Page 112 of Heart Break Her

I left to see if we can get past this.

I left to see if we can fix this.

I left to see if we can find our way back to each other.

It might be dumb. I might not be as smart as I think I am. But a stupid little part of me hopes the distance will allow us to reach a place where we can figure out what we are to each other without the weight of my brother’s death weighing us down.

I look down at the photo in my hand. It’s beat up from the sun, but I remember the day perfectly. Mom and Dad took my brother and me to the river for a picnic. Myth had just flunked out of high school, and they were pissed at him for not trying to make it up and graduate. He insisted the world had bigger things for him than school or a job. He was always a lot of talk.

“Live big, little sis,” Myth said, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t spend your whole life wasting it on other people’s dreams. You only die with your own—with what you’ve done.”

“And what are your dreams?” I challenged him because Myth was always full of big words and generalizations that sounded really good coming from his mouth but never quite seemed to work out on paper.

“To do it all. And I’m going to enjoy it,” he said with the biggest grin, right before Mom snapped a picture. “I’m going to enjoy every fucking thing.”

I didn’t get it then, but that was exactly what Myth did. He lived. And then he drowned in his own addictions.

A knock at the door shakes me out of my head. I’m not ready for today, but I won’t ever be, so there’s really no getting past it.

“Coming,” I yell, making my way through the kitchen and living room.

Opening the door, for a second it’s like I’m seeing Myth standing in front of me, but it’s my father. They always looked so much alike, and now it can be unsettling. I’m facing the man my brother will never grow into.

“Your mother’s in the car,” Dad says, reaching in for a hug.

I bury my face against his chest and stand in his arms for a moment.

When I got home a few days ago, I went to their house first. They didn’t ask what happened, or why I looked like I’d been struck by a bus, and I was thankful. Because there were no words.

I needed my family, their presence, some sleep. And when I crawled out of their guest room and sat at the kitchen table to eat some breakfast, the world started falling back into place in my head again.

“Ready, Cupcake?” Dad pulls away and holds onto my shoulders.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Mom is in the car with a solemn look on her face, but she forces a half smile when she sees me. Unlike Dad, she never came even halfway back to life after losing Myth. On a good day, she’s fractionally present. The rest… Part of me thinks she went with him.

“Where did you guys finally decide to go?” I ask, climbing into the back seat.

“The beach with the cliffs surrounding it.” Dad looks back at me in the rearview mirror. “He loved it there.”

I nod.

They don’t know this, but that’s where Myth kissed a guy for the first time. When I asked him what it meant, he said it meant nothing more than when he kissed his first girlfriend. Just that he was going to be whoever the fuck he wanted to be, do whatever the fuck he wanted to do, and be with whoever the fuck he wanted to be with. No apologies.

After that day, Myth was more himself than I’d ever seen him. Like he’d shed some layer of armor he was hiding behind and was ready to embrace himself fully. So while he said it didn’t mean anything, and while Mom and Dad have no idea the history of that beach to him, I close my eyes and say a little prayer to my brother in my head.

It’s a chilly day and the wind blows everything around as we get out of the car. Mom is silent, following Dad down to the beach, and I take her hand. Even if there really is no comfort that can be offered.

When we finally get down to the water, Dad holds the urn out between us.

It’s been over a year, and somehow it still feels too soon to scatter his ashes. But it’s what’s best for Myth. Cooping him up in a bottle is exactly what he’d never want. We need to give him to the wind, the earth, the stars.

He needs to be set free, once and for all.

We line up so the wind is blowing away from us. Mom’s eyes are set in the distance, like they are a lot of the time lately, and I wonder what it is she’s seeing out there in all her sadness.

“Run wild, boy,” Dad says.

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