Chapter 29

It’s static in my brain. It crackles in my ears, louder and louder, until I force my eyes open. The bright light hurts, and I shut them again, throwing my hand over my face.

“She lives.” The female voice sounds far away, but I can tell it’s filled with laughter.

I blink my eyes open and peer between my fingers, slowly gathering it all together as my body comes back to life. There’s a pain in my hip, and my head pounds like someone hit it with a bat. My shoulder’s against something hard and cold. I lower my hand and arm with quite a bit of effort and move to my back so I am staring up at square ceiling tiles.

“I worried there for a bit,” a different, male voice says, this time closer as something clanks. I blink over, barely lifting my head enough to view the bars of a jail cell open. I groan and let my head fall back down.

A moment later, something hard taps my leg, and I’m forced to lift my head up again, taking inventory of my body. Everything hurts.

“Need help?” the voice says again. I turn toward it. It’s a big, bald police officer. He’s scowling at me. He bends down and extends his hand to me. When I take it, he roughly pulls me to stand and doesn’t let go. “All right?”

He waits until I nod to step away.

“I’ve got to be honest, I’m surprised you aren’t worse off right now,” he says like he knows me.

I can’t pick apart the jumble of words through the fog in my head. “What…how…um…” I smooth a hand down my face and glance around at the empty jail cell, the door open, to where a female officer sits behind a counter a few yards away. She’s staring at me with a mixture of disdain and humor.

“Was…was I arrested?” I ask to no one in particular.

The bald officer eyes me carefully. “Close, but no. We put you in here to dry out.”

“Oh.” I’m relieved but still overcome with shame and follow him out of the cell, where he stops by the woman at the counter so she can hand me my bag.

Lifting a cup of coffee to his lips, the cop says, “You remember me, Cassandra?”

Everything about this situation confuses me, and I’m rendered mute.

“I’m Officer Stone. I had the unfortunate job of delivering the news of your brother the night he died.”

It all comes rushing back, and I collapse all of my weight against the counter. It’s hazy, but I think he looks a little familiar.

“We got a call last night about a disturbance at the train station.” He pauses for unnecessary dramatic effect because I know what he’s about to say. “The disturbance was you.”

I rub my temple. “What happened?”

“You apparently got hysterical on the train.”

“Jesus,” I wheeze, the bits and pieces of yesterday starting to come back into focus.

“You got sick, knocked over an elderly passenger, and wouldn’t let go of another one.”

“Wouldn’t let go?”

“Physically,” he says after a sip of coffee. “You wouldn’t let go of him. That’s when they called us. Lucky for you, I was the one who arrived on the scene.”

“Jesus,” I say again.

I run my hands through my hair. It’s all tangled. The skin on my face is dry, and when I rub a finger under my eye, black makeup is left on my fingertip. “How’d I end up here?”

He shrugs. “Once you calmed down, you passed out, so I brought you in here to sleep it off.”

I stare at my shoes, my cheeks heating. If I weren’t so hungover, I might be able to cobble together some excuse or apology, but it’s no use. I soak in my humiliation.

“I don’t presume to know you at all, but I do remember that night,” he says. “I’ve seen other people react the same way when they receive bad news. Something clicks, you can see it in their eyes, and it’s almost like they go into overdrive. They overcompensate.” When I don’t make any move to respond, he goes on. “I could tell that was happening with you. Watching how your parents reacted to the news was difficult, knowing you would be left holding it all together.”

He waits until I look up at him. He’s so tall and muscular; it’s an odd juxtaposition against his soft tone of voice. “It’s obvious you’re going through some tough stuff, but what happened yesterday isn’t the way to handle it. There are people and places to help you, you know that, right?”

I nod. I have the pamphlets.

He finishes off his coffee and throws the cup in the trash can next to me.

“You’ve been dealt a bad hand,” he says. “Make peace with it however you can, but next time I get a call about you, I will arrest you.”

