an instant photo out of a window [https://i0.wp.com/theendandtheinstant.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Instant-13-1500x2000-COMPRESSED.jpg?w=1500&ssl=1]

“I’m sorry,” Oli says. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“No-” Lark tries to say, but Oli keeps talking.

“Have I upset you?”

Lark hesitates at the question, wants to say both yes and no, but, more than that, wants Oli not to have to ask. “It’s fine,” he says. “Really. It’s just a bit weird. It’s hard to talk about.”

Lark has not spent much time with anyone in the past year, and this moment reminds him why. When he was younger, there were facts that, somehow, floated ahead of him: simple things that people seemed to know in the same breath as they saw his face or learned his name. That he was a musician and a serious pianist, that used to be the main one. He traveled in small circles, insulated groups all focused on bands and concerts and recording, so this wasn’t a surprise.

Somehow, though, his depressive episodes and the dangerous turn of his mood seem to have become something like that, too. They are truths that Oli knew before he knew Lark at all, and facts that sit at the top of the list of many things Reed knows about him, somehow superseding all the other things they shared.

“I guess it’s just…well,” Lark says, pulling at his sleeves, pulling his hands inside them, and avoiding Oli’s eyes. “I sometimes feel like everyone knows, like, this very personal thing about me.”

“I only know because Reed was so upset,” Oli tells him. He realizes that’s maybe not as reassuring as he intended. “I know it’s not who you are.”

“You said you can’t stop thinking about it,” Lark answers back, quicker than he meant to, a little meaner.

Oli nods and accepts the reprimand in Lark’s voice. “I know.”

“So how am I supposed to feel about that?”

“Maybe, just know that people care,” Oli says, then covers his face. “Even if they’re being incredibly clumsy about it.”

Lark knows this is the right answer and that he should be grateful. There are many blessings he doesn’t count; his therapist has told him often enough. But he would give anything, he thinks, to have something to offer people who worry for him. His sadness, he knows, is heavy for him to carry; he’s wary of exhausting others.

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through a window on a sunny day [https://i1.wp.com/theendandtheinstant.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Bedsit-1500x1500-COMPRESSED.jpeg?w=1500&ssl=1]

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It took a few days of nearly unbroken sleep, but I started to feel better. I’d wake up at odd times, never sure what to expect from the light. Time stopped meaning anything, but that was a relief, really. I’d check the clock on my phone, expecting to see missed calls from Max or Dana. Jules would knock on my door, carrying bowls of vegan soup, plain rice. Quinn, brought his laptop in, sometimes, and sat on the bed next to me. We watched movies—mostly art house cinema, the weird independent films that Quinn collected. He watched and I nodded off next to him. He woke me sometimes, nudging my head off his arm, told me I had no taste in movies.

I’d sleep through anything, I told him.

He made a face. Said: I know. Just a joke. Close your eyes, be quiet.

A week later, I was sitting on the bed, my eyes closed against the midday sunlight coming in through the window. I’d gotten up, gotten dressed, and then sat back down on the made bed, out of energy again.

My phone rang and I laid back down, put it up to my ear, listened to Dana repeating my name. Her relief, hearing me, was palpable. At first, I thought she was glad to hear the recovery clear in my voice, but I think really she was just glad that I was there to listen.

I’m sorry for not calling. Max’s friend took us out to his cabin and I don’t have any reception at all. Are you okay? Where are you?

I’m okay. Still with Jules and Quinn. Mostly sleeping.

She told me, then, that she and Max were looking for an apartment, though this seemed to be a new development, and wasn’t going well. Reading between the lines, I thought Max might have been on some kind of blackout bender. But maybe he was just being impractical, more focused on fun than getting settled. Dana said he was networking; they’d been to a few parties, met a few people who might have rooms for us.

Do you want me to come get you? I asked her.

We have your car.

Jules or Quinn would take me. If you’re in trouble, they would.

No, it’s fine. I thought you might want us to come get you.

Honestly, laying on the bed, washed in sunlight and silence, I couldn’t imagine much worse than getting in a car again with Max and Dana. We said goodbye.

I wandered out of my room, then, planning on getting a glass of water, but thinking vaguely about going to the shop for juice or bread, though I had no real intention of putting shoes on, of leaving. Jules was at the kitchen table, typing with one hand and mechanically crunching through a bowl of raw celery sticks. They offered some to me, said they were glad I was up.

I finally heard from Dana, I told them. She and Max are looking for a place. I don’t think it’s going very well.

No rush, Jules said, gracious as ever. You’re welcome to stay here.

The house they lived in was quiet and comfortable, painted in white and a pale slate blue that was both classic and aggressively trendy. There was an upright piano in the living room that I asked Jules’ permission to play.

It’s probably extremely out of tune and definitely janky, they warned me.

I played for about twenty minutes, as long as I thought I could politely get away with. I hadn’t played since the show, the longest I’d gone without playing for years. It was good to do something I could do well, something my body remembered, even though Jules was right about the state of the piano.

Hey, you’re actually good at that, Quinn shouted from down the hall.

Jules laughed and rolled his eyes, shouted back, Of course he is.