Best Friend's Brother Read online

  “Please don’t say you’re sorry,” I said, clearing the lump out of my throat again. “As bad as I’m feeling right now, I can’t even imagine what you and Mom are going through. Where is she? Is she doing okay?”

  He cleared his throat now and swiped the tears away with the back of his hand. He suddenly looked embarrassed about breaking down. I didn’t want him to feel like that. “She’s in your sister’s room. She’s lying on her bed…she won’t come out.”

  “Okay. That’s okay. She probably feels closer to her in there.” I moved out of my parent’s house before I turned eighteen. Emma had been gone for a year and a half now at college. My mom hadn’t touched either one of our rooms. When I came home, I always felt like I was caught in a time warp. I never really understood it…until now. Maybe she was hanging onto them to help her remember us when we weren’t around. When I opened the door to my sister’s room and I saw all of her things, I could feel her presence there. Not like a ghost or anything weird like that…but just the spirit of the girl who grew up there. Happy, sassy, beautiful and taking life by storm…Shit! My fucking chest felt like a weight was crushing down on it. I went over near the bed where my poor mom was curled in a ball and gripping onto some old teddy bear that Emma hadn’t looked at in years. She had her eyes closed, but I could tell that she wasn’t sleeping. She was probably just trying to shut out the pain.

  “Mom?” She opened her eyes and looked at me. It seemed to take her a minute to process that I was there. When she did, bless her maternal heart, she smiled at me. She reached her hand up then and took hold of mine. I sat down on the bed next to her. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  She didn’t say anything. She was probably afraid she would start crying again. She sat up and wrapped her arms around me and we sat there while I rocked her back and forth like she rocked me when I was a baby and she cried some more. Every so often she would utter my sister’s name, or she would say, “Oh God Ian, what are we going to do without her?” I didn’t answer her, because I didn’t know. I just held onto her for a really long time, until she finally passed out. I laid her down on the bed and kissed her forehead. I put a blanket over her and went out to check on my dad. He was sitting in the same spot I’d left him earlier. I sat down next to him on the couch and said, “Hey Dad, are you doing okay? Do you need anything?”

  “I don’t know where to start, Ian. I don’t even know how. I feel so empty…you know. It feels like there’s just nothing inside of me…like that nothingness took hold of my heart and soul and before long, it’s just going to absorb me completely.”

  God, I hated this. I love my family more than anything on this earth, but words have never been my strong suit. I wanted to hit something. That would make me feel better. I looked at my hand and remembered I’d already done that, and maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. “I know, Dad. Me too.” I told him finally.

  He looked at me then and his normally blue eyes were so streaked with red that they were a strange shade of dark purple as he said, “You know, the policeman told us that she died instantly and she didn’t suffer. I guess that is supposed to make us feel better…maybe it does, I don’t know. You know what would make me feel better?”

  “What’s that, Dad?”

  “If she hadn’t died at all.”

  “I know Dad, me too.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing, please. Is there something I can do? What about calling everyone…I guess we should do that?”

  My dad suddenly started shaking again. He put his hands over his face and said, “Oh God! I forgot about your grandparents and Aunt Karen and Uncle Don! Oh God! What if they heard it on the news? That would be so awful…”

  “It’s okay, Dad. If they did, I’m sure they would have called by now. I’ll call them, okay?”

  He nodded, “Okay son, thank you. I’m sorry.” I could tell that he felt bad about asking me to do it, but he was obviously not up to doing it himself at all.

  “Stop saying you’re sorry,” I told him. “I’ll be right back.”

  I went into the kitchen and just stood there gulping in air. God, I would rather pull out my own teeth than do this. My grandparents…all four of them, are really old. They live about a hundred miles away and I know they’re going to want to head over here right away. I hope my Aunt Karen is around to drive them. They’re all too old to be driving on a good day. Shit! I picked up my phone and called my Mom’s parent’s first. My grandma Sadie answered the phone on the first ring. In a melodic voice she said, “Hello?”

