It had shattered my whole world.
But in Amber, it barely made a ripple.
Mom and Dad had friends, of course. But the circle was small, and though they were respected by people who knew them in the community, they also kept to themselves. When David died, they pretty much folded in on themselves, shut everyone out and moved out of Amber within months.
And when I came back, the few friends I’d had from high school had moved on. A couple of people recognized me, maybe in passing, enough to screw their noses up trying to figure out where they knew me from. Some gave me a smile and a nod. Very few actually talked to me.
I could count on one hand the number of people who had not only talked to me, but expressed their condolences for David’s death.
And I’d barely spoken through the shards of glass in my throat when they did so. I usually nodded, garbled out a “thanks,” and escaped as soon as it was socially acceptable.
But those people had already known.
I hadn’t had to lay it out for anyone. Because I didn’t have friends, people I opened up to over cocktails, made bad decisions with. I had my grandmother, and she made enough bad decisions, so when we were together, I forced her to make some good ones.
But she already knew.
And she knew my policy on talking about it—which was not at all. Apart from her most recent visit, when she’d opened up her pain and my own. Even then, I’d never actually spoken the words.
And when people asked me if I had siblings, I’d shake my head and then escape the conversation. There wasn’t a single photo of him inside my apartment. There were other things in the room I hid from everyone, the room meant to be a broom closet, but instead of brooms it held chopped-up pieces of my insides.
But no photos on display. On the rare occasion someone came into my apartment, photos would raise questions.
It was like I’d erased him, my brother, the other piece of me, right off the face of the earth. Outwardly, at least. I might not have said his name in nine years, but I thought it. Every single day. Didn’t look at a picture of his face in around the same amount of time, but I didn’t need to. It was seared into my brain.
So I was surprised that the first time I’d ever uttered the words cementing his death into the air, my voice was so foreign.
So cold.
Maybe because it was me realizing that not saying he was dead out loud didn’t keep him alive somehow. I’d known it all along, but it was the final nail in the coffin.
I hadn’t expected Gage to react.
He was Gage.
But he flinched.
Visibly flinched at my words.
Maybe it was the tone.
Maybe it was the one thing I’d been waiting for. That he knew the pure absence of emotion in my voice showed him just how much hurt was shattering my bones at that moment. And that he cared. That my pain hurt him.
“I’ve never said that out loud before,” I whispered, somehow aching to give him more of me, even though it was one of the most painful things I had ever done.
Wasn’t that what love was? Giving someone everything, no matter how much it killed you, shredded your insides to do so?
“I don’t know why. Maybe because I didn’t have the energy to, because I’ve been screaming it in my head for ten years,” I said, eyes faraway. “Because saying it out loud, I’d have to admit that ten years haven’t passed. At least not for me. Because if I told people, they’d expect me to be healed, by time and all that.” I shrugged, hating the phrase ‘time heals everything’ with a passion.
“They’d expect me not to still be bleeding from a wound that was sustained a decade ago,” I continued. “But it’s not a wound. It’s a complete fricking leveling of me. An entire chunk of myself just… gone. An important chunk. One that doesn’t grow back. Because it doesn’t come from me, you see? I wouldn’t know how to grow it back if I even wanted to. It was him.”
I screwed my face into a frown because that was the only way to stop myself from crying.
“We weren’t two different people. We were the same person.” I held onto Gage’s gaze like an anchor. “Each of us holding vital parts of the other. And that’s what makes it worse. Because I didn’t even notice the vital parts of me being slowly poisoned. David slowly poisoning himself. I didn’t notice him freaking killing himself.”
A tear rolled down my cheek and I was surprised at it.
I’d screamed that day.
Wailed.
Rivaled the ocean for sheer volume.
I’d had to be sedated.
The one and only time narcotics had entered my system.