We walk in silence, hand in hand, lost in the haze of the humidity and our uncertainties. It's a path I'm familiar with, straight through the wooded area until we reach a sidewalk. Follow that sidewalk six blocks until the cemetery comes into view.
Being in a cemetery on a beautiful day feels backwards. Cemeteries are for thunderstorms, for icy winter days, for shrouded, looming nights.
And yet, as we approach, the sun wraps us in her warmth. Big, fluffy clouds amble by, white as a rabbit's tail. A gentle breeze whispers through the trees, but it's singing hymns, not casting spells. The cemetery, with its dozens of recently laid flowers and upkept landscaping, almost looks like a park you could go for a relaxing stroll through.
Mia says nothing as we walk along the fence. She says nothing as we slip past headstones for mothers and daughters, husbands and sons, babies and friends and, tragically, a few that are worn away to a nearly blank slate.
I weave my way through the grass, soft and plush like I could sleep in it. I shiver thinking that some people are.
And then we stop at a spot near the back, under a tree so big its branches sag like a man tired from holding up the blanket of shade we're enveloped within. I pat the trunk, thank him for his kindness, as always, and sit down at the grave.
Celeste Archer, it reads, though I could recite it from memory. Beloved daughter, sister, and friend. 1994-2015.
Mia stands back, hesitant and wispy. I fear she might blow away with a strong gust of wind, just a ghost that followed me here.
"Mia," I say, patting the grass beside me. "This is my sister."
She lets out a breath. It's strangled or shocked or thick with grief. I hate this part, where people scramble for the right platitudes, where they say something like, "I'm so sorry for you loss," even if they're not sorry, even if this moment is just something they're waiting to escape. I hate knowing I've just passed this burden into someone else's grasp to hold for just a minute. I hate watching them struggle with the weight of it, anxiously awaiting an opportunity to hand it back.
But instead, Mia says, "Tell me about her."
She takes the seat next to me and places her hand in my lap. Her waves roll around her face while she examines the headstone like it might reveal Celeste's face if she stares long enough.
I smile, lost in the thought of Celeste. "She was older than me but not by enough where she was bigger than me growing up. We used to fight over the toys in cereal boxes and whose turn it was on the GameCube, but we helped each other with homework and fought each other's bullies. Like with our fists and everything."
Mia snorts, then sniffles.
"She got caught up with a different group of people in her high school years," I continue, heaving in the pure morning air with a deep gulp. "They weren't dangerous by any means, just stupid and reckless. The way all kids are. But then they weren't kids anymore, and life started to hold some weight."
A tight squeeze around my hand.
"She went out one night and a police officer came back in her place. Someone's shithead boyfriend waving a gun around like a toy, angry about some texts he'd found on his girlfriend's phone. It wasn't even Celeste's boyfriend. It was barely even her friend. Wrong place, wrong time. It went off and Celeste went down. Then she was gone."
"Oh, Brett," Mia sighs. "I didn't know."
This elicits a light laugh from me, perhaps a bit ruefully. "Nobody does," I reply, running my free hand through the blanket of grass beneath me. I'm tempted to rip it out, to shred it, but some part of it feels disrespectful to Celeste. Like I'm taking the one physical connection we have and destroying it. "It's not something I like to talk about."
A quiet settles between us. The granite blinks back at us, smattered with water stains from recent rain.
"Sometimes I speak to her like she's in the room," I confess. The words spill from my mouth like drool. "I haven't in a long time, not since TikTok blew up. But it was almost like a form of prayer. I found it cathartic. I could even feel her with me."
Mia hums, barely audible but rich and syrupy. "What made you stop?"
And isn't that the burning question? I've carried a lot of guilt with that, as though I've turned my back on her and left her in the past. Occasionally I imagine her spirit following me, banging and screaming behind some soundproof plexiglass, allowing me to make my stupid decisions in peace.
I exhale through pursed lips. "Shame, probably. That this is my life. That I live in Cali now."
"How is that shameful? Wouldn't she want what's best for you?"
"It's shameful because she would know it's not what's best for me." I feel my throat start to get scratchy. "She'd take one look at my house and know how much I hate it. It would take her thirty seconds scrolling through my content to recognize that it's not what I'm passionate about. And I'd bet it wouldn't even require a conversation between the two of us for her to realize that I'm holding myself back from the things I truly want."
Mia unfurls her legs, previous criss-crossed, then tucks them into her chest in fetal position. She rests her head on her knees. "What do you want?"
Our eyes lock, hers illuminated in the sunlight like a deep gold, and I just smile sadly at her.
* * *
We walk back serenely, as if dreaming. Neither of us speaks for a long time. Our feet carry us home, our gazes fixed on the path below us. When we arrive in my backyard, I point at the pathetic attempt at a garden that Aunt Charlotte is deep within. I show her my mother's windchime, which she crafted by hand. I gesture to the tree I broke my arm falling out of, the stair where I split my chin.