  “Hi Grandma. It’s Ian.”

  “Ian? My grandson, Ian?”

  “Yeah Grandma, it’s me.”

  “Ian?” she said again. Then she said, “I think you were twelve the last time you called me and that was because your Mama made you do it. Oh no! Ian, what’s wrong?”

  Shit! “Grandma, is Grandpa there with you?”

  “Yes, he’s here and Uncle Don too…Ian, what’s wrong?”

  “Maybe I should talk to Uncle Don…”

  “Ian Michael! You tell me what is going on right now!”

  “Emma was in a car accident….”

  “Oh no! Ian, is she okay? Where is she? Why isn’t your mother calling me?”

  “She’s not okay, Grandma. She died…” There was an almost inhuman wail on the other end of the phone and I heard it drop. I could hear men’s voices in the background and then finally My Uncle Don picked up the phone and said, “Ian? What’s going on? Mom looks like she’s having a stroke!”

  Fuck! “Uncle Don, Emma died last night.”

  “Oh shit! Oh God…Oh Ian, I’m so damned sorry…Your mom! Oh God! She must be devastated, and your dad…damn it!”

  “Um…yeah, she is, they both are.” I could still hear my Grandma wailing and I think I can hear my Grandpa crying too.

  “Okay son, I’m so sorry. Let me deal with Mom. I’ll call you back in a while to find out what we need to do. Oh damn!”

  “Okay, thanks, Uncle Don.” I hung up the phone and that was when the bile that had been churning in my stomach all morning reached the back of my throat. I went over to the sink and I was finally able to puke. It was disgusting and a relief all at the same time. Damn it! I still had to call my dad’s parents. I rinsed my mouth and called the other grandparents. The reaction was about the same…then I called Aunt Karen, my mom’s sister. Her daughter Cammie answered. “Hi Cammie, it’s Ian.”

  “My cousin Ian?” I guess I needed to call my family more often.

  “Yeah, your cousin. Is your Mom or Dad there?” Cammie was only fourteen. There was no way I was telling her.

  “Yeah, Dad’s here. Just a sec.” Good, talking to Uncle Brian would be a lot easier than telling Aunt Karen. I waited and a few seconds later, Uncle Brian came on the line and said, “Ian?”

  “Yeah Uncle Brian, it’s me.”

  “Hey buddy! How the hell are you? I heard you’ve been winning fights like a champ!”

  Shit! “Um…Uncle Brian, Emma was in a car accident.”

  “Oh hell. Damn, I’m sorry. Is she okay?”

  “Um…no, she died.”

  He was quiet for a long time. I felt bad for him. I know it had to suck being on that end of the line too. Finally he said, “Damn it, Ian…I don’t even know what to say.”

  “I know,” I said. “Me neither.”

  “Your Aunt Karen will be home soon. I’ll have her call your mom…”

  “Yeah…you might want to have her wait until tomorrow. Mom’s not really up for talking today.”

  “Shit! Yeah, I imagine she’s not. Thanks for calling buddy. I’m so sorry.”

  The last call was to my dad’s brother. He was kind of a strange guy…actually, he was a lot like me as far as he kept to himself mostly and he loved his family. But he was a lot more emotional than I was and I knew he wasn’t going to take this well. I was dreading telling him most of all I think.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Uncle Mike.”

  “Is this Ian Michael? My name sake?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “What’s wrong son? You don’t sound so good.”

  I told him and then I just held the phone for a while and listened to him cry. God I hate this! When he could finally talk again he said, “I’m sorry, Ian. I’m so sorry. Tell your folks I’ll be there as soon as tomorrow, okay?”

  “I will.”

  “Ian?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.”

  “Yeah…me too.”

  I had my back to the refrigerator when I ended the call. I just let my body slide down until I was sitting in the floor. God this sucks worse than anything in the world.

