~ Present Day ~
Death isn’t frightening, it isn’t a curse.
I just f*cking wish that it would’ve taken me first.
~ Romeo’s Quest
I sat on the pew in the far back. I hated funerals, but then again, I believed it would be weird if I loved them. I wondered if there were people who did love those kinds of things. People who showed up just to breathe in all of the sadness as a sick form of entertainment. You know what they say—you can’t spell funeral without fun.
I’m okay.
Whenever people walked by me, they took that breath of hesitation, thinking that they were, in fact, staring at Gabby. “I’m not her,” I whispered to them before they would frown and keep moving. “I’m not her,” I muttered to myself, shifting around on the wooden pew.
I was sick when I was younger, in and out of the hospital from ages four to six. I guess there was a hole in my heart. After too many surgeries and too many prayers, I was able to go on to live a normal life. Mom had thought I was going to die back then, and I couldn’t help but think that she was disappointed that Gabby was the one gone now, not me.
She’d started drinking again after she found out Gabby was sick. She had done her best to hide it, but one time I’d checked on her in her bedroom. She was crying and shaking in her bed. When I climbed next to her to hold her, I smelled the whiskey on her breath.
Mom had never been good with hard situations, and alcohol was always the way she dealt with her issues. It hadn’t made for the best outcome when Gabby and I had to go stay with our grandpa during her rehab visits. After her last one, she’d promised to put the bottle down forever.
Mom sat in the front row with her boyfriend, Jeremy—the only person who was able to make sure she was getting dressed every day. We hadn’t spoken much since Gabby went all selfish—dying and stuff. She’d always liked Gabby more. It wasn’t a secret. Gabby had been into the things Mom was into, like makeup and reality television. They’d always laughed with each other and would have a ton of fun while I sat in the room on the couch reading my books.
I knew parents always said they didn’t have favorites, but how could they not? Sometimes they got a kid who was so much like them that they swore God had made them in his own image. That’s what Gabby had been to mom. But other times, you got a kid who read the dictionary for fun because, “Words are cool.”
Guess who that was?
She loved me enough, but she sure as hell didn’t like me. I was okay with it, because I loved her enough for both of us.
Jeremy was a decent man, and I secretly wondered if he would ever be able to bring back the mom I had before Gabby had been ill. The mom who used to smile. The mom who could stomach to look my way. The mom who loved me but didn’t very much like me. I really missed that mom.
Chipping away at the black nail polish on my fingers, I sighed. The priest kept talking about Gabby as if he’d known her. He hadn’t known her. We’d never gone to church, so the fact that we were in one right now was a bit dramatic. Mom always said that the church was inside us and that you could find God through anything, so there was no reason to go to a building every Sunday. I thought that was just her way of saying, “I’m sleeping in on Sundays.”
There was no way I could stay inside the church for a second longer. For a place of prayer and faith, it sure held a feeling of suffocation.
I turned my head to the church doors as my ears were hit with another hymn. Ohmygosh. How many hymns are there?! Pushing myself up from the pew, I walked outside, feeling the summer heat slap my skin. It was hotter than the previous years. A few specks of sweat started rolling from my forehead before I even reached the steps. Tugging on the black dress I was obligated to wear, I tried not to teeter around on the unfamiliar height of my heels.
Some people would probably think it was weird that I was wearing the dress that my dead sister had picked out. But that was Gabby. She’d always been a bit morbid like that, talking about her death before it had even arrived, before she had even been sick, and wishing me to look my best at her funeral. The dress was a little too small for me around the waistline, yet I didn’t complain. Who was there to complain to anyway?
Sitting on the top step of the church, I rested my elbows against the sides of my body, tucking them in so I could feel a slight bit of pain from the pressure I was applying. Funerals were boring. I watched an ant scatter across the top step, looking to be dazed and confused, running back and forth, left and right, up and down.
“Well, it appears you and I have a lot in common, Mr. Ant.”
I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked up to the blue sky. Stupid blue skies, all happy and stuff. Even though I covered my eyes, the sun burned down onto me, heating me up with remorse and guilt.
My head lowered as I studied the cement steps, circling the tip of my heels in a redundant pattern. I wasn’t sure of it, but I was almost certain that loneliness was a disease. An infectious, disgusting illness that was slow to creep into your system and overtake you, even though you tried to fight it off the best you could.
“Am I interrupting?” a voice said from behind me. Bentley’s voice.
