It’s always strange how life can spiral downhill so fast. One second you’re at your aunt’s barbeque, laughing over the burnt food, and the next, a policeman is knocking on your door to tell you that your brother is dead.

 -----

The next few hours are a blur. What they tell you about grief isn’t true. The waterworks don’t come immediately for me, instead, I can’t seem to do anything but sickeningly sit in shock at my mother’s ugly sobs in the other room. I’m still methodically waiting for my brother to pop in the room with a goofy grin on to tell us it was all a joke.

Even the policemen didn’t seem real. After the news, they awkwardly lingered around us with distinctly uncomfortable looks on their faces as they offered their condolences. What’s wrong with you? I wanted to shout. My brother can’t be dead. He just can’t be.

My dad hasn’t said a word since the policemen left; all the color of his face has been leached out, and all that’s left is a shell of a man. A terrible part of me wants to shake him and ask him if he feels bad about everything he said to Darius before he died. I have started to remember every small, horrible thing I have done to Darius in arguments, and I feel like I’m falling into a trap of an endless spiral.

----

The atmosphere of my small town has always been homely. Rundown shops litter the sides of the poorly kept streets and the people are each dressed in a garb of mismatched clothes. There’s a somewhat alarming vibe to it all, the way the people are so familiar with each other to the Christmas lights still up in March. 

That’s why I can tell immediately that everyone knows. I’ve stepped out for groceries, though Mom and Dad haven’t deigned a word to me since the incident. I’ve forgotten about school entirely, the only thing I can remember these days is waking up in the mornings with an agonizing pain in my chest. 

He was seventeen. How is he gone already?

-----

Another neighbor comes by as the days pass. They all come bearing casseroles with saccharine condolences but we all know the true reason they’re here: to gossip. 

I place the warm casserole on the kitchen counter. My mother is staring blankly at the wall ahead. She hasn’t said or eaten anything since the incident. “Mom, Ms. Daniels stopped by.” I force a smile on me to try to get her attention. “She dropped off some food. You should eat.”

No reply. I try again. “Mom? I’ll get you a plate.”

I hand her a plate filled with food. She slowly picks up her plate, and for a second I’m elated, but then she smashes it on the floor. Glass shards fly all around us and lumps of casserole splatter on the floor. My mom has a less dull look on her face now, as if this chaos is the only thing feeding her soul. 

I stare at her until my insides shake. Why does she get to act like a child when all of us are grieving? 

“My baby,” my mother wails. The mess and the implications of what she’s done begin to hit her, and she sniffles. “I need him back.”

“You never knew him!” I cry, throwing my arms up in a startling debacle. “None of us knew the real him!”

“He was my special beautiful happy miracle baby.” My mother repeats, rocking back and forth like a broken record.

For a second, I feel a stab of shame, of guilt. And then my vindication unfurls one more, this time larger and uglier, and my mom just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

 “Your special beautiful happy miracle baby is gone.”

“Stop it,” my mother sobs. Now she’s clasping her hands over her ears like that will do anything to block me out, to block out the voices in her head telling her I’m right this time. 

I leave her lying there, hating myself for the sound of her sobs, and yet, the more hideous part of me feels almost… victorious. 

I turn the corner and yelp as I almost run into my father. I’m terrified he’s mad at me, but instead, his face looks more weary and tired. The shadows in the kitchen further twist his face into something more gaunt and I feel sick to my stomach. My family is broken.

We are broken. 

----

I’m staring at my mirror in my bedroom again. Photos of me and Darius are scattered across the edges of it, our tongues sticking out in pouty expressions, our eyes scrunched as if we’re holding back contagious laughter. 

I’ll never be able to take another photo with him. 

I’m brought back to the argument I had with Mom. I claimed we didn’t know him, and maybe we didn’t, because why else would he be out at the train tracks so late. I want to believe we knew everything in times like these where I’m staring at pictures that show me everything and nothing at the same time.

Was he just faking that smile?

How will I ever know?

No. I stand up with such conviction I’m terrified I’ve truly lost it, but inside I know what I need to do. I need to know more, even if it hurts, because how can we even honor Darius’s memory without the truth?

I don’t even know where to start but I know that I’m going to do this.

----

I end up at the corner of the intersection in front of Micheal’s Diner. My brother was constantly here. 

I’m seated immediately by a blonde hostess as I enter. A waitress timidly approaches me, and I open my mouth to ask her if I can have more time to order when she speaks first. 

“I knew your brother,” she tells me sadly. She’s fighting back tears with an expression I know all too well from the mirror. “He, um, he was the best. My mother used to call him an angel that fell from the sky.”

“Oh?” I ask. Darius never mentioned this pretty brown-haired waitress or meeting her mother.

“Sorry,” she hurriedly says. “You don’t even know me. Gah, this was such a stupid idea. Um, I’m Hailey. I was in the same classes as your brother. We hang out a lot. Or hung out a lot now, I guess.”

I force some niceties out of my mouth but inside my mind is reeling. Is this why Darius came here so often?

“I loved your brother.” Hailey blurts out, and then claps her hand over her mouth, eyes as wide as saucers like she can’t believe she just said that. 

I choke on air. “Pardon?” I hiccup.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. I just thought you should know. Um, which is probably not true but-”

I cut off her nervous rambling. “Did he love you back?

“We had plans to go off to NYU together.” She whispers.

My brows shoot up to my hairline. NYU is across the country. Darius always sounded like he wanted to stay here forever.

Hailey mistakes my surprise as permission to go on. “He had big dreams, plans to study aerospace engineering, work in NASA, and have kids. And none of that will happen.”

I shoot up from the table, my knees banging against the wood. “I’m sorry, I just need a moment.” I rush out of the diner without so much as a second glance back.

My brother. In love. My brother. NYU. My brother. Dreaming.

It all sounds so unreal and yet it’s so Darius coded I have to believe it.

And then I’m running. I’m running to the florist and buying flowers, running to the graveyard I have never been to because I skipped Darius’s funeral, running to the grave I should’ve visited earlier. Telling him I wish I knew. Telling him he would’ve been a great father. Telling him that I promise to tell Mom and Dad everything so that they can honor their son properly. Telling him I’ll visit again with Hailey. 

And on the site of his grave, once my tears have dried, I pull out my phone and let my finger hover above the summer program at Julliard I’ve wanted to apply to forever. For you, Darius, I think, as I press “application details”, for you. 

For you, I promise to never clip my wings. For you, I promise to get to know others better. For you, I promise to be here every single day. For you, I promise to dream.