CHAPTER ONE

The funeral was nothing special. Not many people went. A

few people spoke on his behalf. When Alfie went to the front of

the church, he stared at the picture of the boy that stood on

top of his coffin, he removed a necklace from his neck, it was a

silver chain with a plastic key on it. Michael always used to

tell him that it was the key to his heart. The picture that

represented the corpse inside of the wooden box was his school

picture from junior year. His jade green eyes sparkled in the

flash on the camera. His olive skin looked silky smooth. His

full pink lips were curled into a cheeky grin. His hair was

brown and swished to one side. He looked so happy in his

picture.

Alfie swallowed hard and turned back around. He began to

speak the eulogy that he rehearsed in his room over and over

again. “Michael was the greatest person I ever knew,” he stared

into the small audience who all kept their heads down. “He was

so quick witted in the best way possible. I remember when we

first met. He told me that he was going to get me to fall in

love with him whether if I liked it or not. He achieved it. I

fell madly in love with him,” his bottom lip quivered. He gazed

at the floor while his vision began to blur with tears. “Michael

was so proud of who he was. He walked around like he was king of

the world. When people made fun of him, he never needed someone

to stand up for him because he knew how to stand alone.” A tear

finally fell down and hit the floor with a thud. “None of us

knew he was sad. He only cried in dark rooms.” Alfie’s face

winced, as if there was a stinging sensation rippling through

his bones. “In visions of the dark night, I have dreamed of joy

departed, but a waking dream of life and light, hath left me

broken hearted,” he whispered to himself. He began to walk to

his seat with his eyes glued to the floor. Tears made a trail

behind him. When he found his seat, his whimpers had made a

puddle at his feet.

The next person to go up to the podium was a girl with wiry

red hair and teeth that were spaced too far apart. She had

freckles splattered all over her face. Her torso was thick and

her thighs looked like hams. “Michael was my best friend. I

thought I knew him like the back of my hand. He and I always

knew how to make our own fun. Whenever we were bored we would

walk around furniture stores and pick out what he would buy for

our studio apartment in New York City that we always swore we

were going to buy. We told each other everything. We always knew

what was going on with each other but Michael never told me

about his depression. He never told me that he was so broken on

the inside. Honestly, if he told me, I probably wouldn’t have

believed him because” her voice finally cracked with tears, “I

don’t understand how someone so strong, could be so weak.” She

winced with tears, “Whenever he got bullied for who he was, he

took it with a grain of salt. He wanted everyone to see how

strong he was, but he was so broken on the inside and he never

asked for help.” She looked up at the ceiling in hopes of

finding Michael sitting on top of the rafter giggling. “I just

don’t understand why he had to die,” She walked back to her

seat, shivering. Tears had streamed down her face yet she never

whimpered.

“It was always Mikey and Maxie,” he walked up to the coffin

and ran his hand over it, just to make sure it was real. “We

were complete polar opposites, but we always came as a package

deal.” He swallowed hard and looked beyond the aisle. He

couldn’t look anyone in the eye, especially his mother. Her head

was shoved into the nook of her husband’s neck. His eyes fell

hard on the floor; he violently shook his head to avoid the fall

of tears. “When we first entered high school, I asked him if he

wanted to join the football team with me,” he sighed with a

grin, “he said, ‘I’d rather be a cheerleader,’” a light chuckle

rippled throughout the corridor. “I always knew Mikey

was…different. I never minded. I knew he was getting taunted for

who he was. I tried to defend him, like every brother would,” he

clenched his fist and bit down hard on his bottom lip, tears

slowly fell from his eyes. Everyone could see the war that was

going on in his mind. Everyone could see the gun shots that were

exploding in his head. “He always said he could fight his own

battles.” Maxie craned his neck behind him and aw the picture of

his brother. He could see Michael trying to drag the smile out

of him. Through the light, he could see the darkness in his

brother’s eyes. He was broken, Maxie knew that. “I just can’t

help but think that I could’ve done something.”

The church was silent for a few beats. The girl with pink

hair and eyeliner dripping down her cheeks stood up and pushed

out a wail that shook the atmosphere. She ran down the aisle in

her skinny jeans and converses. She pushed her way out of the

door; her shrieks of grief clipped at her heels and swirled

around the thick air. That was the way the funeral ended.

Everyone quietly rose from their seats and trudged down the

aisle. Alfie and Blythe made it to the stone steps and sat down

as they traded tears and whimpers, their foreheads were pressed

into each other and they spoke words that were broken with

whines of pain. They watched everyone walk down the steps and

trudge along the cobblestone pathway that led them to the

quaint, narrow roadway.

Maxie climbed into the driver’s seat of his red pickup

truck that he and Michael shared. There were dents on both sides

and on the bumper; Michael was a really bad driver. Maxie used

to argue with Michael about the dents, but now he looked at

those dents with a bashful smile. Those dents were the only

things reminding him that Mikey was there.

Down the road, the girl with pink hair was running. She

looked over her shoulder frequently, though no one was chasing

her.

Maxie swallowed hard and turned the key in the ignition. He

peeled out of the church parking lot and coasted down the road.

He caught up to the girl with pink hair. She was running as fast

as she could while wiping tears from her eyes. He rolled down

the window and watched her for a while, he grinned when he said,

“Get in.”

“No,” she replied breathlessly.

“I’ll take you home.”

“My mom taught me not to take rides from strangers.”

“It’s not like I’m offering you candy.”

“No, that would make it too obvious.”

Maxie chuckled. Thunder cracked and rain began to drip from

the sky.

The girl with pink hair stopped dead in her tracks, she

threw up her hands and fell to her knees, “How fucking

convenient!” she yelled to the sky.

“A little melodramatic for my taste,” Maxie grinned a

little too widely.

The girl with pink hair lifted her head and glared at him.

Her makeup had fallen down her cheeks and formed a black puddle

under her. She could see her teardrops in the rain puddles. Her

face winced with grief and defeat. She sunk her head in between

her knees.

Maxie sighed and cut the engine. He got out of the car and

trotted to the stranger; he sat on the curb next to her and bit

his tongue. He knew that nothing could be said. He slung his

arms over the damp girl who curled into herself. Her body jolted

to his touch. Maxie glared at the girl for a while, he had hoped

that the sound of thunder would wash away the sound of her

whimpers, but it didn’t. He had hoped that in that moment, the

rain drops would fall harder than her tears so he could confuse

the two. Her tears had created a river under his feet, and they

spilled into the storm drain that was imbedded in the curb a few

feet down from them.

He could hear her tears dripping down the storm drain. Her

tears were falling into a bunch of contaminated water that led

to nowhere. He looked at the storm drain and wished that he

could scoop all of her tears up and put them in a jar to remind

the girl with pink hair that her sadness meant something to

someone.

She swatted Maxie’s arm away and stood. She swung the door

to his truck and slammed it when she got in. Maxie rose and ran

over to the driver’s seat. The rain began to fall like atom

bombs, exploding all over the windshield. Lighting struck like

Zeus’ wrath and thunder rolled throughout the clouds as if the

angels were bowling. Maxie wanted to say something to lighten

the mood. He wanted something soothing to roll from his lips,

“Want some candy?” his cheeks tugged the corners of his mouth to

form a grin. His grin was dull though he tried so hard to make

it as soft as mist against windows.

The girl with pink hair slowly turned her head to him. Her

face was masked in black, her blue eyes stuck out like a diamond

in the rough. Her lips were tight and her eyes bored into his

soul. She tried to cover her mascara striped cheeks with her

pink hair. Her hair was long and covered both sides of her face

when she looked at him. “Why are you acting like you didn’t just

attend your brother’s funeral?” Her words came sharp like a

dagger.

The girl with pink hair watched her words stab him and

watched the sting ripple throughout his entire body. Maxie

turned and faced the road. He turned the key in the ignition.

“Where do you live?” his voice sounded like a knock on a thin

piece of wood.

She weakly whispered her address and sunk into her seat.

She tried to curl into herself, but she still felt exposed. She

felt like there was an open womb and everyone could see her

heart beating. Her head felt like a construction site. She

pulled hood over her head and looked down.

“I don’t want it to be real,” Maxie finally said.

Her eyes swung to him. When he met her gaze, her eyes fell

back to where they originally were. She was back to staring at

the glove compartment. “None of us do.”

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“Don’t worry about it,” her vision snapped to him. Thunder

cracked through the clouds and lighting weaved through them.

Telephone poles began to wiggle from the wind and traffic lights

thrashed around.

Maxie slouched in his seat. He turned down the girl’s

street. The houses all looked the same. They were big and filled

with small minded people. Money was plastered onto windows and

the clanking of tea cups rang from the cracks in the doors.

She pointed to a blue two story house with a big window in

the center that revealed a spiraling staircase and an

extravagant crystal chandelier. The double doors were red that

were lined with gold. A cobble stone pathway led up to the front

porch that wrapped around the entire house. There was a white

picket fence that traced the edges of the house. A red rocking

chair sat next to the doors, it had fallen over due to the heavy

winds.

He imagined the girl’s mother sitting on the empty rocking

chair, knitting on a crisp summer day while she watched cars go

by and kids play across the street. Then he imagined her face,

grimacing at how empty her front lawn was. There were no kids

frolicking all over her lawn. The grass had turned brown and her

house seemed hollow.

The mailbox that stood in front of the house looked like it

was collecting dust instead of mail. There were no cars in the

driveway. The “for sale” sign that was stabbed into the front

lawn grew like a weed and soon coiled itself throughout the

entire home.

