Make You Miss Me

CHAPTER ONE - AUSTIN

Someone once told me the silence found after the last of the tears have fallen signaled the turning of a new dawn, that the rest of forever was on the horizon. He also preached with a poetic tongue about how those who departed their mortal bodies were onto greener pastures in the skies above. Him and I, well we don't talk anymore. Don't talk to much of anyone by choice, by habit, by an existential need to not break someone's skull wide open.

The sun crests over the horizon, painting the sky in beautiful strokes of pink and orange. Somewhere up there, my brother is dancing amongst the clouds. That's what I'm supposed to believe, but believing in anything these days is not worth the pain.

I finish off a can of beer, crank down the window, and toss the can outside the truck. It lands upon soft blades of early summer grass. It's the same parcel of land Dallas and I used to spend our summer's on. A fucking sliver of grass is enough to remind me of what I've lost. It's no wonder I'm always drinking too much. I reach for another can from the case of beer sitting in the tattered and torn passenger seat beside me, pop it open, and the rest will soon be history.

This damn truck is older than me. Sometimes, I think it'll outlive my own existence. An engine that won't quit, a transmission that occasionally slips, and a million miles of memories on these four tires. A million miles and one if I'm counting the distance it'll take to steer this old horse back to the house.

But I don't wanna. So, I won't. I'll sit here until the sun is gone and then I'll sit here for hours more. I'll sit here until I've found what I'm looking for and by the time I'm done, I'll be kicking down the doors of my ten-year high school reunion. Fucking kill me if I'm still around this place by then.

The beer's getting warmer by the minute. It was a crisis of the mind when I left the house, so much that I hadn't even bothered to grab a cooler. My dad would kick my ass if he knew I was drinking warm beer, especially because it's his beer.

My eyes shift to the wooden fence in front of me that cuts a line through the grass, separating our property from the Lawson's. The grass is taller on the other side as if it hasn't been mowed since the frost first gave way to spring weather back in the early days of April.

The passenger door pops open and I don't even need to look to know who it is. There's only one person that'd find me here. She grabs the case of beer, sits it onto the floor, and then climbs inside before attempting to shut the door behind her. She should know better. That door never shuts on the first try. On the second attempt, there's a fifty-percent chance. Tonight, it takes her four tries before the latch finally clicks.

"Doesn't your best friend work on cars?" She huffs. "You should really have him look at that."

"It adds character." I avoid making eye contact with her. Instead, I opt to continue staring at the sunset in the distance. It's so close and still so far away. It's out of reach even as the last remnants of the light burns against my iris'. "You really have to stop doing this."

"Stop doing what?" She's not naïve. That's not the kind of girl she is anymore. She knows better, but she doesn't care, and that makes her dangerous for my recovery. Mia Lawson isn't just a neighbor. She's so much more than that. "I needed to get out of the house."

"I'd cheers to that but you don't have a drink."

She reaches down, steals a beer, and cracks it open. "Lucky for me, someone left some on your floor."

"I actually left it on the seat," I correct her. "An unannounced visitor rudely put it down there."

"If you weren't too busy trying to burn holes in your retinas, you would have seen me coming from a mile away."