“Andy’s not picking up his phone, Ash.”

Jake sounds worried, and tired, and lost and Ash wonders how long this is call has been waiting to happen for. Probably a long time, Jake forgets calls as easily as he forgets love; and he’s already tired, now (always was). Ashley thinks Las Vegas is too dry, but doesn’t tell Jake this as he stares at the wall.

“Andy never picked up.” There’s something about the past tense of the words that inexplicably pulls on Ashley’s heart strings, though it’s his brain thinking this and not only his mouth saying it. It hurts because it’s true in the way Andy never did, and the way Ashley doesn’t know if he still doesn’t. Jake sighs like the remains of his soul are trying to spill out, only to find it’s already been stolen. Ashley would drink to that.

“Ash, I can’t get over there. Please check up on him.” Jake hangs up and Ashley thinks he meant to say something more, but forgot. Jake’s like that now, mind like a sieve. It’s easier not to remember if all you do is forget. It’s a wonder Jake still knows who Ashley is, who Andy is. Ashley can’t remember the times when Jake looked after everyone, even though he knows they happened. He knows because Jake is safe and Jake used to be home before Jack Daniels came along with curves like you wouldn’t believe.

He rolls onto his back and hopes that heaven doesn’t look like the breaking plaster of his ceiling.




Ashley drinks because sometimes he’ll look up at the clock and there will be blue eyes. So he drinks till the clock is a blur, even when he’s not in the same room, and days (weeks, months, years) pass before he looks up again to the empty sockets. He’s not sure if the eyes sunk in or they’re dead, but he doesn’t check because it’s so long ago and he wishes he couldn’t remember how blue they really were.

Whenever Ashley smiles at a girl he wonders what she thinks of him. He wonders if she thinks he’s only been drunk a few hours rather than a few years, and if his messy hair is due to teasing or days lying on his apartment floor. Either way, she’s pretty and wiling and Ashley can’t say no (he never could) but he’ll forget in a week. Ashley wants them too, as well, but he can’t remember their faces long enough to remember their names. He mostly just dreams they do, but they become nightmares quickly and he only knows one way to keep the nightmares at bay.

Sometimes when they smile at him he thinks he sees lies but when he blinks they’re just teeth and he drowns himself in whiskey just to get them to shut up. His mum called and he asked her why, but all she could say is ‘I love you’ and Ashley knows they’re empty words when the line goes dead.

Its three weeks later when he remembers Jakes call.