The girl with pink hair stepped out of the car and slammed

the car door behind her. She was immediately smacked with wind,

her pink hair flailed to one side and flapped in the wind like a

flag. Maxie watched her walk up to the front door. When she

stepped in front of the door, she turned around and stared at

Maxie. Her glare was sharp, she gripped the doorknob. Her eyes

were still glued to the red pickup that was glued to her curb.

She wanted to yell and tell him to fuck off, but she knew she

wouldn’t be heard over the wind. Instead, she picked up the

rocking chair and sat on it. Her weight stabilized the chair;

she crossed her arms and sat erect. Her lips curled at one end

and parted ever so slightly.

Maxie rolled his eyes and pulled away from the curb. When

he made it to the corner, he stopped at the stop sign and looked

in his rearview mirror. The girl with pink hair darted from the

porch. She hopped on top of the tall white fence, her skinny

legs flailed. She rolled over the top and disappeared behind the

fence.

When Maxie got home his mother was sitting on the posh

maroon couch that sat in the middle of the room and stared at

the glimmering cheery oak hardwood floor. She could see her

relfection, but that’s not what she was trying to find. She

stared intently into her own eyes, she didn’t blink because

blinking makes the moments go by. She was too stuck in one

moment to move to the next one.

The walls in the living room were a sandy beige with

pictures of a family that was not theirs sitting at a picnic

table, letting their skin absorb the summer sun. Even with all

of those smiles in the photograph, happiness seized to exist.

The pain began to curl off of the walls and the picture had

fallen to the floor, it had been there for a while but no one

wanted to pick it up. The glass had splattered all over the

space behind the couch, no one wanted to clean it. Through all

of the glass shards, there is still a poster board family

sitting in a random park in a random town sitting under the same

sun as any other family. Though the destruction had blurred to

image, happiness was still lying under the glass shards.

Maxie’s father was in the kitchen. The kitchen connected to

the living room like a puzzle piece, the space that the living

room didn’t fill, the kitchen did. The kitchen was painted a

generic off white color and the appliances were made of

stainless steel, but whenever someone in the family needed to

talk to someone, they could always find someone sitting in the

kitchen ready to listen; but ever since Michael died, he and his

family had been walking on a crime scene. Maxie’s father stood

in front of the refrigerator, his cell phone was pressed into

his ear. He was staring at all of the photos that were stuck

onto the fridge and begun to pluck off any picture that proved

that Michael ever existed. He was dressed in a blue button down

with a badge sewn onto the front left side. His lips curled at

the end and his teeth showed through the space where his mouth

was ajar with a grotesque elation.

“Who’s that?” Maxie’s lips were tight and his eyebrows

furrowed.

Maxie’s father eyes widened and shoved his phone in his

pocket. “No one,” he spoke in a hushed tone, his voice moved

like the wind.

“Bullshit.”

His father sighed, “I’ve got to go to work,” He began to

step out of the kitchen, but Maxie planted himself into the

floor and his skin became stone. He stood nose to nose with his

maker, their eyes bored into one another. His father could see

the ember in his son’s eyes, burning with an anonymous desire.

“You just got back from your son’s funeral. You don’t have

to go to work,” his words fell like atom bombs, but his father

still stood upright.

“Justice doesn’t take a vacation.”

“Your wife is broken. You’re supposed to fix her.”

“That’s what the therapy is for, Maxwell,” his voice was

tainted with a synthetic nuance and thickened with apathy.

“She needs family. Not a fucking therapist, David.”

“If she needs family so badly, you can console her. She is

your mother.”

“And you’re her husband.”

“I still have to go to work, and you’re making me late.”

“You didn’t care about Mikey when he was alive, I don’t

know why I’m shocked that you don’t care about him now.”

“You don’t know what I feel. You don’t know me at all,” he

pushed past his son. His eyes were intently locked on the front

door. He glared at the woman who sat on the couch, he didn’t

grimace with a sympathy he wished he had. He pushed on until he

felt his hand hit the knob. He opened the door and felt the

dismal clouds hit his face. The sound of rain rang like the

liberty bell. He looked over his shoulder. His son was sitting

next to the woman he didn’t know. His arm was slung over her

shoulder, and their heads were pressed together. He shut the

door behind him and cracked a wide smile.

After Maxie had watched the man frolic out of the hollow

household, he couldn’t bring himself to comfort the woman on the

couch. She hadn’t whimpered in a while, but tears still fell

from her eyes. There were no words to mop up her sadness. His

presence would serve of no purpose and his smile would not bring

her sunshine.

He knew he shouldn’t have, but he had to. He slowly turned

the knob; he prayed the door wouldn’t creak. He didn’t want his

mother to hear him. The room hadn’t aged. There weren’t any

wrinkles on the walls and the rug had not become shagged. The

room was still and the air was stale. He tip toed into the room

and softly pressed the door shut. He scanned the neatly

organized room, there was secret in the silence lingering in the

untouched air.

Neon paint was splattered all over white walls; his

bedspread was an assortment of animal prints and his vanity was

organized chaos. Nic knacks were polka dotted across the space

and pictures of him and an assortment of acquaintances that

didn’t show up to the funeral were taped around the edges of the

mirror.

There was a picture of Maxie and his brother on the top

left corner of the mirror. They were both wet and they were

standing in front of a giant water slide. Maxie couldn’t

remember the park they went to, or rather, he didn’t want to

remember. He could hear the patter of wet feet on concrete as

they raced to the next contraption that they would slip and

slide on.

In the photograph, the sun was out. The sun was in the

corner of the picture like it would have been positioned in a

drawing by a four year old. Michael scribbled sunglasses on the

sun that beamed in the corner of the photograph. Maxie stood

erect and his shoulders were back. He crossed his arms, but he

still smiled. Michael on the other hand, was resting on his left

leg and swung his hips the side, he put his hands on his hips

and puckered his lips.

Maxie cracked a smile at his brother’s youthful

flamboyance. He plucked the picture from the mirror and held it

in his hands. He continued to stare at Michael’s smile as he bit

his bottom lip.

A woman with frizzled brown hair and a frail physique stood

in the doorway. Her lips were tight and cracked when she spoke.

Her eyes were still red and her voice contained a shrill tone

that had barely overcome tears. “Every time I come in here, I’m

constantly reminded of how beautiful Michael’s mind was.

He looked over his shoulder and looked down at the carpet,

unable to see the pain in the woman’s creases that had sewn

themselves onto her face. She inched inside and stared at the

walls as if she was staring at the eighth wonder of the world.

“Michael’s mind wasn’t beautiful, beautiful minds don’t think

about killing themselves.”

“Look at Ernest Hemingway, Van Gough, Virginia Woolf. They

created beauty with their minds and they died at their own hand.

I like to think that Michael was an artist in his own way.”

Maxie sat down on his brother’s bed. The melancholy woman

sat next to him and rested her hand on his shoulder. Her lips

slightly parted, as if she was on the verge of speaking. Maxie

had let his eyes wander to the floor. He curled his hands into

fists and felt himself shiver with such frustration due to his

inability to construct a cure to the situation that had struck

him in the darkest places of his mind. His thoughts began to

race, thinking of too many things at one time, thinking of too

many sinister things at one time. The mind’s ability to overflow

itself with emotion and not shut down is quite beautiful.

“I just don’t understand how he thought dying was the best

thing for him. It was so selfish of him to leave without an

explanation.” He let the weight in his throat ooze from his

lips. He had spent his nights asking himself why. He had spent

too many hours of the day looking for reason. He had relied on

himself for answers he couldn’t find.

The woman sighed and got up and walked out of the room. She

came back after a few moments with an unsealed envelope. “It’s

your brother’s suicide letter.” Her words were flat as she

handed her son the envelope. “It was left on my bed the night I

found him. I couldn’t bring myself to read it because I don’t

want answers. I fear the truth of his death. I want to call it a

suicide, not a murder.” She turned around and trudged out of the

room. She closed the door behind her and let Maxie experience

the final words of his brother.

The envelope was like any other envelope in the world, but

this envelope was different. It may have been light, but it was

heavy with answers he was yearned to find ever since his

brother’s demise. Though everything he could ever want was

gripped between his finger tips, his movements were slow. He

held the envelope as if it were a hand blown glass bottle of

perfume. He tore the top of the envelope as if he was ripping

open someone’s skin. His fingers curled inside of the envelope

and the tear became wider and wider. He could see the loose leaf

notebook paper folded inside of the treasure chest. He pulled

the letter out with such delicacy, as if he were handling a

diamond.

He tentatively unfolded the loose leaf chamber. He couldn’t

get his eyes to focus on the paper. His eyes had been bouncing

all around the page to collect fragments of sentences and form

them into his own meaning without actually having to read the

detailed, possibly sinister truth. He wanted reasons, not to get

inside his brother’s head. He didn’t want to know his brother’s

thought process; he just wanted to know what made him kick the

stool. His eyes fell hard on the first two words, “Dear Mom.” He

knew he shouldn’t have read the letter. It wasn’t intended for

him. This was Michael’s thoughts that were directed towards

their mother, not him. This wasn’t a personal goodbye; this was

an indirect sendoff of his brother’s soul to wherever one goes

after death.

“When I was alive, I would laugh at what the world has

become. There are too many people in this world that seek pain

of others, and call it a treasure. I would say I’m sorry but I

would be lying. I’m not sorry that I’m dead. I’m sorry that you

had to see me dangling from the ceiling. If anything, that is my

greatest regret. I had become someone far more poetic in his

thoughts. Someone far more abstract when it comes to his

identity. My heart has a lock on it, but if you find the key,

you will discover all of my secrets if you really want to know

them. I love you.”

