Chapter 25
Darren pulled on the handbrake and stared blindly through the windscreen as he fumbled for his phone. He couldn’t remember the day; work was drowning in a thick soup of numbness, and he couldn’t remember. He rubbed his finger and thumb together as he scrolled through his contacts. He couldn’t feel them.
It was just after six. Jayden would be out of classes—and yet the phone rang out, until his voicemail opened up to swallow Darren’s message. A recording. A recording that he knew Jayden didn’t check regularly, if at all. A taped imitation. A mimicry of the one person he needed right now, the only person who’d ever…
He wasn’t there. He hadn’t been there for months, and some dark part of Darren’s brain, that had been buried in the back since Jayden had come back for a second dat