Turning around, I saw him standing there with a treasure box of sorts in his hands. He smiled my way, but he looked so sad in the eyes. I patted the spot on the steps next to me, and he was quick to accept my unspoken invitation. Gabby had dressed him, too. In a blue blazer covering his worn-and-torn Beatles t-shirt. People inside were probably giving him weird looks for his outfit of choice, but Bentley didn’t care what others thought. He only cared about one girl and her wants and needs.
“How are you doing?” I asked, resting my hand on his knee.
His blue eyes found my greens, and he chuckled at first. Yet we both knew it was a chuckle of suffering. My lips turned down. Poor guy. It wasn’t long before he placed the box next to him and his shoulders slumped down. His hands found his face, and he huddled up into a tight ball on the steps. I gasped lightly, almost feeling his heart breaking into pieces. I’d only seen Bentley cry once before, and that was when he’d scored tickets to see Paul McCartney. These were very different types of tears.
Watching him break down made me feel so helpless, and all I wanted to do was soak up all of his pain and send it into outer space so he would never have to feel that way again.
“I’m so sorry, Bentley,” I softly stated, wrapping my arms around him.
He continued to sob for a few more moments before he wiped his eyes. “I’m some kind of idiot for breaking down like that in front of you. The last thing you need to see is someone falling apart. I’m sorry, Ashlyn,” he sighed. He was the nicest guy I’d ever met. It was a pity that nice guys could hurt, because everyone knew that their hearts hurt the most.
“Never apologize to me.” Wrapping my fingers together, I rested my chin on top of my hands.
He tilted his head in my direction and nudged me in the shoulder. “How are you doing?” he asked, giving me those same caring eyes he always had. My sister would have been super in love with him for the way he came to check on me. In the world that came after this one, I was sure she had a grin on her face while she hung out with Tupac and Nemo’s mom.
A smile crept on my lips and a simple reminder that I wasn’t the only one hurting slipped into my mind. Bentley had meant the world to Gabby, but Gabby was Bentley’s universe. He was two years older than we were. We’d met him when he was a junior in high school. Gabby was a sophomore and I was a freshman since I had been held back a year due to my health.
Within a few weeks, Bentley would be starting his second year of college, going back up north to study to become a doctor—which was ironic because he was currently suffering from a broken heart that no medicine could ever heal.
“I’m doing okay, Bent.” It was a lie, and he knew it was a lie, but that was okay. He wouldn’t question me about it. “Did you see Henry in there?” I asked, turning back for a moment to glance at the church doors.
“Yeah, I did. We spoke for a little bit. Did you talk to him?”
“No. I haven’t talked to my mom either. Not for days now.” The tremble in my voice was picked up by Bentley, and he wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me in closer for a comfort hug.
“She’s just grieving. She doesn’t mean any harm. I’m sure of it.”
I ran my fingers against the concrete steps, feeling the rough texture against my smooth skin. “I think she wishes it were me,” I spoke softly. A tear fell down my cheek, and I turned my head toward Bentley, who seemed to be hurting enough for me by my own words. “I don’t think she can even look at me because, well…I’m just the evil twin who lived.”
“No.” He said the word with such order in his tone. “Ashlyn, there’s not an evil bone in your body.”
“How can you know that?”
“Well”—he sat up straight and gave me a goofy smile—“I’m a doctor. In training at least.” I couldn’t help but chuckle at his comment. “And just so you know… During the last conversation Gabby and I had, she just kept repeating how happy she was that it wasn’t you.”
I bit into my bottom lip, trying to hold back the tears that were ready to fall. “Thanks, Bentley.”
“Any time, buddy.” He hugged me one last time before we separated. “Which brings me to the next thing.” After reaching over to the box next to him, he lifted it up and set it in my lap. “It’s from Gabby. I was told to give it to you to open after the funeral tonight. I don’t know what’s in it. She wouldn’t tell me. She just told me it was for you.”
I stared at the wooden box, running my fingers against it. What could’ve been inside? What could’ve made it feel so heavy?
Bentley pushed up from the steps and slid his hands into his pockets. I listened to his footsteps as he walked closer to the church doors and opened one, making the quiet muffle of tears that was heard from inside that much more damaging. I didn’t look up, yet I knew he was still there.
He cleared his throat and took a few moments before speaking. “I was going to ask her to marry me, you know.”
