The patterns on the ceiling were familiar. Textured scrapings of paint, put there intentionally to make it more aesthetically pleasing. The walls… they were familiar, too. He had spent a lot of time with them, this last couple of weeks… staring at them when he couldn’t sleep. Leaning against them for support when enough pain welled up to the surface again that his own legs could no longer hold him up. Hitting them when even that became too much. There were holes in the drywall that he’d have to explain whenever his mother came home again… but that didn’t really matter. All that mattered, right then, was that the sheets were still familiar, too. The fact that he could turn his head, move close to the pillow… and he could still smell him. Though it was fading with every day, he could still pick out the scent of soft cologne and earl gray… and the smell of his skin. Though the warmth was gone… and he knew it would never return. Just like the emptiness he’d never known was there before the detective had filled it would never recover from the loss and realization of its own inadequacy.
He’d always heard that there were worse things than death… and he understood what it meant, now.
Because he was the survivor.
