Page 97 of Fall for Me

I hooked an arm around Eli’s back, and we watched together, while on the screen, he appeared. A young Eli, maybe eight or nine, halfway up a tree while Kevin gave Seamus a boost at the bottom to join him.

The show kept going, dancing through the short years of a young boys’ life, until the song slowed, and I knew it was almost over. In the final refrain of the song, I could tell the image up there was the last one. It felt like an ending. The photo was of Seamus and Kevin down by the Quince River. Kevin looked more like a man here, or at least on his way. He wore a shirt of a very specific turquoise color that struck me as familiar.

Then my eyes went to Seamus. He was still a boy here, one right on the edge of that shift into maturity.

I remembered him from that age.

Tall. Knock-kneed. Quick to go pink with attention on him and even quicker to step into the background while Eli took up room with his killer grin and already booming voice.

In the photo, Kevin had one arm around Seamus, the other around a dog that looked strikingly like Lola. It was Lois, of course, the dog Seamus told me had died just after Kevin. The two dogs could have been interchangeable, with their floppy ears and silly grins, and even their names so alike.

As the photo faded away, it hit me.

Kevin’s shirt.

That familiar turquoise: I’d seen it the first day I turned up at Seamus’s house. That fabric had faded over the years, having spent years knotted on a cross and tucked against the slope of the hill by Seamus’s place.

For a moment, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. I thought of my mom’s gravestone, the flowers I knew my brother Griffin replaced whenever he was in town, and had someone do for him when he wasn’t. I hadn’t been there in months.

Was Kevin in that cemetery? Did someone do that for him, too?

As the song ended and the screen faded, Eli dropped his arm. I know my brother didn’t want me to see him all messed up when he’d come over here to comfort me.

I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, doing my best to wipe away my tears and streaked mascara.

When Nora turned the lights back up, I saw that Mia had appeared on my other side, red-eyed like the rest of us.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi.” I gave her a wobbly smile. I was glad she was there.

Jamie was making his way back up to the stage while all around people sniffled, murmuring to each other.

Maybe Seamus had left. Maybe he couldn’t be here for that slideshow.

Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw him.

Seamus, striding across the roof, his face tipped down.

He was gorgeous. And I could practically feel the complexity of him; all the pain and heartbreak, the goodness and silence.

The crowd buzzed as he paused to say something to his father.

I looked awkwardly at Mia, not wanting to stare at the two of them as they embraced. I don’t know why.

“The dog in that last photo looked like Lola,” I said.

That was a stupid thing to say.

But something passed over Mia’s face. Angst? Guilt? She hesitated before nodding with a weak smile. “Yeah.”

Maybe she was just as moved by the slideshow as the rest of us, but I didn’t think that was it. There was more, and my stomach seized, needing to know.

“What is it?” At first she didn’t answer, and my heart felt squeezed to the point of shattering. “Mia, is Lola okay?”

“I meant to tell you,” Mia whispered as Jamie handed Seamus something, preparing to go back on stage. “Mike and I broke up.”

Mia swallowed.

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