13. June 21st

13

June 21st

L ast night my plan was straightforward, but now I have a better idea in mind.

I finally finish my breakfast and look up to see Darius's sharp attention still focused on me. It makes me uncomfortable, but clearly, I will not be sneaking anywhere.

"Veronica said Auggie got a graduation present for me and I couldn't find it in our house. The last place I can think to look is the car…will you take me to the impound lot, please?" I ask hopefully. Darius doesn't owe me anything, he could just say no.

A soft regretful look graces Darius's features and he finally moves from where he has been leaning this entire time. "Come on, let's go."

***

The impound lot is depressing, dark, and dreary. A stark comparison to the weather that is currently bright and sweltering. The barbed wire fence is menacing and higher than I have any possible ability to scale and climb.

The ride over was a silent affair, minus the sound of his truck rumbling along to our destination. Darius hasn't even looked in my direction, he simply drives us here. His only discernible discomfort in this impromptu trip is his tight, white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

I walk up to the guard station that is separating me from, I'm not even exactly sure what. What do I expect?

A beefy older man steps out as I approach, a clipboard in hand. He wheezes with every step he takes.

"Hi, I am here to pick up my brother's items."

"His name?" the guard harrumphs out.

"Augustus Masch." I turn to see Darius approaching, he is watching the entire interaction with narrowed eyes. He seems on edge . "And Tripp O'Brien. I want to take a look at the car, too."

The guard flips through the pages of the clipboard, he is clearly annoyed at my arrival. I try to look through the gate to see if I can see my brother's familiar car, but there are too many vehicles to be able to pinpoint it.

"Hang tight. What's your name?" the guard eventually huffs out.

I go to answer, but Darius interjects, "Darius O'Brien."

The guard casts us both an irritable look before stepping back into his station.

I go to question Darius, but before I can, he places his hands on my shoulders and steps up behind me.

"Trust me, okay?" he leans down and whispers the words directly into my ear. His hair tickles my neck and I try to escape his grip. He won't let me. "Just wait for him."

I don't want to listen to anything Darius says, but I am in way over my head. I am teetering on the cusp of a breakdown; I can feel it. I want my graduation present, but I also want something that will explain what my brother is doing with the photo. Maybe in the vehicle there will be a charger for the flip phone? If not, I have a plan for that too.

The guard's return jerks me out of my thoughts and Darius drops his grip from my shoulders. The guard is holding a small box in his arms.

"The items. Car is gone."

Darius takes the box from the man.

"What do you mean, gone?" That makes zero sense. If it's not here, where would it be?

The guard's face scrunches up in frustration. "Look, be happy we got the items out. You have questions about the car? Call the sheriff."

At that the man is stomping off, panting as he goes.

"It was probably just the insurance picking the car up." I watch Darius's face as he speaks the words.

Why did Veronica say the exact same thing?

I don't know how I know it, but he is hiding something from me. They both are. I take the box from him and start walking back to his car.

Once inside, I open it.

I don't hear when Darius joins me, or when he turns the car on, or even really notice when the AC blasts directly into my eyes.

I'm too busy staring down at the envelopes in the box, they are placed on top of various other items I recognize as a mix of Tripp and Auggie's. There are three envelopes. My vision blurs as, once more, tears make their way into my eyes. I wipe them away furiously.

Darius places a comforting hand on my knee. I can feel every callous as his thumb begins to stroke up and down, and I allow myself to fall into the comfort if only for one moment.

I realize that maybe while I can't fully trust Darius, I can at least talk to him. He's been kind, more so than Grayson or Axel. I chew my lip in anxiety wondering if I should tell him about Tripp and me, but before I make a decision, Darius removes his hand from my knee and grabs the envelopes out of the box.

He hands me two and takes the third for himself.

"I know," he says.

My heart beats rapidly in my chest. What exactly does he know?

"About you and Tripp," he answers my unspoken question. Darius's sharp eyes meet mine. His face is morphed in shadows and I can't discern exactly what he is feeling. "I saw you two, up on the roof." It feels like there's more to it, but I don't press him.

