It's the first day since Ian left and Mickey's cock is hard.
It's the sixth time he's jerked off since he woke up at three in the afternoon. It's already 5:30 and his upper arm has started to ache and it doesn't even feel good anymore, like he's tugging at something that isn't there, but he keeps fucking going.
He counts off the minutes, one, two, three, one, two, three, like he's still counting freckles.
...
The second day is much like the first, and so is the third, and the fourth. Mickey's cock stopped getting hard when he realized he's already starting to forget what Ian's dick looks like. Mickey feels like dying but he's never one for self-pity, so he gets spectacularly drunk and vomits on the shag carpet.
He's still staring at the pile of throw-up when Svetlana comes home, and she doesn't speak a lot of English but she makes some kind of motion, a grunt noise, and shoves him out of the way so she can clean it up. She doesn't even ask or try to which is nice.
Mickey hates her.
...
He remembers how he was once told that years started feeling smaller when you got older, 'cause it was less of your life you're living. Like a year gets shorter the older you get. So the months start feeling like days, the days like hours. Life passes slowly and quickly, slowly and quickly. Mickey doesn't cry at all, just gets drunk, tries to remember things about Ian, tries to forget things about Ian. He doesn't want to think about Ian at all but so the story goes.
...
Mandy gets a letter from Ian after the first week. It's been eight days since Ian left and Ian doesn't even mention him in the letter. Mickey asks Mandy if he can have it and he grips it in tight fingers while he jerks off and tries to imagine that Ian mentioned him. Mickey comes in a burst of fireworks, like the 4th of July, and holds the crumpled up piece of paper in his fist, his heart doing that rapid beatbeat-beat thing. He cries on the ninth day but he doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to fucking think about it.
The truth is that this is not a storybook. This is not a happy ending. Mickey cries and bites down hard on his thumb so no one will hear.
...
It has been twelve days since Ian Gallagher left.
...
Thirteen.
...
Fourteen.
...
Mickey goes in for the ultrasound because his dad is paying for it, because he has to be included, because he can't ever fucking forget. He can feel the bruises even though they aren't there. He can't fucking forget.
The baby is a shadow, kicking around, squirming, and Mickey feels nasueous. He swallows the bile in his throat but can't keep it down and pukes outside the hospital on the bone-white pavement. He tries to remember what Ian's face looks like but all he can see are ants.
...
Mickey practices saying it over and over inside his head. What he would have said if he wasn't a giant fucking pussy.
Don't leave, he would have said. Ian would've gotten it. He would've known that it meant something else. He would've known it was the closest Mickey could get to three syllables.
But Mickey didn't even say that.
It's the eighteenth day since Ian left. Mickey hasn't showered in six days. He keeps thinking he'll roll over into a mass of red hair but it doesn't happen. He keeps thinking that things will get better and they don't. He keeps hoping that Svetlana will get stabbed or suffocated in her sleep or that she'll bleed that fucking fetus all over the bathroom floor and he'll get to have the blood on his hands.
...
After twenty-one days, Mickey gets a visit from Lip, and he almost closes the door in his smug fucking face.
"Going for the grunge look?" Lip has a cigarette in the corner of his lips, wearing his version of Ian's half-smile.
Mickey makes a face and really is itching to beat the shit out of someone but Ian would hate him more, would never speak to him again, and it's already a long shot that Ian will even look at him. Mickey doesn't take the chance.
Without waiting for him to respond Lip says, "I tried to register for classes today but they told me that according to their records, Phillip Gallagher was currently serving over seas."
Mickey sort of listens to that part. "So?"
Lip snuffs out his cigarette, makes a can-you-really-be-that-stupid face. "Ian used my I.D to get into the army."
Mickey sucks in a deep breath and doesn't know what to say, so he releases it in a puff of air and shrugs. The bottom of his foot has started to itch. He feels like he's a ticking time bomb.
"I'm just letting you know," Lip says, talking slowly and carefully like explaining something to a child, "so that you know that he's coming home."
Mickey bites the inside of his cheek and tastes blood. "So?" he repeats through clenched teeth.
Lip smiles at him and this time he doesn't look a bit like Ian. "Whatever you did to make him leave isn't my business. But don't fuck him up again. We need him here."
Mickey needs him here. "How do you know it's something I did?"
Lip gives him another look. This time it says, when has Ian ever done anything wrong?
Mickey doesn't argue that, but he still slams the door in Lip's face.
...
Twenty-two days.
...
Twenty-three.
...
Twenty-four.
...
Mickey starts to think Lip was lying to him.
...
On the twenty-sixth day after Ian leaves, Ian comes home.
Mickey only knows this because Mandy invites him over for dinner, and she promised she'd make chicken, which means she spends all the money from her three-hour-a-week Wendy's job on Tyson chicken nuggets. Mickey was instructed to stay in his room before Ian arrives, but he doesn't listen because Mickey doesn't listen to anyone when Ian Gallagher is involved. Mickey doesn't even listen to Ian Gallagher.
Mickey opens the door to a very sunburned Ian Gallagher. "Hi," Ian says. Did his voice get deeper? It was only twenty-six days.
Mickey's stomach starts twisting and he feels like he'll puke again but he stifles it. He quickly makes an effort to take in all of Ian's face, every bit of it, noting the new freckles that dot his nose, probably from too much sun. He takes in the flush of sunburn behind his ears. Mickey doesn't know what to say because he knows if he opens his mouth he'll choke.
But he manages to say, "Don't leave," and it sounds like he's coughing them out. Like they've been buried so long in him he had to dig them out with muddy hands.
Ian takes a long time to respond but he finally says, "Are you gonna let me in?" and smiles like a goddamn stupid fucking idiot.
...
It's been one day since Ian came home. Mickey looks at him and all he can see are ants.