7
in different places or brand new altogether compared to the image of the room he had in his mind, Juxtaposed with the many things that hadn’t moved or changed at all. It was all so simultaneously upsettingly alienating and comforting. He rose above the swirling emotions in a valiant attempt to keep things as casual as possible, hoping to alleviate as much as he could the pronounced awkwardness permeating every inch of space around them. In as easygoing a manner as he could muster, he reinforced his objective by asking, “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. Eating maybe,” Jo replied, expertly matching his spirit of nonchalance. She started to lead him to the kitchen, following the simple logic that if Jim was among food, they should go to where the food is. By the time she reached the threshold of the living room however, she was reminded that simple logic was not often Darren’s specialty and that no one was following her. “Found him!” she heard, coming from her bedroom, which incidentally would have been her Second Guess for where Jim was.
Her sight from the doorway of him sitting on their once-shared bed holding and stroking their once-shared cat filled her mostly with unease, but Darren and Jim at least seemed overjoyed, so she decided to let it go.
“Do you just want to sit here a while?”
“That would be great,” he replied, not looking up from the feline in his arms who, god damn him, was staring lovingly right back at him.
“All right, well...I’m doing some things so...I’m here.” And so she forced herself away from the scene and went about her business, which mostly entailed pretending to have things to do in other parts of the apartment in an effort to ignore this troubling turn of events. Darren continued petting Jim for a few minutes, but his attention had turned to the bedside table quickly after Jo stepped away. Softly putting Jim down on the bed, he gave in to his curiosity and moved to the table, opened the drawer very quietly, and while disturbing the contents as little as