  At least I thought that was the case until the next day when I had to start helping my dad make arrangements to bury my little sister. “Sucks” didn’t even come close to that one.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ALEXA

  I tried on three different outfits before I was finally too tired to take the last one off. I feel like I haven’t slept in days. Falling asleep wasn’t bad. I was emotionally exhausted and in most of my dreams, Emma was still alive. It was waking up that was so horrible…because every time I woke up I had to remind myself that she was gone and it was like losing her all over again. I’d spend the better part of my morning crying. The rest of the day I would be numb sometimes and then other times the grief would sneak back up on me and take me over, body and soul. Who knew that grief was physically painful?

  “Alexa?” My dad was knocking on my door. I didn’t want to answer it. If I did, that meant I had to go out there and then I would have to go to the funeral…I didn’t know how to watch them put my beautiful friend in a hole in the ground. I just stood there, staring at the door until he finally opened it and poked his head around the corner. “Baby…are you okay?”

  I nodded, but even that was a lie. I was a wreck. When I was at school and I first heard about Emma, I thought I’d never feel anything so terrible. But being back home, in this room where Emma and I spent so much time laughing and talking and plotting out our futures…It was indescribable.

  “You ready to go?”

  My inner voice was yelling: No, I don’t want to go! I tamped it down and said, “Yeah, I’m ready.” My dad took hold of my arm and together we walked out to the car. He was great. He didn’t try to make me talk about it. He understood that there was just really nothing to say. When we drove up in front of the chapel next to the funeral home where the services were being held, he reached over and squeezed my hand. He still didn’t say anything, it was just a sign of support and I appreciated it. He waited for me to reach for the door before he got out. I think he thought there was a possibility that I would change my mind and not go in after all. If there was any way I could live with skipping this, I would.

  The little chapel was just filling up when we got there. We found a seat about three rows from the front and while we sat there and waited for the services to begin, I took in the crazy scene around me. It was crazy because it made absolutely no sense at all. There was a white casket in the front of the chapel…it was closed, thank God. I know that I couldn’t have taken seeing her like that. I wanted to remember he like she was when she was alive. I knew if I saw her dead…I wouldn’t be able to get that image out of my brain.

  The casket was covered with yellow and white flowers. Emma loved the color yellow. Next to the casket was a huge picture of her. It was one that had been taken outside somewhere and her pretty dark hair shone in the sun. She had beautiful skin…I was always a little jealous of it. It was flawless…it made her look like a china doll. Her teeth were perfect too, and she had really deep dimples when she smiled. Her dark blue eyes topped it all off. She was gorgeous. Emma could have easily been a model if she had wanted to. What she wanted to be, was a nurse. It always amazed me that someone who looked like her could also have such a kind heart. It was my experience that the pretty girls were usually the mean ones too…except Emma.

  I could see the back of her parent’s heads and the rest of her family, I presumed. They sat close together in the front row. Her poor mother was leaning against her father on one side and gripping onto her brother on the other. It was like she was afraid they were going to disappear as well. I tried for a second to imagine what she must be going through, but I had to stop because I felt like I was going to throw up.

  The pastor came out and began to talk. I listened quietly, feeling like I was breathing in the sadness all around me. It was suffocating and once it got inside me, I felt like I wasn’t in control of my own emotions. My whole body was shaking. My dad was gripping my hand tightly and I leaned into him and just lost it halfway through the service. I finally had to get up and go outside. I really felt like I couldn’t breathe. Dad followed me out and watched me like he was afraid I’d come unraveled. Maybe I had…hell, I didn’t know. We didn’t go back inside. I could hear her uncle talking about her and then he dissolved into tears too. It was all just too awful.

  When the service was over, we followed the procession to the graveyard. The same picture sat on a tripod next to the casket…which sat next to a six foot deep hole in the ground. It was almost an obscene sight. The only thing that made the graveside services any better than the ones in the chapel was that I could at least breathe. The air was crisp…it was late winter, soon to be spring. Emma loved the spring; it was her favorite time of year. Spring didn’t come soon enough this time for my poor Emma.

