Best Friend's Brother Read online

  I laughed, “You did not.”

  “Okay, I was seven, but still…”

  “That’s not the way Emma tells it. She’s always said, “Ian can get away with anything because he’s their favorite. If I tried to pull the things he did, I’d be grounded for life.”

  He smiled, “It was just because they saw more potential in her.” He had been kidding before, but he said that seriously. It was obvious how much he thought of his sister and it made my heart hurt for him.

  “I remember one time when we were thirteen that your dad did tell her she was grounded for life.”

  He raised an eyebrow and said, “Really? Dad hardly ever grounded her. He always made Mom be the bad guy. She was his little princess.” He didn’t say that with any kind of malice. It was just a statement and again, it was true.

  “Yeah I know. This time though…let’s just say when he found out we took his new car out for a spin, and we got pulled over by the cops…and Emma tried to lie her way out of it…he was a little bit upset.”

  He laughed again and said, “That was the Camaro!”

  “Yeah. The blue Camaro that had a yellow scratch down the side of it from the pole she scraped when we went through the drive-thru at Mickie D’s.”

  “I do remember that. Dad was furious. He told her she was grounded until she was legally old enough to drive and then he would “re-evaluate the situation.”

  “Yeah, and then he called my dad and I got grounded for two weeks. My dad was mad, but he wasn’t the one with the dinged Camaro, so I got off light.”

  He suddenly looked really sad again and he said, “She loved to drive. She even made me let her drive the golf cart when we went out to the club with Dad.”

  “Yeah, she did,” I said. “I’m going to miss her so much.”

  He didn’t cry, but his eyes were suddenly a watery blue as he said, “Me too.”

  I stayed another hour. Ian and I swapped more stories about Emma. It was nice, he was the first person that I’d talked to since she died that knew her the way I did. I didn’t really know him…but I felt connected to him in a way. When I got ready to leave I told him, “I can give you my number…in case you feel like you want to talk, or if any of you need anything.”

  “Sure,” he said, “Thanks.”

  He took mine and gave me his and then I said, “I wish there were words to tell you how sorry I am for your family and how much I loved her.”

  “I know,” he said, “Me too.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IAN

  The week after Emma’s funeral was as depressing and surreal as the ones leading up to it. I was sitting at the kitchen table in my parents’ house about a week and a half after she died, staring down at a bowl of cereal I’d poured, but didn’t really want to eat. I was wondering if things would ever be normal again. No one seemed to know how to move on. My mom spent most of her time sleeping. That was crazy because she was one of the most active people I’d ever known. I think it just helped dull the pain or pass the days…it was her way of coping, I guess. My dad was the opposite. He worked for a newspaper in the printing room. He was the manager, actually so he wasn’t expected or required to work more than his forty hours. Hell, he wasn’t even expected to be back at work yet. He told me he had to go. He couldn’t stand to be at home. All he did when he was home was remember that he’d never see his little girl again.

  My grandparents went home, but my Aunt Karen stayed to look after Mom for a while. I was grateful for that, because I hated leaving her alone when Dad was at work…but I know myself and a caretaker, I am not. I didn’t know what to say was the biggest problem. I wanted to talk about her, but it made my mom sad and my dad uncomfortable. I hoped that eventually they would be able to remember her out loud. Emma lived her life out loud and she should be remembered that way. I tried talking to some of my friends, but it wasn’t the same as talking to someone who knew her. She had this really quirky sense of humor and this weird way of chewing her food and her favorite animals were zebras, she had a whole collection of stuffed ones in her room. Things like that were the things I wanted to remember about her and talk about, but it was hard to do with people who didn’t know her.

  I thought about Alexa. I had thought about her a lot since the funeral. She was the only one since Emma died that I had actually been comfortable talking to about my little sister. She was sad like the rest of us, but she also seemed to want to remember and talk about the good times. I considered calling her but there was a part of me that felt weird about it. I didn’t really know her. She had been in and out a lot over the years with Emma but she was a kid and I was more often than not, wrapped up in my own issues, so I never paid much attention to her. Emma and I only got really close the past couple of years. I’d always been protective of her, but I hadn’t ever really taken the time to get to know her until after we were both grown. Once again, I’d have to blame that on how wrapped up I’d been in my own problems.

  “Hey buddy, how are you doing?” I looked up. My Aunt Karen had come into the room.

  “I’m doing alright,” I said. “How’s Mom today?”

  Karen poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down across from me. “She’s doing as well as we can expect her to for now…I think. I just cannot even begin to imagine what she’s going through. As much as we all loved Emma…there’s no pain comparable to that of losing a child.”

  “Yeah, I can’t imagine either. I wish I knew what to do for her.”

  Karen reached over and put her hand on mine. “You’re doing everything right, Ian. We are all so proud of the way you’ve been here for your mom and dad through all of this.”

  I raised an eyebrow and wondered if they all really thought I wouldn’t be here for them. I guess I deserved it if they did. The way I lived my life had always been less than conventional and it had caused my parents more than one sleepless night, I’m sure. “Thanks,” I said. “But, if I’m doing everything right, it’s by accident. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m lost, Aunt Karen.”

