The Wish From Heaven | ✓

chapter 41 : dawn's sorrow

27 July; Saturday

"Brother Ced?"

I turn around to find Destiny standing there, wearing her middle school uniform, her eyes almost as red as her skirt. Her hair is tied in two ponytails, but some strands are messily sticking out, as if someone pulled them.

"Hey, Destiny." She walks over to my side, and I caress her hair. "Here to meet your brother?"

She nods. Then she asks, "Do you come here everyday?"

"Not anymore." In the days I don't, I feel empty, and a bit nervous, like how when you know you are supposed to do something but don't, and later get worried about the consequences. But I have come here on days it stormed, on evenings it snowed, and on nights it drizzled. Despite all that, I have come to realize that even if I try to, I wouldn't be able keep that streak forever. And I know, that Dawn doesn't expect me to.

"You don't need to come here everyday to let him know you love him. He knows it already."

"I think I came here more for myself than for him."

She remains silent for a while, staring at the gravestone. Then she says, "Me too, brother Ced."

I pull her closer to my side, and wrap my arm around her shoulder. And we stand in front of the grave of the person who mattered the most to us, a best friend and a sister under the old apple tree, as the cicadas continue to hum their synchronized melody, and the breeze revisits us carrying a new scent after every once in a while.

"Destiny?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you know . . . why Dawn killed himself?"

I can't dare to ask it to Mrs. Ambers. There is no way I can bear to hear the reason behind her son's suicide from the mouth of a mourning mother. And though it is cruel to Destiny, I know she has the strength to tell me. I want to know. I want to know what hurt him so much. I want to know what he went through without letting me know a single word. I want to know what I could've done.

"Hmm, I do," she replies.

I take a deep breath. "Do you think you can tell me?"

She cranes her head back to look at me. "In front of him?"

I shake my head. "Let's go have something to eat."

So we go to Gloria Jean's Cafe. It isn't the rush hour, so it is mostly empty, except this one girl sitting alone and crying in the grunge section of the cafe, and this middle-aged man sitting on a nearby table and nervously glancing at her, not removing his mouth even once from the straw inside the iced americano he is having. Me and Destiny choose a corner of the vintage section, a table for four attached to the wall. We sit side by side. I really hope to a third person, it doesn't look like a high schooler dating a middle schooler, because that would be the biggest blow to my self-esteem.

Both of us order iced chocolate milkshakes. We talk about random things until a waitress comes and gives our orders. Seems like it's not Marcus' shift right now. Thank God.

After the waitress leaves, we sit in silence for a while. I wait for her to speak. She takes a sip from the milkshake from the straw. She speaks up at the moment I let my mind drift a little to the girl crying over there.

"He didn't want you to know," she says. "That's why Mom and Dad were confused whether to tell you."

Surprised, I ask, "Know what?"

She exhales, just like a grown-up would before revealing something important, or more likely, something earth-shattering to the listener, which in this case is me. Dawn always said how Destiny was pretty mature for her age, but he wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad about that. He wanted to be the reliable older brother, but if Destiny was already dealing with everything herself, there would not be much he could do.