Page 123 of Heartbeat

Later that night, I left a naked Ethan sleeping in my bed and went into Liam’s bedroom. I sat on his bed and stared at the photos that covered his wall. Since he died, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d gone into his bedroom: twice, on each anniversary of his death; before going back to St. Yve’s; and when Emma spent the night. Four occasions in three years, and it was still more than anyone else in my family.

I liked taking my time analyzing each photo, trying to find the oldest, as well as attempting to figure out the one from which the rest seemed to ripple out of. In all these years, I could never seem to do it. Something would always stop me, be it a particular picture that would take me back in a way I didn’t expect or a feeling I’d be unable to control and would cause me to lose focus. Then, I spotted it. An old, small square that showed me and Liam dressed as race car drivers. I must’ve been three, which made him six or seven years old, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember that day.

I thought about all the memories he’d had that I’d been a part of, but he never got to retain. For years, Liam was the one who had all those moments stored in his head. He actually liked sharing them, particularly whenever he was high. He’d tell me about the relatives I never knew, such as Grandpa Dave and Aunt Flora, and the places I didn’t recall visiting, like the time Dad took us with him on a business trip to Chicago so we could fly on a plane for the first time. He told me how he hated me for the first two years of my life, but that he only “actually” hated me until I was almost one, when I said his name—my first word. It was an odd feeling, having some of your own memories known only to others. Odder still was the fact that the keeper of mine was now gone, having taken them with him when he died. Yet I found myself making a new memory which involved him at that very moment, even though he would never know, so I guess we’d switched. I was now the keeper of some of his memories.

For what felt like hours, I canvassed that wall, gladly jumping into every picture and revisiting each moment it depicted. Until, eventually, I was discovered.

“Babe?”

I turned and found Ethan standing by the door, wearing nothing but black boxer briefs and looking as though he was waiting for permission to enter. I smiled, which he understood as just that, and walked over.

“What’s this?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and looking curiously at Liam’s wall.

“His life,” I told him quietly.

He sat down beside me and looked at the pictures for the longest time before speaking. “He looked happy. And he must’ve really cared about you.”

“Why do you say that?”

“There’s hardly a picture here you’re not in.”

“I hadn’t…I never noticed that,” I said, and we both went silent for another beat.

“At first, I was so angry,” I told him. “But everyone else was too, so I kept defending him all the time. Then, everybody started missing him, so I kept reminding them of what a great guy he was and how it was okay to miss him. Eventually, they all started moving on—”

“And you?”

“I was still angry.”

He smiled with such warmth.

I let my eyes go back to the wall, spotting a photo of Liam and me on the day he graduated from high school. “You know, everyone thinks he was going to go to Brown, like Dad. But he wasn’t.”

“No?”

I shook my head. “He had this car he made me go look at with him. He was going to buy it, hit the road with Emma, and drive to California, where they were both going to Berkeley—after getting married, that is.”

“No way!”

“They were going to leave just a few weeks after graduation.”

“What would your parents have done, you think?”

“Mom would’ve probably been okay with it, after the initial shock subsided,” I said. “Dad would’ve been pissed though.”

“I can imagine. In my house, it would’ve been reversed. Dad would be chill; Mom would go berserk.”

“So, you’re saying we can’t run away?” I joked.

“Oh, I’ll run away with you.” He raised both eyebrows and looked at me, serious.

“She was pregnant, they thought. Emma.”

“No!” he whispered as if someone could somehow overhear us.

“I had to go in with her after he died, to find out. It was horrible.”

“Jesus, Tom.”

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