How It Goes - End
. . .
The faint rattle of keys makes his ears twitch. The door unlocks like it always does - swiftly, loudly, harshly. The door swings open with a small creak. He is greeted to the familiar scent of his home. His den. He enters the hallway, closes the door, locks it. Takes off his sandals, hangs his jacket on one of the wall knobs - the one to the left, always - puts his keys in the glass bowl on the hallway table. When he gets to his phone, he gazes down at the display. It had remained conspicuously quiet during the walk home - the battery had died.
If only it would have rained so he could pretend.
Scott enters the kitchen and tosses his phone on the kitchen table. It flips over twice before landing face-down on the wooden surface. He gazes at the fridge, though he isn't hungry; at the counter, only two breakfast plates, littered with crumbs, demand any attention. With nothing to take care of in the kitchen, he turns off the lights and steps into the living room.
His books and notes clutter the coffee table. The surreal idea that he took the last of his tests less than twenty-four hours ago hits him; its impossibility remains as he walks up to the couch. In the dim light of the corner lamp he cannot make out the writing - and he finds that, when all is said and done, it doesn't matter either. Slowly, he walks around the room to turn off the three sources of light in the corner and on the walls, until he stands alone in the darkness.
On his way out to the hallway, he unbuttons his shirt. He balls it together and throws it into the laundry room. Shirtless, he gazes to the stairs, and he feels a knot in his chest. Slowly he continues down the hallway until he reaches the commode. The family photos gaze up at him. Him being pushed in the swings by his father; in his mother's arms the day of his birth; the wedding photo...
Scott gazes at his parents, at their smiles and at his own joy fourteen years ago. Only vaguely can he discern their hands - the monochrome golden band on his mother's hand. He reaches into his pocket, vaguely recognising that his left paw feels empty, and pulls out the very ring his mother once wore. The two clasped paws gleam faintly in the pale light from outside, and he places it carefully in front of the wedding photo.
The stairs seem an eternity away, yet Scott does the relentless stride in silence. He longs for his bed, to clutch his pillow and bury his face into it. Yet he knows he won't be able to scream into it, or howl, or weep. The knot tightens somewhere deep in his stomach as he pushes open his bedroom door, and at the sight of his bed he strides forward to fall into the depths of his blankets.
He wonders for a long while what to think - what to do - where to go - what he did wrong.
In the end, he thinks to himself: that's how it goes. That's how it always fucking goes.
End
Writing this was difficult, but here we are.
The end of How It Goes.
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It was always going to end up here. From the story's conception this was an inevitability. Suffice it to say, pushing the Publish button wasn't easy.
Thank you for reading How It Goes.
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