Honestly, bad things really do pile up.

If they'd come one at a time, spaced out nicely, I'm fairly sure I could've handled each of them. I'm not some wide-eyed teenager anymore. With thirty just around the corner, I've weathered most of what life likes to throw at a person. Meditation, anger management, a Rolodex of professionals for emergencies—I had the full toolkit for pulling myself back together.

But stack this many disasters on top of each other, and even I can't help seeing the worst in everything.

I glanced at the mud caked on my arm. Normally I'd have wiped it off immediately, and brushed the dust from my clothes while I was at it. I certainly wouldn't be sitting on bare earth like this, leaning my back against a wall of bare earth. Sure, I'd had days before when every direction seemed blocked and the only way out was straight up. But who could have predicted that all directions would be blocked literally?

Somewhere up above, countless small lights were probably still shining. But I didn't have a scrap of strength left to look up at them.

While I stood there in a daze, replaying my entire life like a man with nothing left to lose, my left hand moved on its own. Without so much as asking permission, it slipped into my pocket, fished out my phone, and pulled up a contact. A man I'd blocked three years ago. A number I'd sworn I would never dial again.

If you asked me why I hadn't deleted it, I'd have trouble answering that myself.

After a moment's hesitation, I pressed call. My future was probably over anyway. Might as well hear his voice one last time. Though really, what does it say about me that in the pit of despair, the one thing I want to do is phone this man? Forget my future—I can't even keep a handle on my own impulses.

I pressed the phone to my ear. The dial tone barely had time to ring before it cut off with a soft click, replaced by a low voice I knew better than I wanted to.

"Darcy speaking."

God. There was a time when just hearing this voice could send me to heaven.

I let myself steep in the nostalgia for a moment, then greeted my childhood friend with impeccable courtesy.

"Hey, Brian."

A beat of silence. Then he lowered his already-low voice into something closer to a growl.

"Luke, you..."

"I know, I'm sorry. I had absolutely no intention of calling you. But I'm genuinely at the end of my rope here—cornered, literally, and spectacularly unfortunate."

The more I talked, the lighter and less convincing my own words sounded. I could feel myself starting to fluster.

"Hey, Luke—"

"You used to be a cop, right? Not that I need anything, but I figured—why not let you hear my voice one last time before the end!"

Even I had to admit: what an incoherent mess.

"Alright, alright. Calm down, Luke."

Brian tried to steady me from the other end of the line.

"One thing at a time. What do you mean, 'the end'?"

"Brian..." I gripped the phone so tight my knuckles ached. "Brian, Grandma died."

"...Grandma? Your mother's mother?"

"Yeah. Mom called to tell me."

"I'm sorry. She was a wonderful woman."

At times like this, childhood friends are a godsend—no backstory required. 

Gramma had poured so much love into me. And come to think of it, her death had been the opening act of this spectacular marathon of misfortune.

She’d given me plenty of words over the years, but the one she repeated most was this: When you’re exhausted, do whatever you want most in that moment—be kind to yourself.

I’d handed that same line to all sorts of people over the years. But for the first time in my life, I was learning that being kind to yourself could be the hardest part. And all those people I’d tried to feed Grandma’s wisdom to—they’d probably wanted to punch me in the mouth and make me stop talking.

Brian continued:

"But if your mother called you, does that mean the disownment's been lifted?"

"No. We're still officially estranged. We just... keep in touch sometimes."

"...I'm not sure I follow, but go on."

"Right after I hung up with her, Kirk called."

"Kirk?"

"A colleague. He keeps wanting me to design furniture for him, but the man can't open his mouth without adding a critique. My designs are 'unconventional,' or 'it would take a genius to build an interior that actually works with this'..."

I could feel my own energy draining with every word.

"I know he respects my work. I'm used to it by now, so normally it's fine. But the timing was brutal. Made me feel spectacularly incompetent."

"Luke..."

"And then the bastard went and used my design exactly as I'd submitted it! If you're going to use it anyway, why start with the criticism?"

"You should tell him that directly. If you plan on continuing to work together, you really ought to—"

I talked right over him.

"Anyway, I just wanted someone to be kind to me for five minutes, so I headed to Lexandra's bar."

"Whose bar?"

"Lexandra. Alexandra. Don't tell me you've forgotten. Tanned, muscular, green eyes. Around fifty."

"...You mean Max?"

"That's his legal name. Alexandra is what he goes by at the bar."

"...Right. Got it. And then?"

Brian sighed in resignation and prompted me forward.

"So I get there, and Leo's at the bar, completely wasted."

"I see. And who is Leo?"

Brian asked with saintly patience.

"Leonardo. An ex of mine. Leonardo. He started getting all over me—wouldn't leave me alone, kept turning everything into a joke for the whole bar. Even what we'd had together. Suddenly I felt like nobody in the world needed me."

"A drunk's words are a waste of your life to dwell on. Is that everything?"

I sighed, glancing down at my scraped arm.

"I fell into a hole."

"You what?"

"I didn't want to see anyone, so I took a quieter route. Turns out it was a construction site. I stepped through some boards, and now I'm buried up to my head. Present tense. I don't have the energy to survive a night down here, so I'm probably going to die."

I half expected him to scoff—a Brisbane winter is hardly Oymyakon—but instead, Brian simply exhaled. Long and slow and quiet.

"...Okay. Where are you? I'm coming to get you—"

"What? No, that's fine." Remembering that he was, despite all appearances, an annoyingly caring person, I scrambled to cut him off. "Talking to you actually calmed me down. Why did I even call you? I'm sorry."

"Luke, just tell me where—"

"Besides, I just remembered—I've got a detective's business card right here. Might as well put him to work."

At that, Brian's voice dropped. Low and careful.

"...Hold on. Why do you have a detective's business card?"

"About that."

The grief I hadn't been able to feel properly—everything had been too surreal until now—came flooding up from somewhere deep, and I hung my head.

"Alan's dead too."

"...And who's this one?"

"A friend. We'd grab a meal sometimes, talk. Just a normal friend."

"I see."

"The detective told me. That he was dead. And then they questioned me."

On the other end of the line, I felt Brian go still.

"He was murdered. And apparently, I'm one of the prime suspects."