Chapter 308: Blackout
Ever since his arrival in Joy, Derek had become a bit of a sloth. When he was not out and about in town. He was usually at the motel, doing absolutely nothing.
Derek did not even need to sleep, courtesy of his insomnia.
But most days if anybody knew where he was, and were to check on him they would find him laying in bed. Sometimes, alright, most of the time, he would be on his phone. But while he spent hours on end staring at the screen. Derek was not reading the worried text messages from his mother.
He was also not going through the news trying to figure out the situation at Haven Group.
Derek did not want to face such things. But what he was doing on his phone was barely any better. In fact, if Derek had still had it in him to care, he would have been ashamed of how pitiful he was being.
Instead of doing something productive since arriving at the motel. Something that could lift his mood. Derek was spending hours on end staring at the only picture he had of himself and Emily as a couple.
It did not matter how many times Derek looked at the picture that Edna had taken at the fair.
He just could never seem to get enough. On his first day at the motel, he had thought that the sight of it would bore him soon enough, but he had been wrong.
Every time he blinked and his eyes settled on it once again. His gaze would be drawn to Emily, and that would be it. He would just be stuck staring at her until he finally could not anymore. Either having to stop because he had tears in his eyes.
Or because they hurt from keeping them open for too long.
But even after putting his phone away, things did not get better. In fact, some would even say that they got worse. Derek, no longer able to stare at the screen, would often pull out the last puzzle piece of the picture. The very one that he’d just known he would be looking at excessively when he had first pulled it out at the motel.