“Right. Got it,” I say and shuffle out of the police station, only to realize my phone’s out of battery, so I can’t call anyone for a ride and have to walk the five miles back to the train station to pick up my car.

It takes me nearly two hours, and when I am finally behind the wheel, I take account of my wrinkled clothes, clown-like makeup, and hungover breath. The last twenty-four hours have been hell, and I’ve seen enough cops in the past year to last a lifetime, but it is a wake-up call.

Even though my compass might be a little off, I’ve made it through a storm. I’ve kept my head above water this long; there’s no reason to drown now.

I start my car and drive straight to the one person I need to talk to. I park down a narrow lane in the cemetery, near the spot where my brother is, under a tree that provides some shade. I fold my arms over my chest to keep the cold away as I carefully tread across the browning grass crunching under my boots.

The seasons have changed. Persephone has gone back to the Underworld.

I don’t like the idea of having a spot where people—or, more accurately, former people—are buried under the ground. I’d much rather be lit on fire and set out to sea like a Viking. Nevertheless, if society wants my brother’s bones resting here…I guess there could be worse places.

Two headstones bracket Ray’s, which are already carved with my parents’ names, and there’s absolutely nothing more bizarre than staring into the future. A chill rolls down my spine, and I curl my fingers into a fists so my nails pinch into my skin. The small bit of pain affixes me to the earth, and I remember I’m still alive, even in the face of death.

“Hey, bro,” I say, assuming I should talk instead of just standing here, kicking at the grass around my feet. “Got some nice little pictures here.”

There are a few scribbled pictures on colorful construction paper, held down by a rock in front of his birth date. I notice how clean it looks around the headstone, no weeds or anything, unlike some other burial plots near him. “You mowing the lawn ’round here or what?”

A bird chirps.

“Looks good. I guess.”

Cars pass in the distance.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Pray or something?” I glance around behind me. A gray-haired woman is bent over a grave, her head down. Peeking in the other direction, I notice the American flags, flowers, or other little decorations people have brought to their loved ones. I’m empty-handed.

“What are you gonna do with any of that shit anyway, right?” I say to Ray. I unfold my arms and stand taller, lift my chin like I used to do when I wanted to appear bigger as I argued with him. “Listen, I came here because…because I woke up in a police station this morning. I know you’d probably laugh at me and extort this information for money in exchange for not telling Mom and Dad, but it was awful. Like…everything is really awful. I went to the city yesterday and got bombed because, I guess, I’m so fucking depressed, and I’m… I’m tired of everything being so fucking awful.”

It’s liberating to speak my truth to and about the one person whom I both intensely miss and blame. My words come out faster and louder as I unload everything I’ve been holding in.

“You know, when you were here, it was so much easier for me to be the fuckup because no one cared about me. No one cared about what I did, if I was doing well or not, but now you went and died, and all of a sudden, it matters. I’m trying to keep it together, but how can I when I have to deal with all of this and, and…” I swing my arms around in a circle. “You left me!”

A small part of my brain warns me not to yell in a cemetery, but I don’t care. Ray deserves to hear all of this, and I deserve to say it.

“You died, and Mom and Dad lost their brains. You know how difficult it’s been for me, trying to keep Mom from digging herself a hole next to you? And Dad, he’s a real asshole. I always knew it, but he’s become worse. He’s mean, so fucking mean. And Shayna, she’s going out with some guy named Todd. Todd! Can you believe that? Shayna, who lives in a Pinterest-colored world, has a boyfriend with a generic name like Todd. And the girls are calling him Daddy. I had to defend your honor to her, and all I want to do is hate her, but I come to see you and find out she apparently comes here too because who else would decorate your goddamn final resting place with these ridiculous pink-and-green pinwheels.”

I sniffle and wipe at my eyes, but it’s no use. The floodgates have opened.

“I got fired from my job. I know you hated that I worked there, but it was good money, better than minimum wage, and I got fired because I spent so much time helping out at home. And I’m so fucking mad at you!”