The wooden box before me pushed against my thighs, and I felt the summer sun piercing my face, spitting its light against my skin. Without turning back toward him, I nodded. “I know.”
A heavy sigh fell from his lips as he turned to reenter the chapel. I sat there for a while longer, silently asking the sun to melt me into a pile of nothingness on the steps that afternoon. People wandered by the building, yet no one stopped to stare. They were too busy living their lives to notice that mine had somehow came to a halt.
The church door reopened, only this time it was Henry who came to sit next to me. He didn’t say much, but he sat far enough away to avoid making me feel too uncomfortable. Reaching into his suit’s pocket, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one up.
A cloud of smoke blew from his lips, and I watched the hypnotic patterns it made in the air before dissipating away.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit morose to be smoking on the steps of a church?”
Henry flicked some of the ashes off the end of his cigarette before talking. “Yeah, well, seeing how the world just buried one of my daughters, I think I can have a smoke on these steps and say, ‘F*ck you, world.’ At least for today.”
I laughed, sarcasm filling every inch of my chuckle. “It seems a little bold for you to call us your daughters after eighteen years of only birthday calls and holiday gift cards.” Henry’s driving down here from Wisconsin was the first time I’d seen him in quite some time.
He hadn’t made it his mission in life to have a #1 Dad coffee mug, and I’d learned to be okay with that. But for him to come up here, today of all days, and play the grieving father role seemed a bit dramatic, even for the guy smoking the cigarettes.
He sighed heavily, not replying. We sat and people watched for the longest time. Long enough for me to feel bad for the way I’d snapped at him.
“Sorry,” I muttered, glancing his way. “I didn’t mean that.” I wasn’t sure that he even held it against me. I guess sometimes it was easier to be mean than to be hurt.
Before long, Henry dived into his true reason for joining me outside. “I spoke with your mom. She’s having a pretty hard time.” No comment from me. Of course she was having a hard time! Her favorite daughter was dead! He continued. “We agreed that it might be best if you were to come stay with me. Start and finish your senior year in Wisconsin.”
This time, I really laughed. “Yeah, okay, Henry.” At least he still had a sense of humor going on. An odd sense of humor, but still funny. Rotating my body toward him, I saw the somber look filling his green eyes—the same shade of green as mine. And Gabby’s. My stomach hurt. My eyes gained water. “You’re serious? She doesn’t want me here anymore?”
“It’s not that…” His voice shook, hoping to not offend me.
But it was that. She didn’t want me anymore. Why else would she want to ship me off to the land of cows, cheese, and beer? I knew we were having a hard time, but that’s what families did after deaths. You had hard times. You walked on eggshells. You yelled when you had to and cried during screams. You fell apart—together.
The stomachaches from the past few weeks were back, and I hated myself for feeling faint. Not in front of Henry. Don’t pass out in front of him.
I pushed myself up from the step, holding the wooden box under my left arm. Dusting off the back of my dress with my right hand, I moved toward the church. “It’s fine,” I lied, my mind muddied with panicked thoughts of what was to come. “Besides…who wants to be wanted anyway?”
It had been a week since the funeral, and Mom had been staying with Jeremy for most of that week. To be honest, it wasn’t exactly how I’d imagined spending the last few weeks of summer—crying alone in a house all hours of a day. I was officially pathetic.
On the plus side, I hadn’t cried for the past ten minutes. So that was a pretty big victory.
After walking down the hallway, I stopped and leaned against the doorframe of what used to be our shared bedroom. There it was, resting on my dresser—her small box of wonders. Gabby’s whole life, or at least what she’d dreamed it would someday be, was inside that box—I just knew it. Call it a gut reaction, call it Twin ESP, but I just knew.
It was a simple, small, wooden treasure box, and I’d been instructed to open it the night of the funeral, yet up until now, I’d only stared at it on my dresser.
I lifted the box and found the key taped to the bottom. Ripping the key off, I moved over to the twin-sized bed on the right side of the room, only glancing at the other twin bed on the left. My body melted into the hard mattress, and I placed the key in the locket.
I opened the treasure box at an unhurried speed. The breath I’d been holding released into the small space, and a few tears fell from my eyes. Swiftly, I wiped them again and took a deep inhale.
Two seconds. I hadn’t cried for the past two seconds. So that was a pretty small victory.
