MONROE liked to think she was strong.
She knew, rationally, that she was. At least physically, anyway. She could throw a punch like the best of guys, take one just as well, and even carry the brunt of the groceries each week, using just her arms and one trip between her house and the car.
Monroe had been able to climb that stupid rope in middle school gym class, after being taught by her brother, and she could stand the usual tear in her skin or bruise that formed as a result of her knee becoming too familiar with the table in her dining room.
She, however, wasn't too sure where she stood mentally when it came to strength. She could watch those sad romantic movies and only shed a tear or so - she was human, after all - and she could watch with clenched fists as her mother got worse each passing day, her sanity being dragged into a constant state of righting disorder that she saw, fighting to make things just so.
But place her at the grave of her late twin brother, the only thing surrounding her a mass of other dirty tombstones, and she felt every part of her weaken, down to the very molecules that made up each part of her. Monroe tried to be strong each time she came, but sometimes, it seemed a simpler thought than it was an actual task.
It was the third year anniversary of Max's death, an entire three years since he'd taken his life and left a deep lesion in each and every one of the King family members.
Monroe skipped school to go visit him, a ritual she had been doing since her very first year without him. It was hard to muster the strength - there was that word again - to bring herself to visit a place that held the remains of her brother, without him really being there. She couldn't speak to him, couldn't hug him, couldn't ask him what he thought about the latest video game she had ordered just because she knew he would like it.
It was so hard that Monroe often only got herself out to visit him on the anniversary of his death, their birthday, and Christmas Eve, which had always been his favorite. Sitting there, among the sad looking grass and crumbling tombstones, heavy with the words carved into them, demanding for their meaning to be recognized, Monroe felt as though she could sink into the earth and become one with the soil.
Maybe it would be easier that way, she wondered.
Monroe scooped a hand through her hair, bits of the grass that she'd been pulling at and rolling between her fingers undoubtedly transferring into the dark mess of her hair. She always talked to him when she visited him, but it took minutes before she could get her throat to work around the lump there, as if she were learning to talk all over again - something they'd learned together, bouncing sounds off of one another and mimicking their parents until they were able to truly talk.
Maybe they had never really talked, though, Monroe wondered, for maybe if they had really and truly talked, then possibly she wouldn't have been sitting at the grave of a boy who deserved nothing but the world at his talented fingertips.
Maybe then his potential would have been recognized and not wasted on the cruel, cutting words of people who never looked past the exterior.
Monroe brushed her fingers against the cool surface of her brother's tombstone, her fingers touching and feeling the divots of where the letters of his name had been engraved into it. "Maxwell King, beloved son, brother and best friend" it read, a series of words that never failed to clench Monroe's stomach into a tangled mess of nerves and nostalgic longing for the past.
"Miss you, Max," she found herself saying, her hand still resting on the stone, as if it could connect her to her brother. "I don't think I can say it enough, how much I miss you, I mean. It still feels like you'll crawl out of bed in the morning and try to steal the cereal box from me, all the while sporting that fantastically disgusting trail of drool drying on your face," Monroe's voice broke with a sad laugh and she paused to take a deep breath.
"Mom still opens your door every night, Max. Like she expects to find you laying there, your body beneath that tacky cover of yours, the light from whatever game you're holding giving your fake sleep away. Dad tried to make her stop, you know, him always being the rational one, but she doesn't listen," A pause. "I think I like that she does it, though, too. I don't want anyone to forget who you were - who you are, I mean. You're still there, I like to believe."
Monroe drew her hand back to clench it against her other one, a reminder that she was still there, a reminder that it's okay to feel pain.
That it's okay.
"I won't forget. You didn't deserve this, God, no one does, but you especially didn't. I'll make it count, though, Max, you watch me. Wherever you are, I hope you're watching me get strong now, just for you."
Monroe felt the first tear fall from her eye, sliding down her cheek and dropping down into her lap, others slowly starting to trickle out behind it.
Monroe was suddenly reminded of a conversation that she'd had with him years before, the two sat cross-legged in the living room, the latest horror movie playing in the background. Monroe's attention, however, had been solely focused on Max.
He had squirmed beneath her gaze, his hands wringing in his lap as he tried to focus back on the TV, a blood curdling scream from someone being chased startling the both of them, but not enough to deter Monroe.
"What's been wrong with you, Max? What happened to your cheek, too?"
It had been stained with what looked to be a fairly recent bruise, one that would surely look even worse the next morning.
Monroe could remember clearly how curious she'd been, a certain kind of worry settling deep in her stomach without her really knowing how to handle it. She hadn't been too sure how to handle her own problems back in middle school, those being the days of self-discovery and solidifying personal belief of right and wrong, but she had known that seeing her brother so distraught was not okay.
And that bruise on his cheek? High up on the list of things definitely not okay.
"Please just let it go, Mo, it's nothing."
But Monroe couldn't of course, so she had sighed and struck a hand out to slap him on his thigh until he replied, only to find that he flinched as if expecting, anticipating even, a fatal hit. That motion had never left Monroe's head, not even years later.
"Tell me now." She had used what she thought to be a commanding voice and her brother had sighed, scooting closer to her, leaning against the sofa so that he was facing the TV instead of his sister.
"You know how thick my glasses are?" Max had asked, surprising Monroe with the direction of the conversation.
"Uh, yeah. Because you're blind as all heck," she had joked, hoping for a laugh, not entirely all too surprised when she hadn't received one.
"Yeah, well, some guys said it made me look dumb. That a nerd like me should invest in some contacts and maybe try sports or something," Max had said, wringing his hands self-consciously. "When I said I didn't really like sports, they called me gay and then gave me this when I asked why that was even an insult."
Monroe had already known her brother was self-conscious about how he looked, always believing himself to be a weirdo because of his terrible eyesight and the large pattern of freckles dotting his cheeks and nose. She had also known that he was a very anxious boy, having always played video games and read superhero comics Monroe had never even heard of, preferring to stay home and in his room to keep himself calm and from panicking once something worried him.
But Monroe knew that he wasn't gay, nor was he anyone people should be targeting for attack. He was a good person, one of those people who would grow up to be one of the good guys their mother said their father was.
"Max, you and I both know you're cool the way you are, I mean, I've never seen anyone beat a game as quickly as you can." Monroe had said, meaning it as a compliment, frowning slightly when her brother simply sighed in response.
"You don't understand, they all think I'm a freaking loser and I don't blame them," He had paused, tugging at the hem of his shirt. "Sometimes I just wish I was someone else."
Monroe had flung an arm across his shoulder, pulling him into a side-hug. "Nobody is perfect, Max, but they just don't know you well enough to see how great you are, which you are - great, I mean," she had told him earnestly, giving him a tiny smile, before joking, "Besides, you're related to me and everybody knows Kings are the best kind of people. Why be anyone else?"
In the present, sitting in that sad little cemetery with a world of sadness surrounding her, her own among it, Monroe wondered if things had been different had she not joked through that conversation with him when he'd still been alive.
She wondered if things could have been different had she been able to pluck the right words from her mind to say, stringing them into a sentence that would at least bandage the wound that had been growing in her brother without anyone knowing the extent of its existence.
"I should have fought then." Monroe whispered to his grave, almost wishing that he'd reply to her, instead of staying dead in that sad little coffin of his.
It was all so sad, suffocatingly so, but Monroe at least knew what she said was right, a little burden of her own she may always live with.
She'd always know that she should have fought back then, fighting away the demons and the chains just aching to ensnare a victim, back before Max was lost to her and the rest of the world.