THE VISION IS A PLACE | ✓ {complete}

Chapter 22 - rose-coloured clouds

    At Billy's, Addison spent most the night upstairs by himself. Billy tried a few more times, with increasing passion, to persuade Addison to go to The Front event, but once it became absolutely clear that Addison's mind was made up, Billy cracked himself a beer and got settled in his armchair to watch a baseball game that I'm not sure he cared all that much about. I read next to him.

I felt bad for Billy; the initial elation of having Addison back was winding down, and it was becoming clear to him that they didn't have in common anymore the main thing that kept them so close all those years. They didn't know what to say to each other. And, more than just that, I think Billy was personally a bit wounded by Addison's lack of verve for The Front. Billy still lived and breathed the ideas that Addison was 'turning his back on', and I think it was making him question himself in a way he never had before; a way that made him uncomfortable enough to want to numb out on alcohol, rather than confront it.

Every once in awhile, with his eyes glued to the TV, he would say things to me about how he thought Addison was giving up—throwing away a real opportunity to do something. His name and picture were in the papers, the media wanted to talk to him; he had a platform they all could have used, but instead he was silencing himself. Maybe it would have been different if he though Addison was scared of the responsibility or pressure, but he wasn't. I think he was just done. I think he was just tired of being angry—tired of fighting, tired of his face being at the centre of so many different efforts, pulling him in too many different directions. And it wasn't just his face they wanted; they wanted his voice, his leadership, his charisma... They had gotten a taste of it during the trial, and weren't prepared to let him slip from their fingers, but at the same time, they clearly felt like they owed it to him, against their passion, to not bombard him that night. They all knew where he was, yet no one came. There were no knocks at the door, no one yelling in the driveway. There were a few calls to the house, but he let them ring.

Billy blamed Addison's change of heart on prison and what happened to him, unwilling to accept that months before the Millwright fire even happened, Addison was already thinking about leaving for good and quitting his job with Search & Rescue when the high season had ended. But Billy wanted something easy to blame; something external—something that supported the us vs. them narrative that had shaped so much of his life up until then.

Billy drank a lot that night. When he stopped talking and sunk deeper into his recliner, I quietly snuck out. Wearing the jacket he'd lent me earlier, I wandered the neighbourhood, past empty parks, spring potholes and more narrow houses. Some drapes were open, and I could see all the way into people's living rooms from the street. TV's blared through thin walls and the air smelt like a mix of dryer sheets and spaghetti sauce.

I walked for a long time, thinking maybe if I walked long enough, I'd somehow be able to walk off the last four months. I didn't want to forget what had happened, I just wanted there to be space. As I swung on a rusty swing set, just past the reach of the nearest streetlight, I thought about Addison, sorting through his things in the room upstairs, deciding what to keep and what to move on from. We were both kind of trying to do the same thing.

It's hard to let go of memories sometimes, even if they're painful...maybe even especially if they're painful. And sometimes it feels backwards to me, like the beautiful memories are harder to keep than the bad ones. And sometimes the bad one's hurt less and it's the beautiful ones I throw away first because it's easier to keep moving forward when you don't long for anything you used to have. It's easier to just forget, because to me, regret is the second worst feeling in the world next to guilt.

When I found my way back to the house, Billy was fully passed out in the same position he was in when I left. I could hear Addison moving around upstairs, but he never came down. I gave myself something to do by cleaning up Billy's storefront and kitchen. When I was tired enough to sleep again, I curled up on the couch, adjacent to Billy, and drifted off under the same quilt as before.