relived rejection and anger and pain, and he was powerless to stop it.

One sleepless night it came to him; he might as well accept that he'd always try again, hope again, forgive again. Delusional maybe, risky certainly, but at least it had the potential for success. He responded to Mitch, sending the text before he could change his mind. And that led to sniffing florist roses and trying to analyse himself, as he had not done since his time in therapy.

See you tomorrow at 8pm.

Mitch

He traced the script with one finger, then took the card and tucked it into his wallet behind the first one. A little over twenty-four hours, and he would face whatever lay ahead. For the moment, his best bet was to tiptoe around the enormous elephant in his mental room. He could squeeze by, pretend it wasn't there, and hope it didn't crush him if he took his eye off it.

It was hard to believe that it was the first of December already. Scott checked the spreadsheet and wondered what to buy his nephews and nieces for Christmas. He'd have to text their parents and ask what he could get, ranging from stuffed toys to folding money. He made a few notes and then went to bed early, falling asleep thinking about roses and fancy Italian coffee.

Scott ensured that he had plenty to occupy him the next day, starting with a long workout. Although his mind flitted around a hundred subjects, he sat through his meditation session for the full fifteen minutes. Then he left for a day of meetings.