I did this to myself.

The jagged outline of the hills in the distance stabs the sky. I feel like I’m drowning. I could be underwater right now looking at the vast, dark caverns of the ocean floor instead of the infinite sky above the swoops and rocks falling and dipping over the splash of orange streaks in the sky. I feel like I’m underwater. The swathes of clouds against the yellow and red sky aren’t pretty. Everything feels muted. Blotted out. Dull.

For twenty-seven years I’ve come out here and taken in this view on winter nights. Winter was always our favorite.

My dad used to tell me that when I was a baby he took me out here onto the sun porch. He said he’d put me in my bassinet and rock me to sleep for a nap with him in his favorite chair, mom cooking dinner just inside.

Mom’s plants need watering. I should get to that.

I hear some visitors get into a few cars to my right and back out of the long driveway, but there’s plenty more people inside. I’m glad Alec shoveled away all the snow like he’s been doing most mornings for the past few months.

I don’t look over at the guests’ cars as they drive away. I don’t feel that I can. My heavy, muddy combat boots are cemented in place and I can’t move to say goodbye or thank them for coming, not that I would want to if I could. And I still don’t know if they’re my guests or guests of my mom’s, but I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s my house now. Not mine and my mom’s. Just mine.

I push my hand down into my pocket to feel the small blue box I stashed away in there. Some days, I carry it with me, and some days I keep it at home. But I’ve looked at it every day to remind myself. It’s a physical reminder, when everything else is a blur. I’m afraid that without it, my mind will slip away from me. And with it, she’ll go too.

A gust of wind smacks my face, but I can barely feel it. I can feel its presence, but not its bite or its force. And that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit. I wish the sky would open up and bathe me in a storm. Focusing on the light across the sky, I will it to come alive. To do something. Anything.

Alec comes up beside me and stands there squarely, his broad shoulders and his gait matching mine. I feel him next to me like a mirror, and looking over at him, I realize that I must look as fucked up and shitty as he does. It kind of makes a smile pull at the corner of my mouth. The hood of his sweatshirt is pulled up high over his buzzed head, falling over his forehead like a visor. A shield. But from what, I didn’t know. His jacket is pulled tight across his back and his arms are folded tensely across his chest. He takes the final swig of his beer, draining a third of the bottle down into his gut in one gulp.

“Hey. Thanks for being here,” I say, looking away from him and squaring my eyes straight ahead.

“Where the fuck else would I be?”

He’s right. There is no where else he would be, even if my mom were still here. Alec was here every day after she got sick. He was here when I couldn’t be, when I had to go to the shop to earn my pay to keep the house. He was here when I could be here, not just to look after Mom, but to make sure I was okay, too. If this were an ordinary Saturday night, Alec would be here all the same.

“I think people are starting to leave. Grandma is still in there, right?” I turn my head around slowly and check out the old house. It was all paid up until the sickness hit her and we had to borrow against it.

“Why don’t you and I go for a walk? Just get the fuck out of here for a while?” Alec looks up and then down at his shoes, kicking the dirt and mud and ice in front of his feet, digging his heels into the unmowed lawn.

“I should go check on Grandma and Daisy,” I say, glancing back toward the house. The window in front isn’t shielded with curtains. It’s wide open. But I can’t see my Daisy. There’s too many people in the way.

“They’re okay,” Alec says, staring off into the distance and pulling another beer out of the deep pocket of his hoodie. “I swear. It’ll be good for your head.”

“Fine.” I throw my cigarette to the ground and stomp it out. My mom always told me not to smoke, but now that she’s not around I don’t have to feel guilty for it.

My heart clenches up a little. It hurts, but I’m glad I can feel something. Even if it’s pain.

I dig my hands into my pockets and follow Alec across the lawn and onto the road. If you didn’t know this town, you wouldn’t know what road you were on. Stretches of road wind between valleys in this part of the state, and the landscape all looks the same. It’s the only thing I can take comfort in right now. Back at the house, everything is different. Daisy doesn’t mind being left there, I know. She’s fine dealing with all the people who came out for mom’s wake today. They didn’t give a shit about her when she was alive, but now that it’s time to put her in the ground, they come out.

We get to the top of the hill where the body shop I work in stands. There’s nothing but trees on one side of the road, dense woods. I don’t know where it stops and what’s on the other side. On this side of the street, Alec and I stand outside the shop and look up. It’s like a place of worship for us. We were always like ministers of steel and metal. Our congregation came to us to have their rides fixed. We could work miracles.

“I liked it here. The old man was good.” Alec pulls another cigarette out of his pack and lights up with his chrome lighter. A puff of smoke escapes from his pursed lips as he walks toward the front door of the shop, next to the garage where I spend my days.

Alec worked here until his wife had the baby. A little girl. His wife went to work as a nurse in a hospital in the nearest city, about forty miles away, and they both decided it would be best for Alec to stay home to care for his daugher. He loves it. And he loved bringing little Becky to my place during the day to hang out with mom while I had to go to the garage to keep the money coming in.

It wasn’t much, but we needed it.

“The old man is still good. And I know he’d take you back in a heartbeat if you ever wanted.” My keys are hanging inside my pocket from a long metal chain, and I slip them out, walking over to the front door of the place. “Want to go in? For old time’s sake?”