  When they lowered her into the ground…as if the day hadn’t been heart-wrenching enough, her mother’s legs buckled and her knees sank into the sodden earth. She wouldn’t let Ian and her husband help her up. She just sat there like that and watched her baby girl be lowered to her final resting place, sobbing silently and making my heart feel like someone was reaching into my chest and squeezing it with their fist. It got worse when Ian and her father got on their knees next to her. Ian’s shoulders were straight…he wasn’t shaking and didn’t look like he was crying like his parents, but he was right there with them. God, I hated this whole thing. It felt almost voyeuristic to be standing here and witnessing their heartache. My dad stood next to me the whole time and gripped onto my arm. At the point when Emma’s mom collapsed, he was the only thing holding me up.

  When it was finally all over…we were told by the pastor that there would be a “reception” at Emma’s parent’s house. We got into the car and Dad said, “Would you rather skip the reception and see her parents later? You look so tired, honey.”

  “I am tired, and I’d rather not go. But…I have to, Dad. She was my best friend. I have to be there.”

  He nodded and drove me over there. When we got there, Emma’s Aunt Karen and Uncle Brian were greeting people at the door. Dad and I had brought a cake. When I looked around at all of the tables of food, I wondered how they would ever eat it all. Some of the “guests” seemed to be eating, but not many. Dad was talking to a friend of his and I said hello to a few people from school, but it was all just so damned surreal that I could hardly stand it. I felt like I was crawling out of my own skin. I saw Emma’s parents and Ian finally without a crowd around them and I figured I would go over and talk to them and then I would probably tell Dad I was ready to go. I walked over and as I got close I could see Ian’s eyes on me. He had the same eyes as Emma, they were dark blue and they looked so good with their dark hair and pretty skin. I’d never noticed before that Ian had the same flawless skin as his sister. I actually hadn’t seen him more than a handful of times over the years. He did his own thing…unless someone in the family needed him, and then he was there, like he was now.

  “Alexa!” Her mom saw me and suddenly I was wrapped up in her arms and then her dads, and then Ian hugged me too. I broke down as soon as her mom touched me. I once again tried to imagine what she was going through and couldn’t. Emma and her mom had been close…it was another thing I envied her. Her dad was crying too. It was harder to watch a grown man fall apart, I think. He looked so broken. Ian was stoic. His eyes looked lost and sad…but he wasn’t crying. I didn’t see him cry at the service at all. I wondered if he cried in private, or if he was just that damned tough.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. My eyes were burning with tears and I felt like I was going to throw up again. I didn’t know what to say. What the hell was I supposed to say?

  “We’re sorry for you too,” her mom said. “She loved you like a sister.”

  I sobbed out that I loved her like one too and her mom hugged me again. The whole time I could feel Ian’s sad eyes on me and I found myself wondering what he was thinking about as all of this went on.

  “We should probably go start talking to some of our guests…” her dad said.

  Her mom looked at me and said, “If I don’t see you before you go, Alexa…thank you so much for being here and for being such a good friend to our girl. I hope that we’ll still see you…you’re a part of this family too.”

  “Of course you will,” I told her. “If you need anything…” she nodded and gave me a tight little smile. I bet she couldn’t count the times she had heard that sentence in the past few days. I watched them go, forgetting that Ian was next to me still for a minute until he said, “Emma would have loved all of this attention.”

  I looked at him, shocked at first that he would say something sarcastic about his little sister at a time like this. When I saw his face though, I could tell that he’d said that with love. I could see it in his eyes, and the truth was he was right. Emma would have loved it. “She was quite the attention hound,” I said with a little smile.

  “Hmm, tell me! I got my parents attention for exactly three years. Once Emma came along, Ian was old news. I got a job when I was five, just to get out of their hair.”

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