“Ivy and Jesse made us birthday pot brownies.” I laugh softly. “I ate most of mine already, though. I had to. I had dinner with Mom and Dad. If I had attempted it sober, I would have broken something. Or someone.”
I lie on my back in the grass next to him and close my eyes, listening to the wind rustling. It’s harsher now that the crops have been harvested. Without the cornstalks for resistance, the wind kicks the field dust up in puffs. I can smell it in the air. I can taste it.
“I listened to ‘The Great Escape’ on my ride over,” I tell him with a laugh. “I don’t think I can drive into town anymore without that song on blast because of you. Remember when you stole the keys to Principal Cary’s golf cart when I was babysitting, and then we drove it around town at like 2 a.m. collecting lawn gnomes?”
I can’t stop the giggles.
“Oh my god, I wish I could have seen his face when he walked out the next morning to find his golf cart parked on his lawn and filled with thirty-seven garden gnomes.”
The breeze tickles my nose and blows strands of my hair in front of my face.
“Or when Craig and I broke up the third or fourth time, right before 11th grade started, and you slipped mom’s root touchup dye into his 3-in-1 bottle.” I squeal at the memory, tears falling from my eyes. Craig was blond and fair, but after Bran messed with his shower shit, every hair on Craig’s body was the same dull shade of black. The memory has me wheezing with laughter, and it takes minutes before I can catch my breath.
When the laughter stops, the tears don’t.
“I’m so sorry, Bran,” my voice cracks. “I’m so fucking sorry. I know I said I would have it by now. I wanted to so badly, but shit just hasn’t gone as planned.” I dash away a tear. “I’m working on it, though. I’ll have it soon. I’ll have it finished by February. Poetic justice.” I force a laugh.
I roll onto my side and brush my fingers over the dates on the grave marker. The birthdate is today, same as mine, but the death date is almost three years ago. I’m still here, but he isn’t.
He didn’t even want to be buried. He wanted to be cremated.
I let more tears fall.
“I miss you so much, Bran,” I whisper. “There’s not a single day that I don’t miss you. I get so mad. You should be here with me. We should be doing all of this together just like we always have. I just don’t understand. I keep trying to understand but I can’t.” I take a breath. Wipe away more tears. “How am I supposed to enjoy living life without my best friend since birth? How am I supposed to live when you can’t? This should have been your time. You should be thriving and making art, being here with me.”
I let myself cry.
All the tears I’ve held back, all the sorrow that I keep inside, I let it all pour out until I’m bled dry. Two days. I give myself two days a year to feel this pain. To wallow in it. To drown in the guilt. I lie there until I’m dehydrated and sober and almost numb.
When it starts to grow darker, I take his brownie out of the box and set it on the grave marker, then I think better of it and dig a shallow hole to put it in. This way, I’m not recklessly getting random animals baked, but if a critter takes the time to dig it up, I figure they deserve the high. Once the brownie is buried, I take a tube of paint and one of Bran’s old paint brushes out of my bag. I squeeze some of the black paint on the brush, and then smear it over the headstone. The name, the etchings of angel wings and a cross, the bullshit epitaph and bible verse. I cover everything except the birth and death date. When that’s done, I put the brush and paint back in the plastic container and shove it into my bag.
“You gotta stop defacing the marker, Barnes.”
I jump at the voice and turn to find a familiar face. I didn’t even hear him pull up. I don’t know how long he’s been there, and my shoulders stiffen.
He looks much older than I remember, different from the boy I loved in high school. His countenance is harder, his hair less vibrant. That’s what happens to people who get sucked into this black hole of a town. They shrivel from the outside in, until they’re nothing but jagged facets of the same dull existence.
We took each other’s virginity, Craig and me. I gave him my entire heart and all of my trust, and he crushed it under his size twelve Wolverines, along with any belief I used to have in love. I guess he’s working for the county now if he’s policing the cemetery.
“What are you gonna do, Craig? Arrest me?” My voice is steel, and his face is a stern mask.
“It’s a criminal offense.” He crosses his arms and widens his stance, his uniform stretching over his torso.
“Fuck that.” I fling an angry finger at the grave. “That’s my brother.”
As if that’s all the excuse I need.
As if that makes the crime less criminal.
Fuck. That.
In my head, it’s enough.
“You know they’ll have to scrub it off.” His voice is soft and full of pity now, and my heart aches with defeat.
“Give it a few weeks? Just pretend like you didn’t see it or something. It’s not like anyone else will be by to visit, anyway.”
He hesitates, then nods, remnants of the guy I once loved flickering on the surface. A small mercy. As I walk away, he calls my name again.
“Bailey.” I swing my leg over my bike and look back at him. “I miss him too, you know?”
“Yeah?” Anger erupts in my belly and spews out of my mouth like hot lava. How dare he? “Did you miss him in 12th grade when you outed him and made his life miserable? Did you miss him that summer when he was depressed and sad and broken? When he almost lost his art scholarship? What about at that sham of a fucking memorial service, Craig. Did you miss him then?”
Craig has the decency to wince, and I watch the muscle in his jaw tense. The pain in his eyes is obvious—the guilt and regret. Good. He can sit with that shit for a while. He doesn’t get redemption just because Brandon’s dead. His transgressions weren’t erased when Bran’s heart stopped. I shake my head with a sigh, suddenly exhausted down to my bones. My joints ache, my eyes sting, and my head pounds. I’m done here.