“I think I’m going to go to bed. I don’t want this day to be over, but maybe if I go to sleep, I’ll wake up to find it’s all been a dream.”
Mrs. Wallace stood, didn’t say anything to anyone, and walked down the hall. We all watched her go, and when we heard her bedroom door close, we looked to each other again.
“She’s going to need a lot of support for the next couple days. Weeks even.” Mom wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. She might have even been talking to herself; thinking out loud.
“Hayes, is there anything you need from us right now?” Dad’s voice had calmed down, and I could tell he was trying to help Hayes in any way he could, trying to do anything to make his loss not seem so huge.
“I don’t think there’s anything else to do right now.” His eyes darted to me for just an instant and the sadness was almost painful to see. He looked back at my father, pulling his shoulders back as if he were trying to appear less broken than I imagined he was. “Nothing to do now until the coroner releases the bodies.”
“Right,” my father said. There was nothing he could say in response. It was a sentence a twenty-two-year-old man should never have to say about his brother, or his father, and certainly not both of them together. “We’ll be back tomorrow, late morning, to see how we can help.”
Hayes nodded, but said nothing more.
My mom and I stood to leave. We silently walked toward the door, but I couldn’t just leave. I couldn’t just walk away from Hayes like that. His mom in the other room, the only person left in his family alive losing her mind. I couldn’t just leave him there thinking he was alone. So I turned, walked up to him, lifted onto my toes, and wrapped my arms around his neck. He didn’t move at first. I wondered, with my arms slung over his shoulders and my cheek pressed into his chest, if I’d made a mistake and misjudged what he needed from me in that moment. But then, slowly, his arms lifted, closed around my waist, and his cheek came to rest upon the crown of my head.
It was a strange moment. Strange because having his arms around me was comforting, but also confusing because having his arms around me felt like I’d gotten back something I thought I’d lost. I chalked it up to emotions, but let the embrace linger longer than it should have, not caring that my parents were probably watching.
“I don’t know how, Hayes,” I whispered, “but everything is going to be all right. Eventually.” When I pulled away, his eyes found mine, but he looked even sadder than before I’d touched him.
I walked away and left with my parents.
When I made it to my bed, I lay down watching the predawn sky through my window lighten with every minute that passed and I listened to my mother sob and my father soothe her from their bedroom. Only once the house was eerily quiet did my mind finally wander to Cory. I thought about Cory at five, slinging mud at me from across the yard after one particularly heavy summer rain. I thought of Cory at ten, letting me sit on the handlebars of his bike as we rode to the grocery store to buy popsicles to sell to all our friends at the park. I thought of Cory at fifteen, just learning how to drive, his mother practically having a heart attack as he pulled into my driveway, nearly hitting my father’s SUV.
There were very few memorable events in my life that didn’t involve Cory. He’d been there since day one. And had I known our days were numbered, the last two years would have been very different. I would have made sure of that.
Chapter Five
McKenzie
The next two weeks passed in a blur. My parents didn’t make me go back to school immediately; they said I could wait until after the funeral. Because of the nature of their deaths, a very detailed and thorough autopsy was performed on both Cory and his father, which delayed everything.
My mom spent a lot of time with Mrs. Wallace but that wasn’t saying much, she was practically catatonic. She rarely got out of bed, and when she did, she resembled a zombie.
I didn’t feel like I was faring much better.
The night Cory was killed, I don’t think I really comprehended what was happening, or how drastically different my life would become. I woke up the next morning after a horrible night of dreams. Dreams of watching Cory being shot, dreams of his face, dreams of him smiling and winking at me just before he left the house. Each time Dream Cory winked at me, I screamed and yelled at him not to go, to stay with me. That’s how I woke up, screaming “Please, don’t go!”
After spending a night dreaming about his death, I reached for my cell phone to see if he’d texted me. It didn’t occur to me for a few seconds that I’d never get another text from him. I looked at the very last one he’d sent.
I can’t wait for tonight.
We were supposed to have sex for the first time the night he died.
But then he died.