His vision snapped away from the paper and onto the floor

again. He crumpled the piece of paper in his hands and let it

grow cold in his palms. There was a lump in his throat and there

was a rare moment in which his mind became numb. He wanted to

look over the letter again to process each word, but his hand

was clamped shut.

Maxie’s phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He stuck the

letter in his pocket and pulled out his phone, his father’s

number flashed on the screen. “Hello?” his voice was raspy.

“Maxwell. The police are coming for you.”

“What?!” he exclaimed, he hopped off of the bed and ran

over to the window where two cop cars were pulling into his

driveway. He heart sunk down to his stomach, his voice was

shrill when he hollered into the phone, “Why?!”

“I have no idea,” His father hung up the phone.

CHAPTER TWO

With each kiss he could feel the passion diminishing. With

each breathless gasp that was once swooned with lust had begun

to lose its spark that once lit up the blackness in his heart.

Every caress from his soft hand had felt like a stab from a

dagger. His eyes were still as bright as they used to be, but as

he stared into the hazel vortexes he couldn’t help but feel

trapped. His sweat began to taste like poison and his moans

sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Saying his name sounded like

he had killed Michael himself.

As they lay on his bed, curled into one another and

braiding their lips together, the bliss was gone. He pushed him

away and sighed heavily. He turned his head away and looked up

at the ceiling. He pretended his he wasn’t there. He pretended

he was lying in the coffin with Michael, wrapping his arms

around his corpse and admitting his love for him over and over.

He shouldn’t have been wrapped in someone else’s sheets, he knew

that. He could feel all of the blood in his body go still. He

found it physically impossible to turn his head to see the boy

who wasn’t Michael.

The boy propped himself up on his arm and gently grazed his

lover’s shirtless body with his fingers. He spoke tentatively,

processing each word he was about to speak carefully before

releasing them from his lips, “Alfie,” he said breathlessly.

Alfie swatted the boy’s hand away.

“You’ll be okay,” his tongue had poked out from his lips

like a turtle poking his head out from its shell. He sucked his

tongue back in his mouth and spoke with a cautious sigh.

Alfie’s face turned red and he began to chew on his bottom

lip. His eyes became glassy and he shot up from the bed. “I

won’t be okay,” he said. Each word was sharp. He didn’t look at

his lover when he got up. He had kept staring at the pale blue

walls. “The love of my life is dead.”

The boy didn’t say anything. He just kept looking at Alfie

with such a lustful conviction to the point where he truly did

not care that Michael was dead. Of course, he knew he could

never say that out loud, “I thought the funeral would give you

closure,” he said.

“I thought so too,” he finally gained the strength to turn

around at look at his lover. “But true love never dies,” he

said. His voice was soft and his words quivered. He scanned his

lover’s body up and down and couldn’t find the arousal in his

muscles or his abs. He couldn’t bring himself to want to travel

the wonderland of his olive skin and run his fingers through his

lover’s black waves in his hair that was always combed over. He

wanted to climb onto the bed and feel an incessant wave of bliss

crash over him, but he couldn’t. Ever since Michael died,

whenever Alfie got lost in his lover’s eyes, he kept wishing

that they were Michael’s.

“So I’m guessing that whole ‘’til death do us part’ is

bullshit then?” the boy rolled out of the sheets in his

eccentrically colored boxer briefs and walked toward Alfie. He

sighed and laced his voice with sympathy, “I hate seeing you

like this. You’ve been picking dead flowers ever since Mikey

died,” he stood nose to nose with Alfie, his words blew in his

face with fresh breath and an irresistible nuance that was

considered enticing to any human being. “I don’t want to replace

Michael, and I know I never will,” he lightly pressed his lips

into Alfie’s neck. “But I want this moment,” he kissed Alfie’s

neck again and placed his hands gently on Alfie’s waist. “I want

to remind you what it was like,” he trailed up Alfie’s neck and

when he approached Alfie’s lips, he spoke again, “to be happy.

Even if it’s just for a minute,” he pressed his lips against

Alfie’s.

His heart rammed against his ribcage and his stomach

contorted itself in unnatural ways. He could feel his blood b-

lining for his pelvis, but his mind had not been enlightened by

lust. “I can’t do this. Not now.” He pressed his hand against

the boy’s chest and stepped back.

“You had no problem with this when he was alive!” His face

began to overflow with blood and his voice chewed away at Alfie

like a shark eating his prey bit by bit so his victim could feel

the pain.

Alfie’s lips parted, he was going to say something. Words

were erupting in his throat. Words in the form of bullets were

popping in his head. He was going to explode hate from his lips

and spew it onto him like venom, but all that came out was stale

breath. He wanted to reach for his car keys and storm out of the

room, but his feet were imbedded into the floor.

He walked back up to Alfie and grinned with a dark

pleasure. Watching Alfie stand like a statue with his hands

glued to his sides was like watching a peasant crumble at his

feet. His breath was hot against Alfie’s skin, melting his

cinderblock exterior and revealing the beast of the man he truly

was.

“Just relax,” he whispered heavily into his ear, “I’ll take

care of you.” He began to chew on Alfie’s neck and a stray tear

quietly dripped from Alfie’s eye as the boy ran his hands up his

shirt. He couldn’t get over how cold his touch had become. He

glued his eyes shut and winced. He wanted to push him away but

he couldn’t find the strength to tell him no. He was so used to

saying yes all the time at the word had always failed to conjure

itself up in his throat.

When the boy noticed the single tear slowly trudging down

Alfie’s cheek, he had tried to be softer. He cautiously

unbuttoned Alfie’s shirt. With each button that became undone,

Alfie began to curl into himself. His face was wound up tight

and his eyes were closed as if he were trying to escape the

sight of a ghost. As he got to the last button of Alfie’s shirt,

he stared at his exposed chiseled chest and admired his

perfectly creased stomach. He couldn’t bring himself to unbutton

his pants, though he had played with the waistband for a while,

tinkering with the idea of unknotting all of his tense muscles

and feel Alfie melt into his arms. He stared at the face of the

boy who was coiled with distress instead of swooned with

powerful lust. The boy’s hands began to fall slowly, as if they

were regretting their decision to retreat.

Alfie felt the sweet abandonment from the boy’s hands and a

weight had rippled off of his chest. The boy had climbed his way

over to his side of the bed where he collected his clothes and

began dressing himself. Alfie quickly did the same. He fiddled

with his buttons but tried not to seem too eager to want to

cloth himself too quickly. His phone began to chirp on the

nightstand. “Hello,” Alfie said softly, almost in a whisper.

Before he could hear any response, his eyes had softly

fallen upon the boy’s picturesque physique. He had propped

himself up on the bed in a t-shirt and his underwear and watched

Alfie as he raised his phone to his ear. He did not bite his lip

or bat an eyelash, yet Alfie could feel himself twitch. He had

begun to merely observe his movements. Alfie’s mouth had gone

dry and beams of light began to shine behind the boy who had

looking so willing. “You won’t be able to forget about him,” the

boy’s voice occupied Alfie’s ears, “but I can ease the pain, at

least for a while.”

Alfie’s lips had slightly parted in order to restore the

air back in his lungs that were swept away by the boy’s beauty.

He no longer imagined himself holding Michael’s corpse in a

coffin as they lay dying together. He wanted to wrap his arms

around the boy with eyes like wonderland and skin like satin.

When his touch had fallen from Alfie’s body, he began to miss

it. He began to believe that his hand had filled this missing

puzzle piece on his skin.

In his gaze, he could hear a voice ring in his head. “I

can’t give you what he can. Live your life. Don’t die along with

me,” his voice had sounded like a flowers bloom. Alfie began to

crack a smile without the ball and chain of guilt.

“It’s Blythe. Please come over,” her voice was shrill and

it scratched up against his ear drum.

The boy bit his bottom lip and Alfie’s heart hit his

ribcage. Alfie slowly began to unbutton his shirt, “I’m busy

right now,” he hung up the phone. He could feel the Neanderthal

hormones sink in. He threw his phone on the nightstand and

crawled over to his lover.

The kisses began gently. One soft peck after another and

with one deep inhale their lips had slammed into each other for

a blissful kiss with tangled tongues and breathless moans. The

boy had thrown his shirt across the room and Alfie’s shirt had

slid off from his shoulders.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!”

Alfie flung off of the bed and onto the floor. He crawled

to his shirt and sprung up. He threw his shirt on and dove over

to the nightstand to grab his phone. The lust that had

controlled him for a moment was now substituted by an adrenaline

that made his face burn with guilt and embarrassment. He finally

gained his composure and looked around the room. His bedroom

door was closed and the boy was standing on the other side of

the bed with his jaw dropped.

After a few beats, the boy finally spoke, “Dude,” his voice

lingered on for a few more beats, “are you okay?”

He could feel the weight of his sweat resting on his

forehead. His eyes darted around the room, looking for the

source of the yelling that had raged a war within his mind but

the room was hollow. The air had turned thick and his lover’s

eyes were full of anxiety as Alfie’s eyes swung like pendulums

of bewilderment. “I…” he spoke between deep inhales and short

gasps, “I thought someone walked in…” he looked around the room

once more, his mouth was slightly ajar, his chest was rising and

falling at a rapid pace. His palms began to sweat and his hands

began to shake.

“No one is home! You just jumped off the bed and started

freaking out!” the boy spoke with exuberance, he swung his hands

around and his face had begun to flush. He scanned Alfie up and

down, making the panic eerily surreal. “You should go.”

Alfie was astonished by the boy’s blunt words. There was an

unsettling feeling in his stomach. “Call me later, I guess,” was

all Alfie could manage to say. As he trudged out of the door his

eyes were glued to the floor.