  “I know honey, I feel the same way. You just have to try and get yourself back into your normal routine…day by day until you’re living again. It feels disrespectful sometimes for us to go on living when someone we love hasn’t had the chance to do that. But whether we go on living or not, life is going to go on around us.”

  “I have a fight tomorrow night. I wasn’t sure if I should go. I know this doesn’t make sense, but sometimes just walking out of this house and noticing that it’s a nice day outside seems wrong.”

  “It’s hard to go on living when we lose someone we love. But you have to remember your sister. Emma wouldn’t want you to feel that way. She was crazy about you, you know? She really looked up to you and every time I talked to her she would tell me how well you were doing with your fights. She would want you to go and live your life.”

  I had to chuckle at that, “She wouldn’t come to any of them. She didn’t watch me fight a single time. I used to really get upset about it. It hurt my feelings. I wanted her to see how good I was and be proud of me.”

  “She was proud of you…but she also was your little sister. She couldn’t stand the thought of watching someone hit you or kick you or…whatever you do in that cage.”

  “I win,” I told her with a grin.

  She smiled back and said, “There’s my cocky nephew. Emma loved you and she was proud of how you lived your life honey…so go, live it.”

  I got up and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks Aunt Karen.”

  “Sure honey. Where are you going?”

  “To the gym,” I told her. I need to get ready for that fight tomorrow.”

  She winked at me and said, “Good boy.”

  I went to the gym that I loved with the intentions of working my normal routine. Just getting out of that house and not having to breathe in the sadness and despair made me feel better as I drove across town to the gym. I walked inside with my bag and suddenly, all activity in the place seemed to sto
p. My very presence seemed to cast a pall across the place and before I could even get to my station I was approached by three “very sorry” people. I accepted their condolences and thanked them and then I left. I couldn’t work-out while people were staring at me with sorrow in their eyes.

  I went back to my parent’s home and spent another day in the silence of a house that had suddenly lost its hope. I sent Aunt Karen home, telling her she needed to go take care of her family and I would handle things here. She argued with me, but I knew she missed her family. I had been staying here instead of my apartment since that first night anyways. There was no reason for her to stay.

  I did three loads of laundry and cleaned the food from the funeral out of the refrigerator. That left it empty almost, so I went grocery shopping. We lived in a small town, so everywhere I went, people looked at me sadly. Some of them asked how my parents were doing and some of them offered condolences…and some only stared. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  When I got back to the house, I made dinner for my mom. She cried and told me that I was amazing. She didn’t eat a bite. I left dinner in the microwave for my dad and heated it for him when he got home from work. He said, “Thanks buddy, that was real nice of you.” He didn’t eat it either.

  The only thing I saw that night that indicated just maybe they were moving towards beginning to heal was that my mom slept in her own room with my dad again, instead of Emma’s. After they went to bed I went into my sister’s room. I found a stack of photo albums and I lay on her bed and looked through them. I flipped through the, page after page of my sister’s pretty smiling face, watching her grow up again right there on the pages. There were a lot of photos of her and Alexa and it made me start thinking about her again. I wondered how she was doing and if this was getting any easier for her yet. I stretched out and thought about how nice it had been talking to her and being able to laugh and smile about the things we remembered about Emma, instead of so many tears. I fell asleep sometime in the early morning hours and that was how Mom found me the next day.

  “Ian honey? Are you okay?”

  I was startled and disoriented. I sat up and looked around and once again I had to remember that Emma was dead. It was always the worst time of day. I looked at my mom then, surprised to see that she was dressed and she’d done her hair. Besides the day of the funeral, it was the first day she’d done any of that since Emma died.

  “Hey, Mom. Yeah…I’m okay. Are you okay?”

  She actually smiled. It was a genuine smile and it made me remember how pretty she was. She reached over and touched my face and said, “Yeah baby. I’m doing okay today. I made you some breakfast. Why don’t you come out and eat it while it’s hot.”

  It suddenly felt strange to me for my mother to be herself again…almost. I got up and washed my face and went out to find she’d made me boiled eggs and turkey bacon and she had even juiced some vegetables for me and made me a drink. “Wow Mom, you didn’t have to do all of this.”

  “I know, but I needed to. You’ve been taking care of us all week. It’s time for me to remember that I’m still a mother.” I went over and hugged her. She hugged me back tight and said, “Things aren’t ever going to be the same, Ian…I’m sorry. But I’ll do my best to make sure they’re not always so weird.”

  I laughed and said, “Weird is what we do best around here anyways, isn’t it?”

  She poked me in the ribs and dried the tears that had started to spill again. “Eat your breakfast,” was all she said. I ate and watched her go through the motions of her day. I knew she was trying and that warmed my heart and made me feel sad at the same time. After breakfast I went for a run. When I got back, Mom had left a note for me that said Uncle Brian picked her up and she’d gone to Aunt Karen’s. My aunt probably worried that she’d wither away without someone to nag her into eating. That was good, now if we could just get my dad to take care of himself too. Mom’s note said she called dad already and she would be back in the morning. The house was even quieter then, just knowing I was alone with Emma’s memories. After I showered I finally sat down and called Alexa. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  “Hi Alexa, it’s Ian.”

