Page 106 of Without You

When the son reaches us, I move out of their way and quietly watch them take my reminder of Deacon.

Other than my bed, it’s one of the last things to go, officially emptying out my living room area. My kitchen is all packed up, apart from some basic essentials, and my bathrooms are pretty much cleaned out.

After Lou and his son tie the couch down to the trailer I find myself aimlessly walking into my bedroom. My eyes gravitate to the wooden box in the middle of the bed and the piles of Rhett’s belongings that are scattered all over the room. It’s been untouched since I got home.

The routine I held on to for so long, forgotten, the box is no longer my anchor, holding me still, keeping me sane. Now it feels more like a noose, and I hate that.

Pacing the room I run my fingers through my hair, pulling at the strands repeatedly. I just need someone to tell me what to do.

I can’t form a single coherent, logical thought when dealing with any of this. I don’t know up from down, right from wrong, or good or bad. Without a second thought, I pull my cell out of my pocket and tap on Deacon’s name in my contacts.

“Hey,” he answers. He sounds surprised I called, and that makes me feel a million times worse. “How are you?”

“You’re coming Christmas Eve, right?” I blurt out. “You’re coming to see me?”

There’s a slight hint of panic in my voice and I feel myself slowly unraveling because of the uncertainty.

“Yeah, baby,” he soothes, clearly noticing my distress. “I’ll be there to see you. First thing.”

My heart races inside my chest as I climb up on the bed, sitting cross legged in front of the letters.

“Did Rhett write you letters?” I ask Deacon.

My question shocks him into silence. His brother is the one thing we’ve never talked about. He’s our elephant in the room.

“One,” he eventually supplies. “He wrote me one.”

“Did you read it?”

“Have you read yours?” he asks, deflecting the question. “Is this what your question is about?”

“You know I have letters?” I exclaim.

“I assumed that was what was in the box I brought over,” he replies. “You haven’t read them?”

His response reminds me of a question I’ve always wanted to ask him. “How come you came over that night?”

“My mom told me to, and…” I hear heavy breathing on the other side of the phone. “I told myself I did it for Rhett. To take care of you, for him.”

For a split second, I wonder why the thought hadn’t occurred to me. The possibility that all his niceness came from a place of pity and responsibility.

“What do you mean you told yourself?”

“I think I felt it then,” he confesses. “I couldn’t leave your house without making sure you were okay, and deep down inside, I know I did it for me.”

“Julian,” he adds. “I didn’t lay on your bed and wrap my arms around you for my brother.”

Closing my eyes, I hold the phone to my ear and let my body free fall on the bed. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t. Not always,” he clarifies. “But around you I run on instinct and feelings, and for a long time it didn’t necessarily make sense.”

“And now?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.” I let his words seep into the pores of my skin, but when I don’t answer he continues talking. “I don’t like being away from you. I don’t like that you’re struggling, and I don’t like that you won’t talk to me, so now I’m going to talk to you, and you’re going to listen.”

My pulse quickens at the steady, commanding timbre in his voice.

“It’s naive of us to think that your life with him didn’t exist. He’s my brother, we can’t just ignore it. Ignore he existed. Ignore that you loved him first.” His voice shakes with his last statement, and my heart knows how hard this is for him to say. “I’m not perfect. And sometimes I’m irrationally jealous of my own brother, but that was a problem long before you came along.

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