With the arrival of the fourth letter marked a day that would forever live in infamy in the lives of the Muellers, me, and all of the other souls that cared. It was August now.
He would never see this August.
I don’t want you to cry for me, angel.
I know that you’re hurting and that it doesn’t seem to be getting easier, but we still have so much work to do. Soon enough you’ll have school and volunteering and you might even have a job to get that internship that I know you wanted. Life will go on soon enough.
But for now, I still need you to do me favors.
You’re not going to like this one either.
I sighed.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t.
~*~
For the second time in too short of a time span, I was standing in Devon Mueller’s room.
“Get up,” I said, my voice flat. He grunted into his pillows, anything but pleased to hear my voice calling him from slumber, I was sure. I walked closer to the bed to lean in, calling out his name impatiently and louder. He still did not respond.
I went with the next best thing.
Just like my big brother taught me, I punched him directly in between the shoulder blades.
Devon let out a sharp curse as he pushed himself from the bed, glaring at me with so much heat I could nearly feel it burning at my skin. I sighed and shook my head at him, striding through the pig sty that was his room to yank open the blinds. He flinched away from the light, rubbing his eyes.
“What time is it?” he groaned, still not fully aware of my presence. I glanced at my phone.
“One thirty.”
“Too early,” he groaned, burying his head back into the pillow.
I started toward him again, pleased at the thought of another punch, but this time he heard my footfalls. One eye opened, peaking out at me. I could see the glare even with his face mostly obscured in the pillow, his eyes as tired as my entire body felt.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay out of my house?” he demanded huskily, still half-asleep. I delicately rolled my eyes.
“Your mother let me in,” I said. “I mentioned that I was here to drag you from the house and she gave me forty bucks and a phone number if I needed someone’s help to physically haul you from your bed.”
He groaned.
“I didn’t quite catch that.”
“You’re a bitch,” he told me. I shouldn’t have smiled, but I did.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I snorted before patting his ankle, shaking him. “Get up. We’re leaving.”
“Where are we going?” he demanded, his eyes suddenly narrowing. Half of his hair was stuck to his face and there was dried drool on his face, but somehow he managed to look kind of sexy. He still looked like Devon, no matter the turmoil. His eyebrow arched, and I realized it was because I hadn’t answered him yet.
I shrugged. “Who knows?”
“You do.”
“Good point. Let’s go.”
He didn’t move for a moment, weighing his options. But eventually he started to move again with a heavy sigh, rolling out of bed with nothing but momentum, and I felt myself smile at the act.
He saw me smiling and his face puckered. “What now?”
I shook my head, gesturing impatiently. He sent me an exasperated glare before doing as I gestured, grumbling to himself.
“And dress comfortably,” I called to his back, amused. “It’s mighty warm outside, and I wouldn’t want the pretty princess to sweat off her makeup!”
The insult wasn’t good but it was all I could manage. I heard the aggravated growl from where Devon was rifling through his closet and I figured that it had done the trick.
I turned on my heel and walked out of the room, forcing my eyes not to even look at the closed door down the hall.
I couldn’t bear to think that it was empty.
It would kill me.
And there was someone I had to save first.
I want one thing to be your goal today, Gia.
I want you to make my brother smile.
~*~
Devon snorted. “This is your bright idea?”
“Yup,” I replied casually, throwing the car in park. He didn’t move a muscle beside me, staring out the window with an incredulous expression on his face. He stared for a moment before he turned to me, his face souring.
“You’re kidding,” he accused.
I raised my eyebrows.
“You’re not,” he sighed, reaching up and pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger the same way that his younger brother had every time he had been annoyed. His hand fell away and back onto his lap, the fingers curling into a fist. “Great. Well, let’s get this over with.”
“Let’s,” I chimed, jumping out of the truck. “I don’t know what’s got your panties in a bunch, anyway—everyone loves the aquarium.”
“Obviously not,” Devon remarked, sending the building before us a death stare. The Clearwater Marine Aquarium wasn’t much of anything, but it did have a tailless dolphin who had its own major motion picture with Morgan Freeman produced on it, so it held something to be desired. Devon slumped as if he didn’t want to be spotted, glaring down at his feet as if they were betraying him by taking steps forward. “This is such a stupid idea.”
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” I asked. “It sounded like a baby crying.”
The smallest of twitches at the corner of his mouth, and then it was gone. Well, it wasn’t as if I expected this to be that easy.
He didn’t say another word to me, not even as we paid individually and stepped into the building. I flocked to the displays of the wild marine creatures and he lingered behind me, looking like he wasn’t having a good time even though I could see his eyes raking the room, seeing things that only people who have an artist’s eye do. I watched him for a long moment, weighing my words.
“You still going to school for art on the side of your almighty law degree?” I asked him, watching the interest in which he observed a school of fish, studying their idiosyncrasies like a bookworm studies the words on a page. His eyes snapped to mine and he scowled, shrugging nonchalantly. He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Yeah, I am,” he muttered. “Going to tell me it’s a bad idea?”
“Since when has art been a bad thing?” I rhetorically asked him, shrugging. “You’re good at it. You see things.”
He looked away, embarrassed. He hadn’t expected me to be paying attention, I realized.
I smiled a little bit.
“Aw, is Devon Mueller embarrassed?” I asked him in a cooing voice usually reserved for babies and small animals. I reached up and pinched his cheeks hard as I cooed, “Wittle Devy is embawassed wif his eye fo detail!”
“Don’t ever use that voice again,” he ordered. “You sound like a serial killer.”
“Might as well look the part,” I said without thinking. And then I flinched, looking away.
I went back to studying the tank in front of me, reading the information on a sea urchin that I couldn’t even name although I had read the paragraph three times. Devon hadn’t moved and I wasn’t about to turn around and see what his reaction was.
Of all the things I could have said, I had to say that.
I had to bring his little brother back into this.
His ghost was here haunting us, a rift between us. There was no way to get around the emptiness his absence left with us. There was no way to bridge the distance.
I realized that I wasn’t even reading the paragraph anymore when he sighed from behind me. I felt rather than heard him take a step closer to me, his body heat pressing against my back. His chest had to have been an inch from my back. I didn’t have the nerve to turn around and challenge the position.
Especially not when he murmured into my ear:
“I’m sorry.”
I closed my eyes.
“It’s okay,” I told him sincerely, sounding and feeling so, so tired. “You’re not the only one that thinks I’m a monster.”
“But I don’t think you’re a monster,” he said.
I smiled sardonically. “I do.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Let’s go check out Winter,” I urged him, spinning around to grin up at him. “There should be a show soon. That dolphin is one awesome son of a bitch.”
Devon looked surprised. And then, catching me off guard, he burst out laughing.
Devon smiled.
Devon laughed.
Devon’s eyes were lit up.
And even though he and his brother had different hair and eye colors, I could have been looking at his little brother right now instead of him.
And that hurt.
God did that hurt.
“You’re freaking weird, North,” he told me, slipping in my surname to get a rise out of me but reached out and grabbed my wrist, tugging me forward. If he noticed their shrinking size, he didn’t mention it. “Fine then. Let’s go see your favorite dolphin perform tricks.”
“I would prefer to see my favorite arsehole of an enemy jump through hoops,” I replied. “Preferably the kind that are on fire.”
“Sadistic,” he purred. “I like it.”
Our eyes met.
And then, together, we laughed.
~*~
You both will be good for each other.
You’ll see.
-Holden
~~~~~~~~~~
Part four :) Short, sweet, and to the point.
Thanks for reading!
x Riley