We're back at the house, Tyde asleep, Dad opening the door to carry him inside. Tyde's eyes are closed, but he isn't peaceful, he's restless, dreaming in uneven sonnets and the sound of gunshots.
Mum locks the car after I get out, leaving the bags inside to get another day. Tomorrow, maybe, when the sun has risen and the world is quiet, rain still hanging in the air and eyes still closing.
I hide in my room now, crouching between a wall and a chair, hiding under the desk, shivering and trembling with cold and the memory of my aunt's cold blue eyes, filled with sorrow swirling with "poor, poor, children."
I can hear Dad lay Tyde down in his bed, the springs creaking like doors being opened in dark hallways, and then he walks away, his bedroom door closing softly.
I tap slowly at the keys of my phone, dialing a number I've had memorized for years. "Tyler," I whisper. I need him now, I need the promise of everything being okay and I need his whispers of comfort in the dead of night when no one is sleeping.
The phone only rings, leaving tears to slowly fall down my cheeks and fingers to claw at the screen like maybe if I dialed again and again and again he would answer. Like maybe miracles were real and I could turn back time and fix everything.
"The number you called appears to have been disconnected. Please try again," the robotic voice steadily says into my ear, followed by a beep too much like a fire alarm.
His number had been disconnected in the same way that everyone has disconnected him from our lives. The living don't suffer the dead, after all. The dead are passed along, pushed away. Not forgotten, just left behind. Disconnected in the same way that their phones are.
Just pushed away and lost behind us, but still haunting our dreams.
But I don't want to leave him behind, I need his touch and his smile and the energy to jump into the ocean, hurtling off of cliffs and whooping with joy the whole time.
I need that, I need him.
But instead, the world had chosen for me. The world has pushed him away from me, left him behind for me, just like his family has disconnected his phone number.