“What happened that day, Aiden?” I asked when he went silent. Between the passage and the note I was still clutching between my fingers, I had a terrible suspicion that I already knew, but I couldn’t believe it.
I didn’t want to.
“It was a few days after I’d turned sixteen. My father had gotten me a car for my birthday, which had pissed off my mother and stepfather, but I didn’t care. We were coming up here that weekend, and I couldn’t wait to show the car off to my friends. I made plans to meet up with them that Saturday afternoon. Danny was upset and didn’t want me to go. He wanted me to take him back to the city to the Botanical Gardens. He kept begging me…” Aiden’s voice dropped off, and he dashed at his eyes.
“Why was he upset? Did something happen?”
Aiden nodded, but didn’t say anything for quite a while. When he did speak, his voice was so low, I had to lean into him to hear it. “Danny used to get picked on a lot at school because he was different. Some kids messed with his locker that Friday and one of them knocked him down, I guess. He wouldn’t talk about it much. The bully ripped up the copy of The Secret Garden that our grandmother had given him— the one I’d always read to him. He was so upset about it. My mother tried to calm him down, but my stepfather kept telling Danny it was his own fault… told him he should’ve stood up for himself. Said if he wasn’t so fucking weird, the other kids wouldn’t pick on him all the time. I’d just gotten home when I heard my stepfather say that shit to Danny. I told Keith to fuck off and then took Danny to my room, promising him it would be okay.”
Aiden shook his head and began wiping at his eyes. I didn’t need the light to know there were tears tracking down his face.
“He was so upset, nothing I said would calm him down. He finally fell asleep in my bed. We left for the beach the next morning. Danny rode with my mother and stepfather. I drove on my own and stopped at a bookstore that carried a lot of first editions. I used birthday money from my mom, along with some that I’d saved up, to buy him this edition,” Aiden explained as he pointed to the book that now rested on my lap. “I gave it to him when I got to the beach house. I thought it would make him happy, but he just kept begging me to take him to the Botanical Gardens.”
Aiden let out a choked sob before saying, “I promised I’d take him the next day. He cried and told me it had to be now… I was so fucking selfish, Ash. So fucking selfish!” He suddenly slammed his fist into the sand next to him. Before I could say anything, he said, “That goddamn car!” he snapped. “I chose that fucking car over my brother.”
He shook his head and dug his fingers angrily into the sand. “All I wanted was to see the expressions on my friends’ faces when I showed it to them. I knew I could make it up to Danny the next day.”
Emotion clogged my throat because I knew my instincts had been right. I closed my fingers over Aiden’s other hand, the one that had been clenched and banging against his thigh as he spoke. I wasn’t sure if it was my touch or something else, but Aiden calmed enough to continue.
“I got home late that night— it was just after midnight and I was sneaking in through the side door so I wouldn’t have to deal with Keith yelling at me for missing curfew. That’s when I saw Danny. He was standing right here,” Aiden murmured as he sifted his fingers through the sand next to him. “He was just standing here, staring at the ocean. He wasn’t wearing anything besides his pajama bottoms. I asked him what he was doing, but he didn’t answer me. It was like he was looking right through me. He was so… calm. I told him I was sorry I’d left. He told me it was okay. That’s it. ‘It’s okay, Aiden.’” Aiden shook his head.
“I thought we were good. We used to go swimming sometimes at night, even though we weren’t supposed to, so I figured that was what he was doing. I told him to wait for me while I went and changed. But he didn’t…”
I pulled Aiden’s fist to my chest and clung to his hand with both of mine. I pressed a kiss to his tight fingers, but didn’t speak. I already knew what Aiden was going to tell me, but I also knew he needed to say it out loud.