I look up to the sky, whimpering. “And you know what else? Your friend Vince? He’s really great.” It’s hard for me to swallow, my mouth dry even though I can’t stop crying. “He said he loved me, but I can’t believe it. I’m a train wreck, so why would he want me?” I use the cuff of my jacket to wipe my face. “I’m in this catch-22. I want to make my life better, but I can’t, so when I finally get something good, I mess it up.”

I bend down, my hands in my hair. “It doesn’t even make sense. Nothing does, and I’m here talking to a stone. Ugh!”

“Hey.”

I gasp and wheel around at the greeting, falling back on my butt in the process.

Nell extends a hand to help me up. “You okay?”

“Fine.” I stand and brush myself off, about to ask why she’s here, but why wouldn’t she be here? She was in love with my brother.

“You don’t look fine,” she tells me.

I lift my head up, meeting her gaze, and she offers a sympathetic smile and a tissue. I wipe my face then blow my nose before conceding, “I’m not fine.”

She moves closer to me, not touching me but obviously offering comfort. “The first step is to admit it.” When I glare at her, she laughs. “It’s true.”

We stand in silence for a while, me, her, and my brother’s grave. “So…you come here often?”

“Every couple of weeks. I like to bring flowers.” She holds them up as evidence then places them down. “Could use a little color around here.”

I snort in amusement. Nell is actually kind of funny. I watch her fidget with the fall-themed bouquet, placing it so it doesn’t cover anything from Lara and Lucy, while also pushing away any remnants of dried flowers or weeds. She rights herself and smiles at me. “Want me to leave? I can come back if…”

I shake my head, gazing down at my brother’s name in bold, block letters. “No, I think I’m done yelling at him.”

“I yelled at him too,” she says quietly. “After I cried, I got angry. Now, I come and bring flowers and can sort of smile about it.” When I curl my lip, she touches my arm. “It sounds trite, but it’s my journey. Yours is different.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say dryly. “I read it in one of my pamphlets.”

“They put it in the pamphlets because it’s true.”

I scowl.

“When you make that face, you look like him. You have the same crease between your eyebrows. Right there…”

I glide my index finger over said spot.

“He told me a lot about you,” she says.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I think he was envious of you.”

“Envious?” My voice squeaks out the words. “Of me?”

She nods, reaching out to touch the top of the headstone before turning away. I follow her, trekking back toward where I’m parked. “I don’t know if you know this about your brother, but he was a great pretender.”

Internally, I let out a huge guffaw.

“He pretended to be more confident than he was, made up for it by being overly extroverted, you know? Always the life of the party, inviting people out, leading karaoke after dinner.”

I know all of this already, but I don’t interrupt. She wants to say it, and I want to hear it.

“He had to try to be what he thought people wanted from him. You don’t. That’s what he liked about you—you were you. He was a people pleaser, but you don’t care what anyone else thinks.” She pauses. “In a good way.”

This part is new to me, and I lean against my car, listening to Nell.

“He said your parents were a bit overbearing, especially your dad.”

I bite the inside of my lip. Overbearing? Mom, maybe. But Dad? Could have fooled me. And maybe that was the difference between us. My brother felt he had to prove himself, while I didn’t. At least, not until recently.

“He ended up giving in, doing whatever to placate them, but not you. He said you always followed your own path, and that took strength he didn’t have.”

This time, I laugh out loud. “He did not say that.”

She smiles. “Well, no, not those words exactly, but it was the basic sentiment.”

“Ray would never say I was stronger than him. Ever.”

“He thought it, though.” She lifts one shoulder. “You want to go have some coffee or something?”

“Right now?”

“Yeah.”

Over the summer, when Nell had tried to talk to me, I avoided her because I didn’t want to bear the burden of whatever it was she needed from me to get over Ray’s death. I was wrong in that moment—I was wrong in a lot of moments—and nothing has made it more clear than waking up in jail.

This time around, I need someone. Or, in this case, Nell. She sticks her hands in her jacket pockets, the petite features of her face serene, and I could use some of her serenity. “That would actually be really great. Thank you.”