Schism

Chapter 15 part 1

Chapter 15

Bryan glanced at the alarm clock: 6:59.

He switched it off before it could blare at him, pulled on his jacket and adjusted his tie.  He hurried to the living room and picked up his files from the small coffee table.  He'd had to spread some of them out on the floor, as the table hadn't been large enough for everything he wanted to look at last night when he got back.  As he tucked everything back into order, he thought that it might be time to get a larger table, something further up the furniture spectrum, away from the milk crates and boards of early bachelorhood that he had very nearly reverted to these last two years. 

He looked around the room and saw mostly empty floor space.  He still hadn't purchased a dining table.  Most of his meals were take-out or boxes of dried noodles that just needed a shot of hot water.  Claire had loved his cooking.  He hadn’t done more than reheat or add water since the fire. 

He grabbed the last few sheets of William's file and placed them in the folder, did a check for anything he might have missed and saw even more of his apartment.  The walls were bare.  There was no television or couch, just the swivel chair he had set in front of the coffee table. He didn't even have a bookcase.  He had always loved reading and should get one, should try to rebuild some of the library that had burned two years ago.  But, if he could get his case load back up to where it had been, he'd have no time to read.

The space clean again, Bryan stopped.  Had he cleaned it because he needed the files today?  He knew he wouldn’t need all of them.  He realized he had picked up, even made his bed this morning in case Jessica might come over.  Why had he thought of that as a possibility?

In the first weeks after the fire, he had stayed in a motel.  It had taken a large effort of will to even pick out this small place, with its one bedroom and galley kitchen.  No one else had ever visited him here, and until Hayes had stripped his real cases away, Bryan had only used it to sleep for a few hours when he was completely exhausted.  He had often not come back here at all, had instead slept an hour or two in his car if he didn't need to shower too badly.

And now he was making sure the space was clean enough for a woman to visit.

The punch of guilt in his stomach was small, but it was there.  He shouldn't be noticing another woman, should he?  It was just over two years, but he thought that was still too soon.  Would it ever be okay to notice a woman, to think about sitting next to her on a couch, to think of Jessica in his bed?

The knot in his stomach spread to his shoulders.  He tried to shake it off as he left the apartment.