Inside the box were an absurd amount of envelopes. There were a ton of Gabby’s old guitar picks sitting on top of the envelopes. She’d been an amazing musician, and she’d always tried to teach me to play that damn guitar of hers, but all it did was hurt my fingers and waste my time when I could have been working on my uncompleted novel.
I instantly felt bad for not having tried harder to learn to play the guitar, because she’d sure taken the time to help co-write my novel, which I was certain would never be completed now.
Resting in the corner of the box was a ring—the promise ring Bentley had given her. I ran it against my fingers for a while before placing it back into the box. I hoped he was doing all right. He was the closest thing to a brother I had and I wished he would be able to get back to himself, the fun loving guy he always was.
The rest of the things in the wooden box were letters—a ton of letters. There were at least forty envelopes sitting inside, each one numbered and marked with words, each one sealed with a heart. The one on the very top read, ‘Read Me First.’ Placing the box on the mattress, I picked up that envelope and slowly tore the top open.
Little Sister,
My fingers flew to my lips as I gasped at the note from Gabby. I felt conflicted because I wanted to cry from seeing her handwriting yet I wanted to laugh at the sight of her calling me ‘little sister.’ She’d beaten me into the world by fifteen minutes, and she’d never let me live that down—always calling me ‘little sister’ or ‘kid.’ I kept reading, wanting to rush through each and every envelope in the box, wanting to feel her connection to me right then and there.
Let me first say, I love you. You’re my first love and you’re my best love. Yes, I understand that these letters might seem a bit morbid, but carpe diem, right? I asked Bentley to have you open these the night of the funeral therefore I know you have probably waited a day or two.
“Or seven,” I muttered and couldn’t help but smile a little as I read the next line.
Or seven. But I felt like we have so much left unfinished. So much we haven’t been able to do. I’m sorry I won’t be there at your graduation. I’m sorry I won’t be able to get extremely trashed with you when you turn twenty-one. I’m sorry I won’t be able to make it to your first book signing. I’m so, so sorry that I won’t be there to hug you after your next heartbreak or be your maid of honor at your over-the-top wedding.
But I need you to do something for me, Ash. I need you to stop blaming yourself. Right now! Stop it! I need you to at some point start moving on. I’m the one who died, not you. Remember? So, listed on the next page is your bucket list. Yup, I made your bucket list because I knew you never would. Each time you complete an action, I have a letter for you to open—as if I’m right there beside you.
So, get to reading the list. NEVER open a letter until after you’ve completed the task. And for God’s sake, take a shower, brush your hair, and put on some makeup. You look terrible. Kind of like a hybrid love child of the Devil and Big Bird.
I’m sorry about all the tears, and I’m sorry you feel so lost and alone. But trust me…
You’re doing great, kid.
-Gabrielle
I moved to the second piece of paper and stared at my ‘bucket list.’ I wasn’t surprised at how accurate the list was with some of the things we used to talk to each other about doing. Sky diving, read the complete works of Shakespeare, fall in love, publish a novel and have an awesome book signing with cupcakes, have twins, date the wrong guy, get into University of Southern California. Those were just some of the things I’d dreamed of doing. But then other items on the list were a little more Gabby than they were me.
Forgive Henry, cry because you’re happy and laugh because you’re sad, get drunk and dance on a bar, give Bentley his promise ring back, take care of Mom, recreate the infamous scene from Titanic.
The front door of the apartment crept open, and I saw Mom standing in the living room, pacing back and forth. I placed the letters back into the box and closed it. Moving out of the bedroom, I stood before her, and she stared at me for the longest time. Tears filled her eyes, and her mouth parted as if she wanted to say something to me, but nothing came out. Her shoulders rose and fell, leaving nothing but quietness.
She looked so broken, worn out, shattered.
“I’m leaving for Henry’s tomorrow,” I said, shifting my feet around on the carpeted floor. For a brief moment, Mom began to shiver. I thought about taking the words back and staying put in the apartment. But before I could offer that up, she spoke.
“That’s good, Ashlyn. Do you need Jeremy to drive you to the train station?”
My head shook back and forth. My heart pounded against my chest as my fingers formed tight fists. “No. I’ll figure it out. And just so you know, I’m not coming back.” My voice cracked, but I bit back the tears. “Never. I hate you for leaving me when I needed you the most. And I’ll never forgive you.”
She glanced to the floor, her posture falling low. She then looked up at me one more time before moving back toward the front door. “Have a safe trip.”
And with that, she left me standing, once again, alone.