ILYSB (it hurts)

[𝟺𝟾] empty house

Josephine

Hero picked us up from the airport and has been extra attentive to me. I don't feel like myself. It feels like I'm floating in air, like body half-buried, half barely breathing. There's no easy way of getting over how I saw my brother died and the thought that nags me that I could've prevented it.

I was just an hour short. An hour short of seeing him alive. Of saving him from his demons. Of telling him I'll always be here for him.

But it's all too late.

I watch as Hero unload every box that has Jonah's things onto our porch. Dad's arranged it to arrive first and then him and Jonah.

"Do you want some hot chocolate, sweetie?" My Mom opened our door and peeked.

"Yes, Mom, thanks." I didn't look back, I'm fixated on the fact that these boxes hold every clothing, every little thing he owns that my brother can never hold.

It creates a hollow part in me where I would prefer to feel numb. Where I just wanted to prevent everything's a dream. So I can continue living my life like how I used to be.

I open one of the boxes and see Jonah's hoodies in there. I pluck the white one that has his team number on it. I pull it over my head and wear it. He never lets me near this jacket of his. And now here I am waiting for him to say I should take it off.

But I waited and waited...

There's nothing. I hugged myself and promised I won't be crying. I am tired and I am drained of everything around me. Once tomorrow comes, it will hurt even more. And I don't know when the pain will stop.

Dad's been making arrangements and he's going to fly here soon. I picked up one of the small boxes and opened it. I saw Jonah's notebooks, pens and other stuff he used for school. Underneath it is a heavy all-black notebook with  a handwritten cover name on the side of it. I removed it from the box and inspect it. I trace Jonah's handwriting at the front and I stop myself from crying and ruining all the pages.

This must have been his journal. It feels weird that I have to read these to get to know what cause him to do what he did. But then I open it and go to the first page. He rambles about how campus life isn't the way everyone made it to be. He proceeded to list all the things he dislikes about his new campus. I laugh because I can vividly hear him in my head. I can clearly see how his face would distort when he hates something. I trail my fingers on top of the paper, finding that connection to him, that this was and might be the last item he had ever touched. It would feel like I'm touching him too.

Hero picked up the boxes from the porch, one by one and put it in Jonah's room. I keep the diary to myself and sneak it inside my drawer when we're already upstairs. I don't know why I'm hiding it. I just feel like the information inside it is not meant to be shared. I knew Jonah had some problems but not to the point I would find him flat on the bed, dead. I need to know what caused it. Was it school, was it the girl he recently dated or was it mainly the college he thought was perfect? I need to get into Jonah's head to understand him and to finally, maybe, lift that heavy burden of my heart.

"Always so curious, wombie." I can hear him in my head with the stupid grin on his face.

Tears automatically streamed down my face and my chest is getting tight. I can't believe he's gone. That I won't be able to touch him anymore, I won't be able to call him any time of the day, bike rides and barbecues are never the same anymore. This family will never be the same anymore.

I stepped in his old room, the dust making me cough for a bit, and the boxes taking up all the space in it. I scan the walls and see his favorite bands, some posters of women he adored and mostly paintings of nature he hadn't always been proud off. Now, I want them all for the world to see. My brother has so much talent and so much energy that he wants to give to the world that maybe all became too much.