Chapter 39

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They say that there are five stages of grief.

The first stage - denial - had come immediately when Wilbur had found the boy he cared about most in the world hanging from his ceiling; he had refused to believe it was real, refused to allow the paramedics to pronounce him dead, refused to accept that he could possibly be gone.

Anger had come soon afterwards. He was angry at the world for the cruelty it had shown his brother. Angry at Derick for destroying Tommy's last chances at living. Angry at himself for not being more careful. He was even angry at Tommy, for leaving him with nothing but a crudely written note in his draw saying that he wished to be cremated and to have no proper funeral. No goodbyes, no last words, nothing. It was as if Tommy had never cared about Wilbur at all.

Bargaining had come when he finally found the courage to call Niki and sob down the phone to her, the thoughts and feelings that had been bubbling up since Tommy's death cascading down the phone line.

And Wilbur now realised as he sat on his sofa just over a month after Tommy's death, staring at the clay pot that contained his ashes, that he had reached the stage of depression. Nothing had meaning anymore, and his emotions had plateaued into an awful state of numbness and sorrow. How was he supposed to come back from this? How do you recover after finding the boy that you considered to be your brother strung, lifeless, from the ceiling? All he had left was this goddamn clay pot, with no instructions on what he should do with it or where he should put the ashes. Wilbur hated that his last memories of Tommy were of him in such pitiful condition; he had been full of hopes that he could create a new life for him, and help him recover from the trauma of his horrific past. But he was wrong. Wilbur came to the conclusion that he simply wasn't enough.

But at least Tommy wasn't in pain anymore.

But sitting there alone in his house, Wilbur realised that the end of one person's pain had triggered the eternal cycle of another's.


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