I wanted to know where Ian's phone had been when it happened.
     Perhaps he left it in the car due to thoughtlessness or maybe it had been in his girlfriend Sylvie's purse because he was wearing those stupid black skinny jeans he'd purchased in a shop in Soho a few months beforehand while he was down visiting me.
     The jeans themselves weren't stupid. They looked nice but it was only once we got back to Emily's and he put them on before we were heading out for the evening did he notice the pockets were decorative and sewn shut.
     "What's this then?" He'd said as he tried to slip his phone into his pocket. It fell to the floor. He tried again on the other side. Again the phone fell.
     "What's wrong?" I asked.
     "It hasn't any pockets," Ian explained.
     "What are you talking about hasn't any pockets? I see 'em right there." I pointed at his hip.
     He looked down at his jeans and tugged at the seam of what should have been a pocket.
     "I see 'em too but they aren't there."
     He recovered his phone from the floor.
     "Do you mind carrying this in your pocket?"
     "Yes I do mind."
     "C'mon."
     "No."
     "C'mon!"
     "No! Go put on your other jeans. I'm not carrying your fucking phone. Got my own phone to carry. Don't need your phone weighing me down."
     "It weighs, like, nothin'," Ian argued, "I can't change into my other jeans. They smell."
     "You were just wearing them!"
     "And they smelled!"
     "Well go put on a coat with pockets or something."
     "A coat..." He lit up as though the thought had only just occurred to him. He disappeared from the room then reappeared in a black blazer. His hands were tucked down into the pockets as if he were truly enjoying the convenience.
     We left Emily's flat. I locked the door and dropped the key into my jeans pocket.
     "Those jeans have nice pockets. Where did you get them?"
     "I took them from Emily."
     "I'm happy I didn't give you my phone."
     "Why's that?"
     "'Cos I might not have pockets but for God's sake you're goin' round in girls jeans."
     I chalked this up to jealousy. Ian was too tall (6'2 and a good four inches taller than myself) and wiry. It would've been near impossible for him to find girls jeans that fit him, let alone having stolen them from a girl that he was seeing.
     But say that he hadn't been wearing the pocketless jeans or driven to the party and the phone had been on his person-- what happened to it?
     Did it fall before he did? Did it shatter against the ground or had it remained in tact? Was it still functional-- had it survived what he had not? Had it stayed with him the whole time and was it pried from his pocket then thrown into a bag of personal effects that were given to-- who would they have been given to? Sylvie? Mum?
     I knew Nin was awake when I heard her crying. It was a silent sort of crying, something she was obviously trying to stifle in the hopes that it would go unnoticed but it was impossible for her to conceal the erratic shift in her breathing.
     I wasn't sure whether she was trying to hide the crying because she didn't want me to know about it or because she thought me to be sleeping. This made it difficult to decide my course of action--whether to comfort her or ignore it.
     I wanted to ignore it. I hadn't slept and felt in no way prepared to handle the cavalcade of sorrow the day had promised me; not only from Nin (though she promised me plenty in her own right) but from family and friends that I actually knew and cared about.
     Also, I was out of cigarettes.
     The illusion of Nin's privacy had been disturbed by the ringing of my cell phone. She gave a short gasp then held her breath as I rustled through the dark for the device.
     I expected to see Ian's number and was caught off guard by my surprise that it wasn't.
     It was my mother. I hadn't spoken to my mother (or anyone of relation to me) since it happened. Sylvie had been the one to call and tell me of the event but I had the feeling that she was within
close proximity to my family as she relayed the information to me. Her voice had a forced calm through the wavering and all of the details had been kept relatively clean given the circumstances of Ian's death.
     My mother had been in the room as Sylvie spoke to me. I knew that much for certain because when Sylvie got to the part of the story where Ian fell from the building-- I heard my mother scream.
     My mother had always been the warmest creature on the planet. Happy and free. In my 28 years the only tears that I had witnessed her expel were those of being deeply touched by something--never distress-- never pain.
     But that scream was the most gruesome sound that I had ever heard. It cut me; filled my stomach with black salt blood and made me sick.
     That scream was of my mother being tortured. It was her voice releasing Ian into death.
     I hung up the phone on Sylvie then and went for a drink.
     I watched the phone vibrate in my hand with my mother's name solid against the screen but I did nothing. I just stared at it until it went silent and dark.
     "You done crying?" I called up to Nin. She sniffed but didn't respond.
     "I said-- if you could please wrap it up. I've got things to do today."
     Again nothing.
     "Surprised you haven't died of dehydration...," I muttered. My confidence was slipping with the increase in her silence.
     "Nin?"
     I startled when I felt her body carefully lower onto mine. Her head fell heavy against my chest. Her arms clung to my sides and she quaked. She buried her face in my ribcage.
     "I woke up."
     And right then--in that moment-- for one solid minute-- I hated her. I truly loathed and detested her. I was repulsed by her trembling body against mine. I was angered by her eye as it dampened my shirt above my sternum.
     How fucking dare her sick mind be so close to my heart as it pumped my blood-- the same blood that had flowed through Ian's body. The same blood that had spilled to the ground. Wasted.
     My mother screamed.
     "He fell..." Sylvie said and. then. my. mother. SCREAMED!
     Ian's dead.
     My breathing was laboured. It must've been Nin's head; it was crushing my lungs and I couldn't breathe.
     I placed my hands beneath her shoulders and lifted her from me.
     "I have to go outside," I panted.
     I staggered through the dark and threw myself from the room and down the hall. I fell through the main door and out into the world.
     The sky was clear and blue. The sun shone as though nothing had happened-- like a joke.
     There was a ringing in my ears--my mother.
     I struggled for air, choked, gagged and then vomited onto the pavement.
     Strangers made disgruntled noises--obscenities.
     My stomach heaved. I was sick again.
     I wiped my lips with the back of my hand and my hand against my jeans.
     I felt a palm flat upon my back moving in a circular motion, my right arm was hoisted round a pair of narrow shoulders and I was being half dragged half carried indoors.
     I looked over. It was Nin.
     She had turned the chandelier on in the studio. She sat me on the couch.
     I watched as she left the room then I lost interest and turned my stare to the floor. There was half of an unsmoked cigarette in the ashtray. I fished it out and worked it between my sticky lips.
     Nin returned with a paper cup of water for me. I took water into my mouth, swished it and spit it back into the cup.
     As she took the cup away I folded into a laying position on the couch. She knelt down in front of me. Her slim fingers tucked hair behind my ear. I focused on my cigarette.
     "Hi," She said.
     "Hi," I replied though it seemed trite.
     "Are you okay?"
     I slid my eyes to her. There was red in her cheeks. Her body worked purposefully just to put color there.
     "You woke up this morning. You cried because you woke up..."
     "Yeah..."
     "My brother didn't."
     "I know."
     "Ian's dead," my voice didn't sound like it came from my body. It was hoarse and removed.
     She slid the cigarette from me and placed it back into the ashtray. She held my face between two cool hands.
     "I won't let you go through this alone."
     "Why do you care? You're as good as dead."
     "The same reason you care about what happens to me."
     "Crying girls perplex and frustrate you?"
     "Because I like you. Because you're good and don't even know it..."
     "If I were any good, I would've been on a train home yesterday. Instead I went for a drink."
     Nin forced a smile.
     "But then you wouldn't have met me and look at how much fun that I am."
     "Listen. You can't let us die. My mother..."
     Nin pressed her cheek to my forehead. Her flesh was hot and living.
     "Lee, you're the only friend that I have."  
     "You're alive, Nin."