The day continues on like this. I'm able to drive her to my favorite diner in the car that used to take me to school. I can call out the corner I used to stand at for my bus stop and my fifth grade arch nemesis's house (Alex Crawford, who can still eat shit as far as I'm concerned).
We eat sandwiches and fries and split a cookies n' cream milkshake. I tell her about the country club I worked at before my mom finally let me help her with her business. I drive us past my high school and park us at the lake that we used to swim in every July.
It's as I'm walking Mia through the trees, away from the rocky clearing where I had my first kiss in eighth grade, that I realize I don't have any of these places in LA. Not a single sentimental location, not even my house. This town is my home - a piece of me has lived here even since I left.
Mia is still hysterical from the first kiss story as we navigate the path back to the car. "Why did you burp in her mouth, though?"
I knit my brows together. "I'm getting the impression that you think I did it on purpose."
"It's not that I think you did it on purpose," she says, her voice husky from holding in her laugh. "I just don't think you did much to prevent it."
"Maybe I didn't," I shrug.
Mia stops, her back to the open lake, a glassy horizon dotted with canoes and a few kids playing in the water. I turn to face her as well, my eyes boring into hers as I inch closer.
I tuck my finger under her chin and lean in to kiss her, so aggressively that I'm nearly dipping her as I do so. I want to soak this moment in, to steal this one minute of joy and make it mine. I feel Mia laugh against my lips as I pull us both upright, and then I'm laughing too, and we envelope one another in a hug.
We sway there for a moment, melting into the rhythms of the earth around us.
"This is what I want," I whisper. "You."
She sighs, and then looks up for one last kiss before we head back to the car.
I've not even put the car into reverse before the afternoon shatters violently.
"Brett," Mia breathes. "What the fuck am I looking at?"
My stomach drops, solid stone. I still have my hand on the gear shifter when I ask, "What is it?"
She passes me her phone, which she'd been pointedly staying off of since arriving in my driveway this morning. But upon settling in the passenger seat, she'd pulled up her email app and scrolled through some messages.
What she hands me, however, is not an email. It's a reply Tweet. The original is a photo of Camila and I at the restaurant back in New York, fuzzy from the flash and the distance of the photographer. I'm not very visible, but it's undeniably me, and Camila is captured clear as day. The caption reads Brett Archer and yet another mystery woman. Does the man rest???
But the reply is what Mia was referring to. It's from Camila herself, who dutifully wrote, That would be me. No, he does not rest, because his publicist was naked in his room when we went back to his hotel. I stormed out and haven't heard from him since.
The air sits heavy in the car, a noxious gas. Mia is turned in the seat, her gaze searing through me like a flaming arrow.
"What is that?" she repeats, her words slow and deliberate, like I'm some kind of idiot. "What is that?"
"Okay," I say, handing the phone back to her. "Hold on. Hold on. This - I can explain this. It's not true."
"Obviously it's not true," she hisses. "So explain it."
My mind is reeling, the thoughts coming in a mile a minute without any of them coherent or sound. I'm grasping at everything that passes my consciousness, begging the bubble to burst and put me in a different reality, one that starts with Mia and I in Wisconsin for the sake of her meeting my family - not PR control.
"I took that girl out to dinner," I start, my voice airy like I'm out of breath. "The one from the podcast day in New York. We went to some overpriced steakhouse that evening and I wished it was you the whole time." I cringe. "I know that sounds like cheap bullshit, so I'll move on.
"She was using me for clout and I was using her to earn a headline. She asked to come back to the hotel room and - I swear on my life, Mia - I had told her she could but that we would not be having sex. She forced a kiss on me at the speed of light right before we walked into the hotel room, and that was the full extent of our physical relationship."
"And I was showering," Mia finishes, her stare empty.
I nod once. "You were in the shower when we walked in. I was caught so off guard that I wasn't even thinking of the implications when I said it was my publicist in the bathroom. She thought I was a two-timing sleaze - or that's what she wanted to make me sound like publicly - and stormed out. And I stayed back, because I will choose you every day of my life."
Mia's jaw sets. I can see the internal struggle raging inside her - her nostrils flare in fury, but her eyes sag with something like defeat. My heart breaks as I watch her digest this information, the car's janky AC sputtering in and out of life as we watch one another.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asks, softer than I'd expect. "I could've prepared something."
I open my mouth and close it again, several times, like some big, dumb fish. Finally, I settle for, "I didn't know how to tell you. I thought you'd be mad."
She laughs derisively. "Of course I'd be mad. But at least I'd be ready."
After a minute or two, she says, "Take me back to the house."
"Mia, please -"
She holds up one manicured finger. "No, Brett. This has become bigger than you. Now I have to protect my image, my whole career. Take me home. Now."