  “Hi. How are you?”

  “I’m hanging in there. What about you?”

  “I’m okay,” she said. She sounded sad still. “It comes in waves, you know. I start doing something normal and then I feel guilty because I think, “How can I just be going on with my life when Emma’s not here anymore?” It’s all just so weird.”

  “I feel you,” I told her. I told her about going to the gym and leaving before I did my work out and about feeling like I should cancel my fight.

  “No, don’t do that. Emma used to brag about you and your fights all the time. She thought it was really cool that you did that. I don’t think she would want you to cancel it.”

  “That’s what my aunt said. She really bragged about me?”

  Alexa laughed. I liked the sound of it. “Yeah, she said you were really good. She also said that you were a little bit crazy and getting your head knocked around probably didn’t help that any.”

  I laughed too. That sounded like my sister. “I was looking at some of her pictures last night. I found the album that she made that was all of the two of you. You had to be around a lot when you guys were kids. Why don’t I remember that?”

  “Maybe I’m just not that memorable,” she said.

  “I doubt that’s it,” I told her, honestly. So far, I was finding her very memorable. “Maybe I was just too wrapped up in my own stuff to watch my little sister grow up.”

  “Don’t do that, Ian. Don’t beat yourself up. She loved you. She knew that if she ever needed you, all she had to do was call.”

  “Well, I’m glad she knew that, but I wish I would have done things differently.”

  “We all do,” Alexa said. “I was supposed to go out with her that night. I wonder sometimes if things would have been different if I had gone…”

  “Now who needs to stop? You may have been with her when she crashed and two dead girls would not have made Emma’s death even easier.”

  “I guess so. I just hope she knew how much I loved her.”

  “I think, judging from all the photos I found last night of you and her together that it’s a safe bet she knew.”

  “I should have told her more.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I should have too.” I suddenly had a thought. I really wanted to see her again and it sounded like she needed to get out of the house as much as I did. “Hey, what are you doing tomorrow night?”

  “Um…probably the same thing I’m doing tonight…making dinner for me and my dad and wishing I could turn back the clock a couple of weeks.”

  “Yeah, I know the feeling. I keep making dinner here, but no one eats it. My mom finally got up today and went to see spend the night at her sister’s house, but it was almost as hard to watch her try and “be normal” than not. My dad is working himself to death and I’m afraid to go back to my own apartment and leave them alone. But I am going to go through with the fight tomorrow. I’ve trained hard for it and it’s kind of an important one. My trainer says there will be some UFC scouts there. Why don’t you come watch me? Afterwards we can grab some dinner. Maybe it will do us both some good to just have a normal evening for a change.”

  “It definitely couldn’t hurt,” she said with a little laugh. “I’ve never been to a fight before.”

  “It’s fun. You’ll like it.”

  She laughed again and said, “Emma was right, you are a little crazy. You think it’s fun to get knocked around inside of a cage?”

  “Nope,” I told her. “But I won’t be getting knocked around. I’ll be winning.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ALEXA

  The next morning for the first time since the day I woke up and found out that my best friend was dead; I woke up and actually felt alive. I also still felt guilty about having things to look forward to, when Emma neve
r would again. I had to fight through that feeling every day anyways. I had no idea how long it would take me to come out the other side of that one. For today, I was looking forward to having dinner with Ian. So far, he was the only one that could make me laugh and keep the sadness at bay, if only for a moment. I didn’t feel guilty about laughing with him, because we were sharing our memories of Emma. I have to admit that I did feel just a little bit guilty about being so attracted to him though.

  On the flip side, I wasn’t sure how to feel about the fight. There were days since Emma died that I’d wished I was a fighter. It might feel good to just hit something and release some of the anger that boiled inside of me. A few times I considered pounding my fist into the wall. So far, I’ve been able to talk myself out of it. It might feel good to watch someone else doing it though. I just prayed that he was as good as he said he was because I don’t think I can stand to watch him get hurt. There had been more than enough pain to go around lately and I didn’t know if I could take even a little bit more.

  I put that part out of my head while I was getting ready for the night. I told dad I was going and he was happy that I was getting out of the house, but a little bit concerned about the fight.

  “You’re going alone?” he said.

  “Well yeah, but Ian will be there, obviously.”

  “He’ll be busy….obviously. Some of the people who go to those fights get as aggressive in the stands as the fighters. I’m not sure I like the idea of you being there alone.”

  “Dad, Ian said my seat is close to the front, near the cage. I don’t think anyone will try anything but if they do, I promise to yell out for one of the officials, okay?”

  “But…”

  “I’m nineteen,” I told him.

  He had a sad look on his face and I know he was thinking about Emma as he said, “I know, I don’t like it.”

  I laughed and gave him a hug. “We can’t make me twelve again, but I promise I’ll be safe.”

  “Okay. Call if you need me.”

  “I will.”