Jaded

Nine

NINE

______________________________

I ran a hand over the clean white marble, feeling the smooth surface beneath my hand. It simply read, “To sleep perchance to dream.” My parents had thought it was appropriate. Pierce had always thought that death was just a new beginning. He had always said that none of us knew what death was. It could very well be a new beginning. When he had first told me that I had thought it was ridiculous. I thought I would live forever. Now though—now I believe him. If I was to meet death tomorrow it wouldn’t be so bad. It was a journey. Another story to be told.

I looked at the engraving on the tombstone.

It was a picture taken a year before the accident. He was smiling his classic smile. It was a smile the transformed his entire face, stretching from his mouth all the way into his eyes. I remembered how great the contrast was. He would be tense and worrying but then something would happen and he’d smile. It would change everything. He could brighten up a room easier than anyone I had known. When I walked into a room tension would crackle throughout it and everyone tried to ignore me. I wasn’t the light and beautiful person like Pierce had been.

I was dark.

I was a rain cloud.

While my brother had been everything that everyone wanted I was the opposite. Everyone loved being around Pierce and when I was with him people loved being around me too. He changed me—made me into a better person. I felt different with him—I was different. I was free and less calculating. I was loose. And then he was gone. I was no longer anyone someone might love. I wasn’t free or loose. I drew into myself.

Pierce’s death snapped me back. I reverted back to who I used to be. I was no longer this perfect person my brother had allowed me to be. I was this twisted, screwed up person. I was worse than I had ever been before. I was stuck. I would never be any better than I was in that second. Thinking this, I let my hand drop away from the tombstone. I slowly stood up, casting one more look at the grave before I turned and left it all behind me.

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“I didn’t know you were here,” Eleri said.

I had been running the brush over the canvas, dragging the paint along with it when I heard her voice. I was  nearly done with the painting. I had come in today hoping I could finish it up. I answered, without turning away from the canvas. “I came in a little while ago. You were in the back so you probably just didn’t hear me,” I said blandly. I was still in a slump. I had been since the confrontation with mom. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I just felt my mood dropping lower and lower. Maybe I was morbid and just liked to torture myself but I had been replaying everything that had happened in the last few years over and over again in my head. Even getting high hardly touched it now. So I just got higher.

Eleri moved around behind me, clearly in a hurry. “Hey, could you help me out? I’m unloading the kiln and starting another session,” she explained as she flitted into the back room again. I removed the excess paint from my brush, dropping it onto the tray. I stood up, picking the paint off my hands as I did. “Its been pretty hectic around here and I could use all the help I could get. It’ll only take a second.” I rounded the corner, stepping into the back. She was pulling out a shelf, carefully setting it onto the counter.

“Isn’t Parker helping you?” I asked.

“He doesn’t come in for another twenty minutes.”

I nodded, stepping up beside her. She again carefully removed a shelf but this time she shifted it to me instead of dropping it onto the counter. I softly slide it there, making sure not to bump the other shelf. I quickly began removing the pieces off the shelves before I turned back to Eleri. She handed me another. We continued this way for another few minutes in silence. “You’re not the same today,” she said suddenly. I jerked, glancing over at her. She made direct eye contact with me. “What happened, Spencer?”

I fell into silence. I didn’t know what to say. My first thought was to lie. When I didn’t know what to do I always came back to a lie. But this time I came up blank. I couldn’t think of anything even if it would save my life. So I did the rare thing—I told the truth. Normally, I would never do that. But I was vulnerable. “It’s just—I was thinking about my brother,” I said softly. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. I kept my eyes down, focusing on the pieces I was removing from the shelves. I slide the pieces into the cabinets, depositing the shelf back.

“What about your brother?” she asked.

“I went to his grave today.”

She froze. “Why?”

The question might seem odd to anyone else but I understood why she asked it. It was no secret that I had been driving the night of Pierce’s death. It was also no secret that I never talked about Pierce. I thought about him but I never once said anything. After Pierce had died people tried to talk to me about him but I never would. “I-I don’t know. I was just thinking. Something my mom said to me the other day just set me back,” I explained. I took the bone dry pieces and carefully set them back inside the kiln. I continued doing this as I talked. I was afraid if I looked up at her I would crack. So I kept my eyes down. “Everything’s just so fucked up.” I finished sliding the pieces into the kiln, standing up and dusting my hands off. I took a deep breath, finally looking up. Eleri was leaning against the counter staring at me but it wasn’t in a pitying sort of way. I turned to return to my painting when I saw something out of the corner of my eyes. Standing a few feet back was Parker, looking conflicted. I knew instantly that he had heard everything that I had said.

I don’t know why I did it but I did. As soon as our eyes met I pushed passed him into the shop. I shoved through the doors, my breathing coming out erratically. I was breaking down. I had been fine when it was just Eleri. I knew Eleri. We were friends. She had known my brother but I didn’t know Parker. I had barely met him. He had heard everything and that thought drove me crazy. He knew my brother was dead. He had seen a part of me that not many people did and I had never wanted that. I had wanted to keep up this act. I pushed away the tears that were now rolling down my face. I ripped the door to my car open, throwing myself in. My vision was so blurry with tears I missed putting the key in the ignition several times before I finally got it.

There was a tap at my window.

I hide my face with my hair, quickly brushing my tears away. I didn’t even know why I was so upset. It was stupid, really but I just couldn’t stand it. I hated knowing he knew. Maybe it sounds screwed up but I liked being this perfect person in his head. I looked back up at the window, seeing Parker leaning down. His face was expressionless. I took a deep breath, rolling down the window. “What?” I barked out sharply. He didn’t even flinch he simply held up my purse without speaking. I snatched it out of his hands, shoving it into the seat beside me.

“Are you okay?” he asked finally.

“I’m just fucking dandy.”

“What are you scared of?” he said.

I chuckled bitter at his question. I was always scared. I was scared of my father, my mother, I was scared of my house. I was scared of everything. If only he could understand, but he never would. He could never get what was going through my head. He might see flashes but never the real picture. My hands gripped the wheel, turning white in the knuckles. I slowly raised my gaze back to his beautiful gold ones. He was so terribly beautiful. It only made me more aware of how fucked up I was. “I’m scared of myself,” I told him before I knocked the car into reverse and left him behind. I watched him in my rearview—getting smaller and smaller.