Empathy by Ker Dukey

intoxicating. One thing I love is coffee. The machine behind the counter steams and sputters while the hot milk blends with two shots of expresso, filling the mug beneath it.
    “Did you know coffee is a psychoactive? And at high doses it can make you see things. It can also kill you.”
    Melody claims us a table while the girl behind the counter tries to keep her eyes from me. She’s attracted to me but has probably never spoken to a guy other than asking for his order. Her shy face lifts to glimpse at me, making sure I was talking to her. “It takes around a hundred cups to be fatal.”
    She hands me my order, slipping two biscuits on the saucer. “I’ll cut you off at ninety nine, then,” she quips, surprising me. I like her innocence. She turns from me and hurries away to make a waiting order.
    “I’ll cut you in half, spit roasting you, my cock one end and a twelve-inch double ended dildo the other, you virginal little bitch.” My eyes close, reining in the temper boiling on the surface today. Her tense posture warns me she may have heard me over the chugging of the coffee maker. Her head turns sheepishly and I offer her my shit-eating grin and a head tilt as thanks for the coffees.
    I find Melody sitting in the back of the shop, snug in a corner booth. I place her latte in front of her which she cradles like it’s a lifeline. I slide in and just wait her out. I know she’s getting ready to divulge something I will want to hear every detail of.
    She inhales a shaky breath. “My parents are dead.” She just blurts it out, like she’s telling me it’s raining outside. I bite down on my gum. My hand reaches over the table to take her hand, her eyes are focusing on something across the room but I know her mind is racing with memories. “Talk to me, Mel.”
    She must know I need more than that. She was going home to visit them so she knows I know it’s a recent death.
    “They were murdered. I found them and I’ve been struggling with it all, and the stupid guidance counsellor expects me to talk to her about it. But God, I can barely make it through the day trying to not think about the smell, the blood and the… the…” Her breathing has become unstable, her hand rattles in my grasp. “…and she wants me to talk about it. Like it’s that simple.” She’s crying now, her free hand swiping angrily at tears.
    “What did you feel, losing them like that?”
    Her hand snatches from me. “What the hell, Ryan? How do you think it felt!?”
    I tilt my head and pinch my brows to show pain. I alter my breathing to make my voice appear small and affected by grief. “I lost my dad when I was eleven. Me and Blake found him. He tripped down the stairs, broke his neck.”
    She leaps from her chair and cocoons me in her hold. Sharing grief solidifies a bond, I see.

 
     

     
    I CAN’T BELIEVE I AGREED to go to this barbeque. Ryan is picking me up any minute and I’m still standing here in my panties and bra, staring at a dress and an alternative jeans and a tee. It’s hot today though; the heat pours through the blinds making my dorm feel like a furnace so the dress is the obvious choice.
    I feel a little lighter today. I think sharing with Ryan helped me. The fact he has lived with the death of a parent too is a weird comfort. Granted, his dad wasn’t murdered but he was still robbed of a person who gave him life, who raised him until his passing.
    Maybe I’m not a lost cause after all. Ryan and Blake survived
    My phone buzzes, startling me. It’s Markus again, he won’t leave me alone. Our family lawyer is finally home from his vacation and wants to have the will read but I don’t feel ready to break up everything my parents owned, including the house and business. What will happen to all of that? God, I need to get it over with. Someone my age shouldn’t be thinking about this stuff, but caving into myself and hiding from it isn’t helping me. The shadows were creeping out from the dark and soon I