“Call me after you bury Michael,” the boy said, resting

himself against the doorframe as Alfie walked down his hallway.

“I thought you were coming with me,” Alfie’s bottom lip

stuck out and his eyes grew wide.

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because-“

“We wouldn’t be seen in public together. That was the

agreement that we made freshmen year. I know you need support,

but I’m only willing to help you behind closed doors. I can’t

let people find out about us,” he turned into his bedroom, he

was about to close the door, but Alfie’s soft words blared

through the hallway.

“I know what it’s like to make someone your secret. I’ve

learned that kissing behind closed doors is much less passionate

than kissing in public. Who you are will never destroy you. It’s

who you have to be that destroys you,” the elegance in his words

danced through the hallway and slid through the crack in the

door. When the boy peered out of the door, Alfie had already

begun walking down the steps. The door had slammed and the dust

had settled.

The rain had begun to rage. Raindrops were swirling in

various directions because of the wind whipping and cutting

through Alfie’s clothes, barely stabling him on the ground.

Alfie climbed into his rusty and dented sedan and turned the key

into the ignition. The engine churned but didn’t roar. Alfie

tried turning the key again, but the engine never flourished.

His eyebrows furrowed and he punched the steering wheel. He

began screaming and slamming his fist against the dashboard. His

whimpers became sonic booms that had dominating the sticky air

in the car. He eventually ran out of energy and rested his

forehead against the edge of the steering wheel. Tears began to

drop from his eyes slowly. He watched each one of them fall into

his lap. His hands began to shake like a baby being washed with

cold water. He began to whisper slurs of Michael’s name and

begging for mercy from God. He knew that his whimpering would

get him nowhere. He knew there was no God to hear his prayers.

He had begun to think that if there was a God, he would have

saved Michael.

He lifted his head up from the steering wheel and through

the raindrop stained passenger’s side window; he could see the

boy standing in the doorframe. His house was the largest home on

the residential suburban street and yet he could only see the

boy standing in the doorway. His eyes narrowed to see the boy

grinning. He couldn’t tell if he was grinning because he found

Alfie’s car troubles comical or he was happy to watch him leave.

Alfie dialed the boy’s number, he watched him put the phone

up to his ear, “My car’s dead,” he said, his voice sagged with

defeat.

“I can see that,” the boy replied.

“Can you give me a ride home?”

The boy sighed and nodded. He hung up the phone and

retreated inside for his car keys.

The boy’s car was a name brand car that shimmered even with

the rain crashing down on it. The inside was black leather and

even though the car was almost a year old, it still had that

nauseating new car smell. Alfie threw the boy’s textbooks in the

backseat because they had been resting in the passenger’s seat.

He sat down and the boy climbed in. The engine roared and he

drove Alfie home in silence.

They pulled up to Alfie’s apartment building and let him

out. “Come and get your car tomorrow, I’ll jump wire it and you

can get a new battery.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded with a warm grin.

Alfie got out of the car and ran inside of the big brick

building that had vines slowly engulfing the structure. Most of

the tenants were senior citizens who barley left their

apartments, others were popular drug dealers that had people

coming in and out of their apartment at all hours of the night.

He walked into his apartment and saw a man in a suit, heavy

gelled black hair and glasses sitting at the outdated oak dining

table that his mother had bought at a yard sale. The man had a

nose like a toucan and eyes like a baby lemur. He had olive skin

and hands that were covered in liver spots. His hair was rimmed

with silver and his skin looked like leather and sagged.

Next to him was Blythe, Alfie knew her because of Michael

and they were quite familiar with one another. Alfie’s mother

sat with them, her eyes were red and her face twitched

occasionally. When Alfie walked in she jumped from the table and

scurried into her room without saying a word.

“What’s this about?” Alfie asked. He took a seat next to

Blythe and stared at the hunched back man that sat on the other

side of the table.

“This is Mr. Angelus,” Blythe said, she always had a thick

Brooklyn accent when she spoke even though she was born in

Scotland. “He’s the principle at our school.”

“I know who he is, why’s he here?”

Mr. Angelus pressed his rectangle framed glasses up the

ridge of his nose before he spoke, “I want to help raise

awareness for situations like this.”

Alfie tentatively sat in a chair and glared at the

principle, “What are you proposing?”

“I think the school should start an anti-bullying club. I

want the students to realize this tragedy and try to avoid this

from happening again.”

“Someone killed them self, this isn’t 9/11. There’s no need

for a constant reminder of what happened. Suicide happens every

day. The local news won’t even run the story because it’s so

common. No one even cares because the public sees it as another

gay youth succumbing to the pressure of being ‘different’,”

Alfie spoke with straight lips and a rigid glare.

“I would beg to differ Alfred-“

“It’s Alfie.”

“My apologies, Alfie,” he erected his back and lifted his

chin up as if he were trying to balance something on his nose.

“I believe that a constant reminder is what these students need.

There is no better time to implement this club and its purpose.”

“Michael isn’t even in the ground yet and you want to

glorify his death?”

Blythe finally cut in, “It’s not glorifying his death,

Alfie. This club is meant to avenge him and help prevent the

torture that Michael was exposed to from happening to anyone

else.”

“So it takes a suicide to realize how careless the school

is? Silly me,” his lips curled into a thoughtless grin, “I

thought that you could see it through our test scores or our

cliques in the lunch room. I guess not,” his face overflowed

with blood and his eyebrows began to contort with fury, “It

takes someone hanging themselves for someone to realize that

they could have done something.”

“You can’t blame the school Alfie,” Blythe said. Alfie’s

eyes trailed over to the girl, he focused on her freckles that

were splatter on her face to avoid looking her in the eyes.

“Michael didn’t ask for help. None of us knew what he was

feeling. All we can do is use this experience to empower

others.”

“Why did you come to me with this Mr. Angelus?” Alfie

redirected his gaze to the man who had been thoroughly

entertained by watching the two teenagers bicker.

“I want you to run it Alfie. A star athlete being the face

of a new club would sure help get people to join,” he gave a

toothless grin.

Alfie looked at Blythe, then to the principle, the back to

Blythe. She was smiling and nodding, but Alfie’s face of stone

fury did not crack. “I’ll join, but I’m not running it.”

“I’ll run it,” Blythe said too eagerly. She nearly rose

from her seat to proclaim it.

Mr. Angelus nodded to Blythe’s request, “the first meeting

will be this Wednesday after school. Tell your friends,” Mr.

Angelus rose from the table and Alfie showed him to the door.

Before he grabbed the doorknob, he craned his neck and said,

“Good day.”

He opened the door for Mr. Angelus but didn’t wish his

principle a nice sendoff he just glared at the man as he walked

out of the apartment. Alfie sighed and walked back into the

small makeshift dining room.

Blythe was still sitting at the table when Alfie came back.

She looked at him with a yellow toothed smile and blinked like a

china doll.

“Are you going to leave too?”

Blythe’s eyes slowly fell upon the table and twiddled her

long fingers together. She clicked her long fingernails against

one another. When she finally found what to say, she looked up

and spoke with a defeated voice, “I thought we should hang out,

like we used to.”

“We only hung out because Mikey wanted to drag you around,”

he could feel the venomous words leaking from his lips as he

spoke with disgust.

She looked down again, her smile collapsed into a frown,

her mouth was slightly ajar, as if she were going to say

something.

“BE NICE TO HER ASSHOLE!”

He clapped his hands against his ears and growled with

frustration. The ringing of the voice that came from thin air

had once again haunted his mind once again.

“Are you okay?” Blythe rose from her chair and slowly

inched her way over to Alfie.

“Can you please leave?” Alfie groaned and he let his hands

slowly fall from his ears. His eye had fallen into an ominous

trance and he slowly walked into his bedroom. He weakly pushed

his bedroom door shut, leaving Blythe in the dining room. He

collapsed on his bed and closed his eyes.

His mind had traveled into a nonexistent future. He and

Michael were holding hands in school. They were walking down the

hallway and no one was looking at them. The crowded hallways

were no longer cluttered with societal puppets, but they were

filled with open minded humans. Humanity had begun to flourish

throughout the hallways as no one acknowledged the two boys

holding hands walking down the hallway. When the bell rings, and

Michael must release his lover’s hand so he can go to class, he

imagines kissing him so passionately in the middle of the

hallway. He imagines holding his waist closely to his and

letting the warmth of each other’s smiles as they kissing,

radiate throughout the wide hallway. In his imagination, as they

kiss in the middle of a crowded hallway, no one looks at them.

No one sneers or spits and no one cheers and calls them brave.

They just let them kiss.

There was a light knock on the door. Alfie’s eyes sprung

open and a small voice crept through the crack on the door,

“I’ll see you at the burial tomorrow.” Footsteps had followed

the voice and the front door had clicked shut.

Alfie closed his eyes again and saw Michael sitting at his

own grave. He saw him sitting in front of his own tombstone with

a chopped up Misfits tank top and ripped skinny jeans. He was

sitting under a grey sky while he was smoking a cigarette. He

kept his forearm to the sky so God could see his scars. He

flicked the spare ashes onto his grave and stared out into the

distant graves that would soon become his neighbors.

Sitting next to the Michael with scars and a cigarette was

a Michael with bright eyes and vibrant clothes, resting his back

against his tombstone writing in his notebook. He always kept

his forearm to the ground because he was ashamed of his scars.

His eyes were so concentrated on his notebook that he didn’t

notice Alfie sitting in front of his tombstone on his knees. He

pet the ground just to feel close to Michael again. When Alfie

whimpered, both Michaels stared directly at him. He could see

bright Michael smiling at him; the other Michael had kept a

straight face and continued to puff on his cigarette.

