Page 124 of Hits Different

His knuckles are turning purple. “I imagine him behind me when I’m practicing punches, telling me not to drop my guard. Hear him calling out advice when I’m rolling out on the mat, but tonight, when I won, I turned to him, and he wasn’t fucking there”.

His heartbreak is palpable. I don’t trust myself to speak.

“I always thought that if I fulfilled the life that was stolen from him, that it would make his death seem less meaningless”.

Do not cry. Hold it together. He needs you.

“I thought I could fix it, Brandon. I swear to God I did”. The tremble to his voice wobbles dangerously, “But he’s gone. He left me”.

I pull over then. He doesn’t resist the hug. It’s hard because of the seat positions, so he ends up resting his head on my shoulder. I press him into my chest, willing his pain away.

Time passes. I’m not sure how much.

“Can I ask you something?” He makes a noise that I take for assent. “Did you ever talk to anyone after he died?”

He shakes his head. “Like a therapist? Not really”.

“What does ‘not really’ look like?”

“There was a mandatory grief counsellor at high school. I went a couple of times. Then afterwards…it’s embarrassing”. Parker sniffs, pulling his sleeves over his hands. “I used to pretend I was talking to you. When we were apart. I’d imagine you there. And I’d tell you stuff”.

“I was your spirit animal?”

“Spirit therapist animal”.

“But I’m as fucked up as you are”. A hint of a smile. “Was Imaginary Therapist Panda-Bear Brandon helpful?”

“He was”. Parker settles into my shoulder, more comfortably. “Sexy, too”.

“Hopefully he didn’t cross any professional boundaries”. I hold him closer. “What do you need me to do?”

“Please don’t be nice to me”.

“Okay”. I hand him a tissue from the glove compartment. “Stop crying, you pussy”.

He splutters, spitting his drink everywhere. A smile threatens to uncloud his face. “You always know what I need. You were right about MMA. About me. You always know just what to say. I wish I was more like that. Better at telling you how I feel”.

“You’re better than you think”.

“I don’t know that I am. The L word is a hard one for me. You may have noticed”.

“I wouldn’t be so sure”, I slide my phone out of my pocket. He blinks, as I scroll to my podcast app, connect my phone to the speakers, and press play.

“Parker Di Rossi, welcome to Most Likely to…”His eyes widen as I skip forward to the last couple of minutes. His voice fills the car through the speakers. “Brandon’s…one of a kind. Someone that I spent my whole life wanting to emulate. I’d never admit that to him, so it’s lucky that he’s not here.

We shouldn’t have been friends. Not really. Life handled us both very differently. And I spent a lot of our childhood together being jealous of him. Jealous of how people warmed up around him. Jealous of his looks, his money, his intelligence. His family. I came off worse in every way. So I should have hated him. But I didn’t. Couldn’t.

He’s the one person in the whole world who’s never tried to change me. Who wanted more for me than I thought I deserved. He’s the only person who knows everything about me, and he has my back anyway.

People like that are rare. They deserve to be cherished. Because you never know when they’ll go away. And if you’re out there listening to this, Carter, I didn’t mean a word of what I just said, so get that goofy grin off your face. But… I love you, and I miss you”.

“Wow. That was…insightful. That relationship is obviously significant to you”.

I turn down the volume. “Just so you know”, Parker says, lips twitching. “I didn’t mean a word of that”.

“Of course not”, I nod. “I just assumed you were drunk”.

“Wasted”. We sit there for a moment, just holding hands. His phone is blowing up. He turns the screen so that I can see. “It’s Zara. She says the promoters liked me. Three fight contracts on the table. If I want it”.

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