Everyone hated how cold I kept the thermostat in our house. Spending most of my days behind a fire, I liked to sleep in a room cold enough to see my breath. Often, I’d wake up to a cloud above my head. At least most nights, that was the case. Most nights, I had the comfort of sharing Nick’s favorite blanket. But that night, after our fight, I didn’t even have Nick. Sleeping on the couch was hard enough, but I never imagined how cold it would be without him beside me. Suddenly, sleep had turned against me.

“I’ll need you to pick me up at 4. Malcolm gets out at 3:15. But we can’t be late. Tom? Tom, are you listening?”

Monday morning, I woke up to Malcolm asking me to tie his shoes while his mother made breakfast in the kitchen. As I sat up on the couch, I watched River walk into the kitchen to grab coffee. Shirtless, he had Cindy ready to throw the fresh pot at him. My brother, however, was quick to make a retreat. He came into the living room to hand me a mug of black caffeine while Malcolm sat beside me, kicking his feet.

“Why are you up?” I asked my brother and took the mug.

Still wiping the crust from my eyes, I wasn’t ready for the day. The look River had on his face didn’t help. It wasn’t like my brother to avoid eye contact with anyone, least of all me.

“Thought you could use a hand,” he started, but paused before adding, “Nick wanted me to make sure you got up.”

“Nick told you to wake me?” I asked.

Again, my brother looked away from me when he said, “Yeah, when he left earlier.”

I shot up from my seat, and Malcolm nearly fell off the couch, surprised by my suddenly moving so fast.

“He left?” I asked my brother, but I had already left the room to go upstairs before he could answer.

I heard Cindy call Malcolm to eat. We were going to be late for his first day of school, but I was searching the house for any signs of my boyfriend.

“Tom, will you get dressed?” Cindy yelled to me from downstairs.

Just as I meant to go back down, River came up the steps.

“Where is Nick?” I asked him.

“How should I know?” he answered, and I would have ignored him until he stopped me from going past him, saying, “Tom.”

Cindy continued to nag me to get ready from afar, but her voice was white noise while my brother held me up. He knew, like I knew, that Nick was gone.

“You’ll be late if you don’t get dressed,” River told me.

“But Nick. Where did Nick go?”

“Worry about your kid. Get him to school first.”

Would it have been selfish of me to ask River to take my son and my ex to school that morning? Would it have been selfish to chase after Nick on Malcolm’s first day of school? It would have, and again I was putting my boyfriend last. What else could I do? There were no easy answers, but I knew what I had to do.

“Tom, are you ready?” Cindy called.

River guarded the stairs, refusing to let me back down until I put clothes on.

Had I slept through my boyfriend running away? I didn’t hear, didn’t see it, didn’t feel it until it was too late.

As I pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt, I couldn’t believe things had grown so bad. After all, we had been through, he couldn’t leave me like that. Where would he have gone? Where did Nick go?

Downstairs, Malcolm asked me to tie his shoes again. Cindy had made me a plate of bacon, toast, and eggs, but by the time I had graced everyone with the sight of my clothed body, it was time to go. Hesitant to leave, River made sure I couldn’t second guess myself. At every step, he pushed me to keep going. And he wasn’t alone. Malcolm was excited about his first day, and Cindy refused to be late.

It wasn’t until the three of us were in the car that I had to pull my head out of my ass. I was in the driver’s seat. Cindy sat beside me. Malcolm was in the back seat, going wild over how tall the new truck was. He thought it was a monster truck.

As I sat holding the keys, Malcolm asked, “Did our new monster eat the old car?”

I looked at him in the rearview mirror. Swallowing the lurching pain in my gut, I put a smile on my face and started the car. We pulled off, and I told him, “No, Little M. The car grew up.”