When Alfie looked up at the two Michaels, his eyes had

widened and so had his smile. He stood up and walked up to the

duo. He immediately sat next to the Michael with a notebook in

his hand. The Michael smoking a cigarette rolled his eyes and

stared up in the sky. Alfie had begun to lean toward the other

Michael with his eyes closed and his lips puckered. When he felt

the absence of Michael’s lips, he opened his eyes to see the

Michael in the Misfits shirt. The other Michael had disappeared.

“Where did he go?” Alfie asked.

“He was never here,” Michael inhaled a puff from a

cigarette and blew the smoke in Alfie’s face.

Alfie woke up, breathing heavily and a bead of sweat

rolling down his face. His eyes had swung from one corner of his

small room to the next. His room had become a mess since Michael

died, the pictures of him and Michael that stood that the top of

his dresser had been flipped over and his clothes were

splattered all over his floor and he had taken down all of the

posters on his walls. His walls were ivory and blank without the

colors of the band posters. Staring at his walls was like

staring into the eyes of a dead person.

He got up from his bed and walked over to his dresser. He

picked up a picture of Michael kissing Alfie on the cheek. “He

was never here,” Alfie said as he ripped the photo in half.

CHAPTER THREE

The cops sat on the red leather couch. One had dark skin

dark eyes. His nose took up half of his face and his eyebrows

were thick. He had a stomach like an oversized beach ball and he

had the voice of a preacher. “Maxwell Doyle,” he said. He

slapped a manila folder on the glass top coffee table.

“I prefer Maxie,” he said flatly. He was sitting on one of

the chairs that he had dragged over from the dining room. His

mother sat next to him, but kept sat like a statue. She kept

looking at each cop, analyzing their every feature. She had

wrapped herself in a quilt that was in her room even though the

room wasn’t cold.

The other cop was pasty and scrawny. He had a pencil neck

and a mouth like a Pez dispenser. He had freckles and light

eyes. His eyelashes hit his eyebrows and he spoke like he lived

in a trailer park. “You’re not in trouble,” he said.

“If I knew I was in trouble, I wouldn’t have let you in,”

Maxie looked at the looked over to the dark skinned cop and

said, “What do you want?”

“I’m Officer Jones,” he said, “and that’s Officer Sweeny,”

he swung his chin towards the other cop. He opened the folder

and took out a few photographs. He spread them out across the

table. Maxie looked over the pictures and saw that they all had

a common theme: the girl with the pink hair. One picture was the

girl in a black hooded sweatshirt looking over her shoulder, her

face was blank and she wasn’t staring at anything in particular.

Another picture was her getting into Maxie’s truck and the last

one was of her sitting on the stone steps of the church, she was

looking down and her pink hair had dangled over her face. She

must have been waiting for the funeral to start. “Her name is

Adelaide Watson. She’s a runaway. We’ve been looking for her for

almost six months now.”

Maxie’s eye widened and he focused on the picture of her

getting into his car. Someone had been far behind Maxie’s truck

on the road but still managed to get a decent shot of the girl

with the pink hair standing up from the curb and grabbing onto

the handle of Maxie’s truck. “Where did you get these

pictures?”

“An anonymous source,” Officer Jones answered too quickly.

“Is the crime rate in this town so low that the cops’ main

priority is to catch a girl who doesn’t want to be found?”

“We just want to know where you dropped her off,” Officer

Jones said, his voice was low and rolled like a waterfall

skimming over rocks.

“It was a townhouse. She knocked on the door and someone

let her in. I drove away before I could get a clear look.”

“Could you tell us where this townhouse was?”

“I don’t know. She made me take so many turns I barely even

knew where I was going.”

Jones looked at Maxie, then to his partner then back to

Maxie. He sighed and collected the photos into the manila

folder. He stood and readjusted his belt, “Thank you for your

time,” he said. He stuck out his hand but Maxie didn’t reach for

it. Instead, he stood and walked back up to his room. His mother

led the officers to the door and bid them farewell.

Maxie’s mother looked up at him as he walked up the stairs.

He could feel his mother’s gaze scratching at his heels. He

stopped in his tracks and swung his head over to meet his

mother’s eyes. Her bottom lip shook, but his lips stayed still.

The wrinkles on her face had begun to shift downward, but all

Maxie could do was stare. He tried to pity her, but he couldn’t

pity someone who shared the same emotion as he did. He wanted to

stomp down the stairs and let his mother melt into his arms, but

he stood in the middle of the staircase.

Her eyes eventually began to feel heavy. She shut them with

a heavy sigh, “we have to go through his things after his

burial,” she said weakly.

Maxie nodded. He looked at his mother one last time and

softly tip toed up the stairs, as if he didn’t want to be heard.

Maxie walked past his brother’s room while walking down the

hallway. He left the door open so he could always see what was

going on inside, even though the room was as empty as his

brother’s body. He slowly walked by and analyzed each detail of

the room as if he was never going to see it again. Once he

walked past the room, he felt like he didn’t stare at it long

enough. Before he knew it he was standing in the doorframe,

looking at the secret wonders of his brother’s abandoned

belongings.

He took a step into his brother’s room and felt the air

grow cold. His eyes traced the room like he had discovered an

ancient tomb. He stared at the vanity and frowned at finding

himself standing in the middle of his brother’s room. He pitied

himself for pretending that he would find Michael lying on his

bed listening to really bad pop music and writing in his

journal.

Maxie stared at himself in the vanity mirror and slowly

walked towards his reflection. He tilted his head forward and

leaned into the mirror to be toe to toe with his reflection. It

was the only time he realized that he had truly looked like

Michael. They both shared the same jade green eyes and both a

smile like a budding flower. His eyes fell down upon a picture

of Michael and him when they graduated eighth grade. They were

both in a blue and gold cap and gown, they were both grinning

next to each other. At the time, Maxie had just discovered the

gym, which was why is shoulders were broader than his brother’s.

Nonetheless, Maxie looked at the glimmer in both of their eyes

and saw the similarity that he never saw in pictures. They both

were truly happy in that moment, when they high on stories of

how opportunistic high school is and how much freedom you gain

when you go to high school. They would later realize, in the

most destructive way possible, that those stories were absolute

bullshit.

He backed away from the vanity when his phone rang. He

pulled it out from the back pocket and looked at the Caller ID.

He rolled his eyes and answered, “What do you want Alfie?”

“I want some of Michael’s things,” after a few beats, his

voice became shaky, “please.”

He sneered at his phone and sat on his brother’s bed; he

curled his hands into his blankets and sunk into his mattress.

“No,” the word puffed out of his mouth like cigarette smoke.

There was a long pause and then a deep, watery sigh,

“Please,” he said, “I need to know that the Michael I knew

existed.”

“If he hadn’t died, he still would have been your dirty

little secret,” his words came out like molasses, “You said at

the funeral that you fell in love with him,” his bit his lip as

he felt his body collide into a wave of fury, “then why did you

only come out of the closet after he died?!” He felt his vein

emerging from his neck; his face became a furnace of untamed

anger. “Did you find it liberating to see someone die for who

they were? You sent Michael out into a war with no weapons and

you told him to come back to you when the coast was clear. Well

now look, Alfie, the coast was never clear and now my brother is

dead because you couldn’t hold his fucking hand while you were

walking down the hallway! We all knew you two were fucking! Your

relationship was no secret! Not to me, not to anyone! My room

was right next to his, you know that?! I could hear you two

moaning and grunting while you were supposed to be studying! I

would rather put my ear up to my wall and hear my brother having

sex than not hearing anything at all! You don’t deserve any

memorabilia. You barely even deserve the memories you have with

him. Leave me and my family alone!”

Alfie hung up abruptly. Maxie pushed his phone away from

his ear and dropped it in his lap. He felt his chest rising up

and down and his body had been coiled by adrenaline. He stood up

from his brother’s bed, his hands began to shake and his legs

had begun to have spasms like a dancing puppet. Tears of lava

dripped from his eyes and his eyebrows had furrowed ferociously.

The vein in his neck had refused to subside and his face burned

like a wildfire.

He ran up to the vanity and threw a punch backed by too

many tears. His fist slammed into the mirror and caused an

eruption of rage. The mirror dashed and divided like daffodil

seeds in a spring breeze. He tore all of the drawers out of his

vanity and let the contents rain all over the room. He lifted

the box spring on his bed and flipped it over. He slammed his

fists in the walls and made holes so that when he was done, he

could connect the dots of his damage and bask in it.

After assessing the damage he had done, he smiled knowing

that this room was no longer the room that he feared coming in.

This room was no longer Michael’s because it bared no

resemblance to his old room. On top of a pile of clothes was a

journal. It had paid its dues but the spiral had kept all of the

pages together and there was a small plastic padlock on it to

keep the front and back cover from going astray. On the cover,

there were cut outs of pop sensations and a big red heart in the

center of it. Maxie’s eyes widened and his jaw scrapped the

floor. His body had quickly come back into itself. Maxie looked

at the journal as if he had struck gold. He knelt down and

grabbed the notebook with two hands as if it were a priceless

medallion. His memory had struck him, “My heart has a lock on

it, but if you find the key, you will discover all of my secrets

if you really want to know them.”

His hands began to shake as he tried to comprehend that

there was a story inside of those pages. He tried to understand

that in his hands, there was a motive for his death and the

criminals’ identities lie inside of each swipe of a pen. Michael

had always had his nose dug deep into the notebook while he was

alive. Maxie cradled the last link to his brother in his hands.

He held it like a new born child and pressed it against his

chest.