His words lift a weight off of me that I didn't even notice I was carrying. "You knew?" The words come out broken.

Before I understand what is happening, Darius is pulling me across the cab of his truck directly into his arms and his embrace. The box and envelopes drop to his floorboard.

He is the smallest of the brothers, the most lean, but enveloped into him like this, I can feel his strength. His sturdy grip holds me to him tightly, but even still, he is careful, soft, comforting. Darius is an enigma. He is a sweet man, but I can feel the harshness of his body.

And he lost his brother, just as I lost mine.

"Why do you all seem so okay?" I sob the words out into his chest as he pats my hair.

"We're not." I feel as he presses a soft kiss to my forehead before leaning back a bit to catch my eyes. For once I can see the endless sadness in him. "None of us are, but we aren't shy or unaccustomed to grief. Once you see something happen enough, you grow numb to it. Whether you want to or not. And even when I do feel the crippling weight of loss? I remember that this isn't what he wanted. Tripp wanted me to live, to be happy." Darius reaches up, wiping my eyes and pushing back my curls behind my ears. "He wanted you to be happy, too."

Darius leans over me and grabs the envelopes off the floorboard. He hands me the one from Tripp first.

"Open it, if you're ready."

I'm not, but I still carefully unseal it, pulling out the piece of paper.

The last words from a dead man. I choke back my grief.

Short and to the point; very Tripp-like.

Do what makes you happy.

It's hard to even know what that is anymore, except that isn't true.

I'm not sure if it's happiness, but his brothers are making me feel something . It is more than anything else since Tripp and Auggie died. The brothers cause my heart to speed up, my nerves to turn to static, and all rational thought to leave me.

I didn't want to acknowledge it, but I knew what it was pointing to. What my reactions meant. It reminded me of when I first hung out with Tripp.

Crushes .

I was developing small, disgusting, unwanted crushes on the brothers.

All three of them.

Stomping that thought down and the shame that came with it, I carefully fold the letter back up and go to reach for the other, but Darius holds onto it. "Maybe one at a time?"

I nod my head lethargically and he releases the envelope into my hand.

Moving slowly back to my side of the truck, I untangle myself from Darius, welcoming the distance, I need it to clear my mind. I drop both envelopes carefully back into the box.

Darius spares me one last look before driving away.

"My brother didn't have car insurance." No longer distracted by my own guilt, I state the words that have been bouncing around my brain. They said the car was taken by the insurance company, both Veronica and Darius. But they should both know my brother didn't have car insurance, at least not any for his own vehicle. No one should have taken his car. It doesn't make any sense.

Darius stiffens and if I weren't watching for his reaction, I might not have noticed the pure unfiltered terror that sweeps across his features before he schools his face and offers up a shrug.

We're at a stop light now. At an intersection I recognize. We're less than a mile from the accident site, even closer if I cut through the woods. I promised myself I wouldn't go, but there are so many things that keep tugging at me. Making me feel this isn't right.

How did Auggie, the notorious grandpa driver, lose control of the car? It was raining but that just means he would have been extra careful.

I was so focused on my own guilt in their accident, I never stopped to think how unusual it was in the first place.

Auggie would never have hydroplaned off the road and down the embankment. The car shouldn't be missing, there was no insurance claim to file, no reason for it to be taken. And the flip phone… the photo… the girl in it.

The more I discover, the less anything makes sense. My mind is working overtime trying to understand all the pieces, how any of it fits together.

If it even does.

But there is one place I haven't gone. Somewhere that might just have the answers I need.

My hands are shaking in anxiety, my breath ricocheting around my lungs, my heart pounding a beat in my ears. The light turns green and before I can think it through, I jump out of the truck and sprint away into the woods. My feet slapping beats against the ground as I push myself as fast as I can towards the last place I thought I would ever go.

All I hear in the background is Darius cursing and cars honking behind him.