The smell of motor oil and leather fills my head as I open the front door and punch in the alarm code. Alec comes in and puts a weathered hand on the counter where we have the cash register set up, making his way through the shop and into the garage in the back.

“Old time’s sake.” He looks around, regarding his Mustang convertible in the corner.

High walls hide what’s inside the garage, the only light coming in through dirty windows high up near the ceiling. Night has almost completely fallen. The metal and steel of the bikes along the far east wall of the garage glow with the fire of the last of the orange sun.

I feel like this is my second home. As fucked up as that is, this is where I feel something. The good and the bad, and everything in-between. Not back where my mom faded. Not between the walls of the rooms my dad left, where mom searched for reasons why it happened. That’s not home to me. There’s too much wrong there.

If this is my second home, Daisy’s my real home. I feel everything with her.

Alec goes to the corner where his vintage ride is showing off with its top down, staggering around it, beer-fueled.

“Let’s take it out for a spin,” he says. It’s his pride. Besides his wife and his daughter, it’s what he loves. He protects it. It’s just in for a routine tune-up, and of course he wanted me to do the job. Someone he could trust with something so precious.

“You can’t, pal. You’re not up for it right now.” I know the cabinet where we hold all the keys is locked up, and I’m not letting him in. He’s in no shape to drive. Not tonight.

“Fuck, man.” He pulls a set of keys out of his pocket. Of course he has an extra set on him. He clumsily opens the door and gets into the driver’s seat.

He has enough sense to roll up the top of the car and pull down the mirror visor. He grimaces at his own reflection, his lip curling into a snarl and his eyes averting his own gaze.

Alec starts up the car and revs the engine. It purrs like a pussycat. I’ve done a good job with it. For an older car, it’s still a beauty.

“Get in,” Alec says, stepping out of the car and walking over to the metal pulley to open the garage door so we can drive out.

I don’t want any trouble. Alec can’t drive. I should take the car out on my own. I crave a ride through town, not knowing where I’m going. Cutting off the headlights and letting the moon guide me. Getting the fuck out and not knowing if I’ll come back. Only coming back for Daisy.

Having her live with me always. Someplace else. Not here.

Alec opens the garage door and I slip into the driver’s seat. He jogs back over to the car and gets in, guiding himself in with a hand on the frame of the car and slamming the door shut. He hits the radio button and a song I recognize but don’t know the words to comes on. Crunching guitars hit my eardrums and we race out onto the road. Alec hops out to close the garage, coming back out through the customer exit. I hear the alarm activate behind him when he leaves. He comes back and gets in again. I can feel my insides churn with regret for leaving Daisy. But I feel the road calling to me.

I don’t know where we’re going. I just drive. Drive toward the outskirts of town. Away from here.

There’s an unspoken bond between me and Alec and I can feel it in the air between us. He’s more than a friend. He’s like a brother. My blood. And my mom was like a mom to him. Alec treated her like his own mother, all those days he came to the house with Becky. Going to the store to pick up her prescriptions. Driving her to doctor appointments. All the times I couldn’t be there, he was.

The windows are up but I can feel the wind whipping against the car. I shift gears to keep from sliding off the road as we take a curve I’ve taken a million times before.

“Where are we going?” I breathe heavily, blood coursing through me and heating my veins.

“I thought you were driving this thing,” he replies. “Take a right up here.”

We’re in a neighborhood I don’t recognize. I’ve done what I wanted. I’ve arrived someplace else. The houses on this street are big, and closer together, and they all look the same. Two stories, a pair of columns, and new, shiny cars next to green lawns splattered with the same snow we have back home, one town over. Bold brick, red and uniform, and not a stray cat in sight.

“Here.” Alec points to the left side of the road, next to a clearing of several acres. It’s hard to see, but it looks like a golf course. The side of the road is lit up at intervals with tall street lamps. I slowly roll between two of them, hiding the car where the lights don’t hit the street.

“You know this part of town?” I ask, turning the radio down. It’s too loud. This street is quiet. Families are inside the houses, tucked into their chairs at dining tables, having conversations about homework and sitcoms.

Alec looks out his window at a house across the street as a scowl creeps slowly across his face. His blue eyes burn with anger and he puts two fists down on the dashboard. “That’s my old boss’s house.”

My friend still carries resentment with him wherever he goes. A light turns on inside a window of the house he’s looking at, and his fists clench with anger. The light goes out, and a man in a suit comes out of the house.

“You have something better now,” I say. “Forget it. You didn’t want that path. Don’t lose sleep over something you lost if you didn’t even want it in the first place.

“It’s not right. Are you and I seeing the same thing? Look at this fucking place. Look at that car. The house. His fucking suit. Smug bastard.”

Alec took it hard, and I couldn’t blame him. This is an industrial town, and it seems more and more that the industries it used to thrive on are fading away. He’s right. It’s not fair that his former boss still has the house and the job. Especially because he had to lay off a hundred workers to do it.

But then, life’s not fair.

“You can’t dwell on the past.” I suck in a sharp breath and shift into drive. That’s a lesson I’ve tried to learn, but it’s not sticking. All I can think about is the past. All I can think about is the look on Mom’s face when Dad walked out on us.

I should have done more to stop him. I should have done more for Mom. And now I can’t do anything for her.

“Fuck this guy,” Alec says, pinching a stump of a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “Let’s go home.”