There was a gasp in the doorframe which made Maxie swing

around. He caught sight of his mother, who scanned the room with

wide eyes and a dropped jaw. “Max…” his mother’s voice trailed

off into the air, where it evaporated and fell upon a boy who

was too astonished to hear anything other than his own racing

thoughts. His mother walked up to him, she stared at her son.

His eyes were closed as if he was reminiscing. His head was

tilted back ever so slightly, as if he were trying to balance

something on his nose. His mother didn’t say anything to him;

she just wrapped her arms around her son. She attempted to fill

her son up with warmth, but as she rested her chin on her son’s

shoulder, she could hear his heart racing. “Max,” she said

again. Maxie still didn’t flinch at the sound of his name.

“Max,” she said again. She let go of her son and stared at him,

her eyes traced the outline of his body. Her eyes focused on the

notebook pressed against her son’s chest. “What is that?” She

reached for the notebook, but Maxie quickly snapped out of his

trance and swatted his mother’s hand away.

Maxie craned his neck downward like he was rusty cogs

clinking in his bones. “I’m sorry,” he spoke in almost a

whisper. “I’ll clean this up,” he said. He turned around and

walked out of the room, staring at his feet with every step he

took.

His mother watched him leave, but did not follow him.

Instead, she had dug her feet into the mask of knick knacks and

clothes that blanketed the floor. She hung her head low and

rested her hands on her rosy cheeks. The destruction that

plagued the ownerless room had broken the last thread that

connected the shredding pieces of her heart. She didn’t want to

have to pick up all of these things and process each memory that

each item held. “You’re not supposed to bury your child,” she

whimpered. She grabbed the golden cross necklace wrapped around

her neck and grabbed onto it as if the energy from the cross

could rippled throughout her body and heal the pain of her dead

son through the power of God.

The jingle of the doorbell rang throughout the house.

Maxie’s mother snapped into an erect stance and pushed herself

out of her son’s room. She didn’t close the door behind her. She

let the thickness of her son’s tarnished room form a grey cloud

over her head. She traveled through the treacherous land of the

living room, the doorbell rang again but it didn’t quicken her

pace. Her hands were still covering her mouth and her eyes still

stared at the floor as if a path of crumbs were leading her to

the front door.

When she put her hand on the doorknob, she didn’t bother to

ask who it was. She opened the door and half hoped that it was a

man with a gun. “Mrs. Doyle,” the voice had felt like rain

against windows. It whirled through the air like ashes from a

campfire and landed softly like a feather falling upon soil.

She pulled her eyes up from the floor and saw a man in a

white lab coat. His circle framed glasses were too big for his

face and his nose was narrow and came to a sharp point. His lips

were thin and his chin was as pristine as a diamond’s edge. Her

eyes had brightened and her mouth twitched, “Doctor Cerva,”

relief had stabbed her in the stomach and sanity had poisoned

her brain. “We weren’t supposed to meet until next week.”

The doctor had let himself in and Maxie’s mother rolled out

the red carpet for him. “I know, but I knew that today was the

wake for your son and I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“But I’m not alone doctor, my son is home.”

The doctor sat on the couch, “come on Mrs. Doyle, you know

that’s not what I mean.” He tapped the empty space on the couch

with his hand and Maxie’s mother obliged.

“I wish I would have known you were coming-“

“It’s all right Mrs. Doyle, I’m not here as a guest, I’m

here as your therapist.”

Maxie’s mother nodded. She licked her lips and kept her

eyes on the doctor.

“So tell me how the wake went.”

She explained to him how various people went up to speak

about Michael. “Alfred came,” she said, her eyes then flickered

to the floor.

“And how did you feel about that?” He pushed his glasses up

the bridge of his nose. He took out a pad and took a pen out of

his pocket. He began to jot down squiggles of absolute

irrelevance and scribbled lines of invisible meaning across the

page.

“I wanted to thank him for coming and speaking, but I

couldn’t find the strength.”

“How does this weakness that you were feeling make you feel

in this moment?” His eyes never left his pad. He had mastered

the art of swishing his hand to mock the act of painting helpful

notes on the white piece of barren paper.

“It’s almost like I regret it,” she sighed. She looked at

the doctor in hope of eye contact, but his eyes were still glued

to his notepad. “I wish I would have gone up to Alfred and

invited him over for dinner or something,” her mouth hung

slightly ajar and her wrinkles and puckered at her lips. “He

lost someone important just like we did.”

“The fact that you didn’t, how does that make you feel?”

His voice had begun to hum like a depressed bumblebee. His back

had begun to curve and the diamond rimmed watch on his wrist

began to tick louder and louder.

The ticks had begun to rattle the household, but Maxie’s

mother had managed to make ear muffs out of her guilt, “it makes

me feel selfish. I feel like I was caring about my own grief. I

guess I have to understand that more people are involved in

this.”

“Who else do you consider to be involved?” the doctor

finally lifted his head and stared at the woman who sat on the

couch with a straight back and a poked out chest.

Maxie’s mother had inhaled before speaking, when words were

about to blow out of the space between her lips, footsteps had

trickled down the staircase. Maxie had appeared at the base of

the steps still cradling his brother’s secrets in his arm.

“Max,” Maxie’s mother yelped but had blanketed it in a

smile. “What are you doing down here?” Her eyes had swung from

the doctor to her son. Her lip began to twitch into a smile and

she rested her hands on her thigh.

“Is this Maxwell?” the doctor asked with a gasp.

Maxie’s mother reluctantly nodded.

“I’ve heard much about you Maxwell-“

“It’s Maxie.”

His lips had curled into a grin in which is yellow tainted

teeth glimmered in the dull light of the living room, “you’re a

very handsome boy. You look just like your brother.”

Maxie’s face had contorted with confusion. His lips

scrunched together and his eyes had become blanketed with

question marks.

Maxie’s mother’s eyes widened. She pressed her hands to her

face to hide the blushing.

“How do you know what my brother looks like?” Maxie asked.

“He and I had several sessions together,” his words came

out smooth but weighed Maxie down into the recliner next to the

couch.

“What the fuck do you mean you had sessions with him?”

“Maxie watch your mouth!” His mother cut in.

His face exploded into flames. He clutched the ends of the

chair as the journal fell in his lap and his eyes became glassy.

He spoke like machine gun bullets, “No! What the fuck do you

mean you had sessions with him?!” He clutched the notebook from

his lap and violently pushed himself up from the chair and stood

over the doctor.

“Doctor I’m so sorry-“

“No, no Mrs. Doyle,” he turned to Maxie’s mother, his

statue mind set had not felt the heat of raging fire that stood

in front of him. “This type of reaction is normal. Many patients

of mine experience anger and tend to attack the nearest person

so they don’t blame themselves. Blaming yourself is much more

destructive than blaming others.” He turned back to the boy who

he had just unraveled, “Isn’t that right Maxie?”

Maxie’s chest felt gently back into place. He clenched his

fists but his face went back to its olive shade. “You could have

helped him. If you didn’t try to stick to statistics and

actually try to understand his sadness you could have saved him.

Real doctors treat the symptoms not the disease.”

“Well, my white coat and my PhD tell me that I am indeed a

real doctor and my services have been proven to be quite

effective.”

“My brother killed himself under your care. You obviously

fucking suck at your job.”

The Doctor rose from the couch. He sighed and looked at the

floor. When he finally computed what to say he looked back up at

Maxie. They stood nose to nose; they could feel the breath of

the other. They could hear the other person inhaling and

exhaling. “Your brother was queer.” He turned to my mother and

said, “Mrs. Doyle, I know this wasn’t a scheduled appointment

but I will notify the insurance company of this session so they

can pay me. I will technically put this down as two sessions.”

Maxie’s mother nodded and led him to the door. The Doctor

walked to the door with a smile of stone. Maxie watched him trot

away. He couldn’t understand his explanation for his brother’s

death, yet it was so clear to him at the same time. There were

all of these anti-bullying videos that they showed in school

about gay kids killing themselves. They all thought those videos

were a load of bullshit. Just like everything else that high

school feeds their students. But no one truly understands the

power of suicide until it becomes personal. To them, Michael is

just an empty desk that will soon be filled by someone who never

knew that he existed. He will soon become a shadow of who he

truly was. His memory will be stored in the back pocket for

some, completely dissolved for others and a ball and chain for

Maxie.

“He’s a real fucking miracle worker,” Maxie grumbled. He

walked up the stairs and made no bother to feel the weight of

his mother’s whimpers. He walked down the narrow hallway and

pressed the notebook to his heart. His head craned toward the

only open door in the hallway. He looked into what used to be

his brother’s room. He stared for a little too long before

something inside of him dragged his feet forward. After what

seemed like hours, he finally passed the open door. He felt the

warmth of the notebook against his chest as he walked into his

room.

His room was nothing spectacular, there were numerous

football stars hung up on the walls and all he had was a

mattress and a box spring on top of a white bed frame. His floor

was a white carpet polka dotted with jerseys and shorts. He

found tranquility in simplicity. He closed the door behind him

and locked it. He looked at the notebook as a warm tension of

curiosity radiated throughout the room.

He tried pulling on the plastic padlock, but the secrets

wanted to stay hidden. He bit his bottom lip and yanked on it

even harder. The plastic rattled, but secrets wanted to stay

hidden. His eyebrows furrowed and he pulled on it as if he were

Arthur trying to the sword out of a stone. He screamed and

pegged the notebook at the wall. He heard something crack and

his heart began to flutter. He walked across his room to see a

dent in his wall. The notebook and the plastic padlock had

stayed perfectly intact.

