Chapter 14
July 10
More boxes. Only this time, the first one I opened is full of books and photo albums that belonged to Joe. The books aren't important; I'm giving them to Goodwill. But the photo albums… I know they were from his life before me, but these pictures… these people were important to him. I don't know what to do with them. I suppose I could give them to his mother. She may know who the people are, may appreciate the pictures even more than I do.
It was weird, really. They are pictures of him before I knew him, pictures with girls he dated before me, with friends I never met. And as always, Joe was laughing and happy with them, too.
It makes me cry.
"You're preoccupied, today," Bobby says, flipping his pencil around in his fingers.
"Am I?" I counter, a little angry at his prying.
He gets up and hovers, taking baby steps in the direction of the coffee machine. "You don't have to talk about it if you, you know, if you can't talk about it. I understand."
Still he hovers a moment longer. I watch him as he walks away.
"Hey, Alex," another voice says behind me. I turn and look up to see Mike. He looks so much better than the other day.
"Hi, Mike."
"Did you want to get lunch later today? Things are kind of slow for us, I've got time."
I give him a smile. "Sure."
"I'll text you," he says, as Bobby comes back. He looks between Logan and me, but says nothing, just sits down with a dramatic sip of his coffee and buries himself in his paperwork.