CHAPTER FOUR

Alfie didn’t wear black at the burial. He had dressed as if

a rainbow had wrapped around his clothes and exploded its colors

onto each article of clothing. His blazer was a bright red and

he wore a striking yellow button down underneath it. He wore

blue dress pants and ivory shoes. Everyone stared at him, he

couldn’t assess if it was awe of disgust, but he accepted both

reactions.

There was a circle of black that crowded around the coffin.

The people in black attire were Michael’s aunts, uncles and

cousins along with his grandparents. Alfie had stood out like a

sore thumb; his colors had not mixed well with the darkness of

his surroundings. The volume of his clothes had boomed

throughout the graveyard and magnified the hushed judgmental

whispers. Adelaide had originally stuffed her hair into a black

hat just to hush the outrageousness of her hair color against

the wave of black. But when she saw Alfie standing like a sore

thumb with a smile on his face, she let two thick strands of

pink hair fall from her hat. Her lips curled at the edges to

form a mysterious smile. Maxie stared at both of them with hard

eyes and a straight mouth.

A withered white man who believed in a dead God whispered

words from the fictional novel that shunned Michael for who he

was. Maxie’s mother stood on the opposite side of the coffin and

glared at Alfie. She held her son’s hand and squeezed it tightly

and with her opposite hand she grabbed onto the golden cross

around her neck.

Soon after the old man had been silenced, he rolled his

eyes and walked away. When Maxie listened closely, he heard the

old man scoffing about fags and the bible. Maxie and his mother

stuck around the coffin as most people dispersed. Alfie, Blythe

and Adelaide stayed as well. They all stared at the box with a

claimed soul inside of it. Their lips trembled with words that

they meant to say.

Maxie looked at Adelaide with wide eyes. He bit his bottom

lip to keep his jaw from dropping. “It’s a shame your father

couldn’t be here,” Maxie’s mother whispered. “I think he’s taken

Michael’s death the hardest.” She caught her son staring at the

girl with pink hair and slapped him gently on the arm, “this is

no time to be drooling over girls, Maxwell,” she whispered

violently.

Maxie snapped out of his trance, he looked at his mother,

and then stared at the ground. Maxie’s mother couldn’t refrain

from staring at Alfie, her words hard blew out of her lips like

a blizzard, “Alfie,” his head poked up from his gaze at the

coffin, their eyes met and her lips curled upwards, “would you

like to come to dinner at our house tonight?”

His eyes widened, he spoke tentatively. He saw Maxie’s

angered glare at his mother that she seemed to ignored, “I don’t

think I can Ms. Doyle,” he licked his lips and shoved his hands

in his pockets, “thank you for the offer though.” He spun around

and walked away with fear in his step.

“Can I come?” Blythe asked with a bright yellow smile. Her

voice had been laced with butterflies and rainbows. She stood on

her toes and swung her hands behind her back.

Ms. Doyle’s lips fell flat and nodded, “yes, dear. We start

eating at six.”

Blythe nodded, “see you at six!” she skipped away, leaving

a trail of terminal happiness behind her.

After a few silent moments, Maxie inhaled deeply and

whispered, “Mom, can you give me a minute?”

His mother nodded and trudged away. When she was out of

hearing range, he spoke, “I didn’t know you were a fugitive,

Adelaide.”

“First of all, it’s Addie,” she sneered. “Second of all,

I’m not a fugitive; I’m a runaway, asshole.”

“You know the cops are looking for you, right?” He walked

over to her to consolidate the volume of the conversation.

“They’re not looking,” she looked around the graveyard as

if she was trying to look for someone who was watching her,

“they know exactly where I am,” she spoke like a sonic boom and

flailed her arms like broken wings.

“Then why did they come to my house yesterday?” He grabbed

her flailing arm and pinned it to her side. Her face became

tickled with pink and her top lip twitched. She let him hold her

arm for a few beats to long. He swatted his arm away and after a

few awkward beats, she spoke.

“To make it look like they’re looking for me.”

“Why would they stage that?” He shoved his hands in his

pockets.

“They’re cops, but my parents hired them as private

investigators. The longer they spend looking for me, the more

money they make. I’ve run into them so many times, but they

don’t care.” She began to walk away, she turned her head over

her shoulder and grinned at him “I would assume you would have

known that, since your dad is a cop.” She turned her head back

and looked at the graves that lied in front of her. She began to

walk in between grave stones.

Maxie quickly walked over to her, “how did you know that?”

He was by her side and she stopped walking. She stared into his

eyes and grinned.

“I know everything about everyone in this town. People

aren’t hard to read, you just have to open the book,” she

swaggered away. Maxie didn’t walk after her even though every

bone in his body wanted to.

He turned to see his mother kneeling in front of Michael’s

coffin. A scraggly old man with saggy skin and overalls holding

a shovel approached her. He placed a hand gently on her shoulder

and whispered something through his thin lips. His mother nodded

and stood up. She trudged away, not bothering to look over her

shoulder to see that her son was watching her. She kept looking

down at the ground and walked aimlessly. Her figure had become a

small black dot as Maxie watched her walk through the gate. He

began to feel his feet moving backwards, her figure became

smaller and smaller. Addie’s became larger and larger.

Addie was sitting on the ground with her back against a

stranger’s gravestone. When Maxie found her, she had lit a

cigarette and began puffing. She had taken her beanie off and

released the untamed mane that was her pink hair. When she heard

the approaching footsteps, she did not flinch. She looked up and

lifted her cigarette carton to him. “Want one?” she asked as

smoke leaked from her nostrils. The undersides of her eyes were

scribbled with thick eyeliner that had managed to stay intact

throughout the burial. Her black lipstick and her skin against

her black sweater had made her skin look ivory. Her legs were

masked by black skinny jeans and combat boots. Her fingernails

were claws and they were painted black.

As he sat down next to her he rested his back on the grave

stone next to her, which was only a few inches away. He rejected

the cigarette and she tucked it back in her pocket. They didn’t

say anything for a while; they stared out into the distant land

of the dead. “I used to have to buy your brother his own pack of

cigarettes because he would smoke mine in one hour,” she

grinned. She took another drag of her cigarette. Maxie winced at

the smell but admired the way the smoke blew angelically from

the space between her lips.

“I didn’t know my brother smoked,” Maxie watched the

cigarette smoke float through the air like a toxic cloud.

“You didn’t know a lot of things about your brother,” she

looked over to Maxie who was staring at the ground. His gaze was

nearly irate. He pushed his knees up to his chin and rested his

hands on his knees.

“You’re wrong,” his voice was stale. “I knew a lot of

things about my brother.”

“Whatever you know is probably a lie,” she looked at the

cigarette in between her fingers and took another puff.

“You don’t know what I know.” He looked at her with soft

eyes but his voice was stern. He looked at her with a certain

perplexed conviction but masked his with a straight mouth. His

eyes bounced around her as he tried to picture what her and

Michael’s friendship was like. He imagined Michael and her

sitting in the same position they were in, smoking cigarettes

and talking about how much they hate the world. He imagined

Michael dressed in his vibrantly colored clothes that he paraded

around in, sitting next to her darkness. They must have been

like yin and yang, or something of the sort. Or maybe she sucked

the innocence out of him and made him the cynical person that he

died as. Maybe it was not his hand that wrote the suicide

letter, but a hand that Addie’s contemptuous philosophies had

created. Maybe she was a vampire without the cape; a lonely soul

willing to suck the life out of someone lively and naïve “I have

the truth,” he said in almost a whisper, like he didn’t want her

to hear it.

She scoffed, “Truth in Michael is like saying there’s

beauty in rape.”

His eyes narrowed, “what makes you say that?”

“I’ve noticed that there are many sides to Michael. Too

many sides, if you ask me.”

“But he had a journal. It’s full of all of his secrets and

his deepest thoughts. It says so in his suicide letter-“

“Holy shit, he left a letter?” Her eyes widened and she

nearly dropped the cigarette between her fingers in

astonishment.

“Yeah, but there wasn’t much in it.”

“What did it say?”

“Nothing important.”

“What do you mean nothing important? Everyone’s last words

are the most important words a person could say, or in this

case, write.”

“It’s not what he said that counts. It’s about what he left

behind. There was no truth in that letter; I think that the

journal has all of Michael’s honest thoughts written in these

pages. This is my last connection to him.” He pulled the journal

out of his jacket. He handed it to her and she examined it. She

stared at it for a few silent moments and grinned at its

eccentric cover. The smile quickly faded, as if she knew she

wasn’t supposed to smile. She took another drag of her cigarette

before she spoke.

“What’s stopping you from reading it?”

Maxie sighed, “I can’t get it open,” he grabbed the small

plastic padlock and tugged on it once more.

She looked up at him and rubbed her cigarette in the grass,

“maybe it’s for the best.”

He shrugged out of a loss of words. He figured that there

was some reason the lock wouldn’t open. He supposed that the

universe didn’t want him to know the truth about his brother, if

there ever was one. Maxie never truly believed in the power of

the universe until now. Believing that the universe has powers

would break down the walls of simplicity that he had once built,

even though the course of events that have taken place over the

past month had put a severe crack in them.

Addie rose from the ground and stretched, “well it’s been

nice talking to you, but I’ve gotta go. People to see, drugs to

do,” she began to trot away looking up at the gray sky as if

there were stars out.

“Drugs can kill you,” Maxie called out. He grinned with

rosy cheeks.

She turned around and smiled, “you’ve gotta die somehow.”

She winked and continued on her merry way. She frolicked through

the tombstones and became a small little dot of a figure in the

distance that Maxie could not take his eyes off of.

He leaned his back against a stranger’s tombstone. He

scanned the array of graves that were plotted on small rolling

hills. Some of the tombstones in front of him had dead flowers

limp and withered lying before their gravestones. Something

inside of him twitched at knowing that Michael’s tombstone is

going to be just like everyone else’s. He knew that for the

first few months he and his mother will bring flowers and plant

them so that his grave will look lively, but sooner or later,

they would forget to come tend to the flowers in front of his

grave. The flowers would die and his body would soon turn into

dust. Becoming forgotten is not something Michael wanted to

become, but it’s going to happen. He knew that people close to

him will not forget him, but he also knew that his classmates

will only remember his death for a few months, and then he will

fall into the back pocket of everyone’s memory.

His heart sank at knowing that he would become that too. He

would just become another people shoved into a box, which would

be shoved into the ground, and then slowly turn into food for

the worms. If all people end up in the same ground then why is

the journey there so difficult? There is nothing noble about

death, when a person dies, they die. That is all. Sure, they may

be noble for a while, but the memory of their death will become

just that, a memory. His thoughts began to contort into

different philosophical expressions that could justify the

nobility of death, but he was not a poet or a philosopher, even

though they were nearly identical identities. He could not make

his brother’s death sound profound, but he knew his journal

would.

Maxie finally stood up and lifted his chin to the sky. He

walked past his brother’s coffin once more. It took everything

inside of him to not stand at the box’s side and whisper words

against it in hopes that his words would seep through the wood

and leak onto his brother’s corpse. But he has said so many

words that meant too many things and he couldn’t decipher what

he wanted to say. He trudged through the gothic gate and walked

through the dirt trail that led to the road where he had parked

his truck.

When he saw his truck through the distance of the short

dirt trail, someone was leaning on it. It was a man dressed in

bright clothes. His arms were crossed and he kept turning his

head from side to side, waiting for someone to appear. Maxie

stomped over to the person resting on his truck, his face began

to burn and his fists were clenched, “what the hell do you

want?” his voice was mistakenly menacing, but he didn’t regret

his tone.

The man looked at Maxie coming down from the trail, he

gasped and sprinted away. He didn’t bother to follow him, his

feet had begun to feel heavy, his chest had a hard time rising

and falling in a regular beat, his eyes had slowly become a well

of thirsty crave and tears had poured out of his eyes. He

thought that he was done crying for good, but his heart had

begun to bang against his rib cage though it pumped his blood

slowly as if it were pumping molasses. He looked at his truck

and turned around. He began to walk at a quick pace; his feet

had known their destination before Maxie could even devise an

admirable motivation. He moved swiftly through the tombstones as

if he had been to the cemetery too many times before.

He found his brother’s coffin once again, surrounded by all

of the graves that would soon become his neighbors. The

gravedigger had shoved the shovel into the ground. Maxie’s

stomach curled as if he had jabbed the shovel into his kin and

injected finality into his veins which began to plague his

insides that began to curl and twist in devilish ways.

A man in a black coat approached Michael’s coffin, Maxie

crouched behind a tombstone and watched with keen eyes. The man

had shooed away the grave digger. He had broad shoulder and the

black trench coat hung around his body like a garbage bag. He

was wearing the usual witch’s cap that pigs dressed in blue

usually wore. Maxie couldn’t help but internally vomit at the

sight of such a disgraceful man. But the fact that this man of a

stone heart willingly appeared in front of his son’s coffin made

Maxie’s heart flutter in the most beautifully grotesque way.

Soon after the man of stone had a few moments alone with

his son’s coffin, a short young woman with luscious blonde locks

of hair with a striking red streak in it and raccoon eyes

approached him. She had a black umbrella hanging over her head,

through no raindrops were falling. She was smiling even though

there was a dead person a few inches away from her and no joke

was being told. She barely even glanced at the coffin, her eyes

were too busy tracing the man of stone’s thick and muscular

physique. She bit down on her bottom lip and spoke in a silent

breeze. The man of stone craned his marble arm around her and

she rested her head on his chest. He grinned and kissed the top

of her head. They both stared at the coffin together, smiling

and cuddling as if they were watching their first born frolic

off to preschool.

The boy wearing bright clothes made his way over to the

vile couple. He had come around from another entrance on the

other side of the cemetery. Maxie’s eyes widened and his jaw

nearly scrapped the floor. He clutched the tombstone and his

throat began to bend backwards as an effort to suppress the

hollering that his vocal chords desperately desired to perform.

The man of stone released his arm from the girl and shook the

brightly dressed boy’s hand. He shoved a hand in his pocket and

pulled something out, it was small and undecipherable from the

distance of Maxie’s vigilance. The bright clothed boy did not

scamper away when he retrieved whatever was in the man’s granite

hand. The man of stone and his tumor tucked into the nook of his

marble arm walked away with glimmering teeth beaming towards a

dismal sky.

Maxie stood he could no longer see them. The brightly

clothed boy still stood in front of the coffin. He placed his

hand gently against it. Maxie stomped over to the coffin, which

had been only a few yards away. The brightly clothed boy did not

flinch at the sound of angry feet hitting the lively grass. He

saw the broken boy gritting his teeth and clenching his fists as

if he were going to hurt something to bring out the pain of

himself. The brightly clothed boy’s eyes began to drizzle on top

of the coffin, for he knew it would be the last time he could be

close to his demised lover.

He glared at him and mocked his hand that was gently

placed upon the coffin. He stood on the adjacent side but only

left the coffin in his peripheral vision. His eyes were locked

onto the mysterious, yet almost predictable appearance of him.

The brightly clothed boy began to unbutton his red blazer and

set it on the coffin as if he were tucking a child into bed.

Without another moment’s hesitation, he unbuttoned his vibrant

button down shirt to reveal a black t-shirt. He spread the

button down shirt over the coffin like he had done with the

blazer. The boy stood back from the coffin and stared at it.

“That’s why I didn’t wear black to the funeral,” he said, never

letting his gaze leave the coffin. “I’ve been wearing it all

along.” He took a long pause before speaking again, “I wanted at

least one day where I could celebrate his life, instead of mourn

it.” He turned and walked away with his head hung low. Maxie

watched as he trudged out of the way he came and entered a sedan

with another familiar boy in the driver’s seat.

When the car went out of sight, Maxie looked at the coffin

and tore off the clothes that Alfie had placed on it. He threw

them down onto the ground and viciously stomped on them with

tearful growls. A man with a white beard and stained overalls

apprehensively walked over to him with a shovel resting on his

shoulder, “Sir,” he said, “I don’t mean to be a bother,” he took

the shovel off of his shoulder and clutched it with two hands.

Maxie’s feet were planted on the ground that his brother would

soon lie under. “But I have to get this box in the ground before

sundown.”

Both of Maxie’s eyes became wide and his pupils were

dilated. He jaw jutted out as his fiery breath blew from his

mouth. The old man walked backwards as his bottom lip quivered.

“It’s not a box!” Maxie hollered. His voice boomed with rage.

The ground shook from fear and all of the corpses six feet under

flinched. His clenched fists began to swing in the air, “It’s my

brother!” He dropped to his knees and pounded his fists against

the ground. He whimpered and yelled until his voice scratched

against his throat and his words came out like vapor. He rested

his forehead on the ground once his arms gave out, “it’s my

brother,” he said again through tearful whimpers.

“You can’t fight it anymore son,” the old man knelt down

next to him and put a warm hand on his shoulder, “He’s gone.”

Maxie stared at the ground for a while. He watched as his

tears splashed the soil. His face became warm and his fingers

grew numb. His skin began to tingle and his bones began to feel

rigid. As he began to physically freeze, his mind had begun a

boxing match with itself. With every punch he kept wondering how

things got the way they were. Why was he in a cemetery on all

fours with a creepy old man trying to comfort him? Why did he

cry every time he thought of his brother’s empty bed? His father

would be pissed to see him cry. Men don’t cry. He knew that. He

remembered when Mikey would cry about being bullied and his dad

would tell him to suck it up and fight back. Dots began to

connect in his head; maybe this was Mikey’s way of fighting

back.

“A boy your age shouldn’t face these kinds of things, but

you can’t control your adversity, all you can do is overcome

it.”

Maxie stood up. He looked behind his shoulder to see the

old man resting his arm against his shovel that was jabbed into

the ground. His wrinkles were gently creasing across his face as

his grin attempted to be comforting. Maxie’s mouth parted, but

his words had halted. He turned back around and dragged his feet

towards the entrance of the cemetery. He could feel the sun

setting behind him as he walked through the gate, hearing the

screeching of the rusty gate was almost comforting. Knowing that

the sun resting behind a land yonder, resetting a new sky for

tomorrow to mask the terror of the day before.

He climbed into his truck and stuck the key in the

ignition. He took off his jacket with a tearful sigh. When he

threw it over to the passenger’s seat, the spiral of the journal

poked out of the inner pocket. He turned the key in the ignition

and ripped his eyes away from the poking journal. He kept

thinking about all of the secrets that could be hidden in those

pages. All of the secrets he never felt comfortable to share

with his own twin brother. They shared the same womb but

couldn’t share their own secrets. He was a terrible brother. The

phrase created static in his brain as he stomped on the gas

pedal. He was a terrible brother. He sped down the residential

road with white picket fences and kids retreating inside after a

long day playing in the yard. His eyes fell to the passenger’s

seat again, looking at the spiral peeking out of his jackets. He

kept thinking about all of the secrets that were hidden in those

pages. Secrets he never felt comfortable to share with his own

twin brother. He was a terrible brother. A tear rolled down his

cheek. He missed the turn that led to his street. He was a

terrible brother. His car began to lean to the right. He was a

terrible brother. He let go of the steering wheel. He was a

terrible brother.