by Grace James
At around 11PM, I cranked up the music in the store and walked over to the front doors to prop them open so that our, highly immoral, Sell CDs to Drunk People on Their Way Home from the Local Dive Bar business plan could commence. I stepped onto the sidewalk to secure the doors so they didn’t swing shut – and that’s when I saw it.
It was parked a ways down the street and it was obviously dark, but I would recognize it anywhere.
By ‘it’ I mean a rusty, blue, Chevy pickup.
I couldn’t see him, the front seats were in shadow, but I knew he was there. And in that moment, as all of the air escaped my lungs and my heart clenched inside my chest, I felt my resolve crumble further with just the knowledge that he was here. That all of the time and the distance and the hurt hadn’t changed a damn thing when it came to how I felt about him.
“Hey! Amy! Get in here, I need you on the cash register!” The shout came from inside the store. A glance back inside showed me the slightly irate face of Jerry, my boss.
I looked back at the Chevy, narrowing my eyes, searching the gloom for even the barest outline of the man that I had dreamt about every night for the past three months, but to no avail.
“Amy! Come on!” Jerry shouted again.
With one last lingering look down the street, I went back inside and did my job.
It was the longest forty minutes of my life. My mind wasn’t on what I was doing; I made mistakes, I short-changed, I over-charged, I under-charged and generally made a mess of the whole thing.
By the time the last of the customers left and I finally stepped back outside into the night, the truck was gone.
And I was left wondering if it had ever really been there at all.
127
When I got back home, hoping for ice cream and a round of Psychoanalyze the Mysterious Appearance and Subsequent Disappearance of THAT Chevy outside My Work on the couch with my roomie, Mel was nowhere to be found. Then I remembered that she had a date with a guy that she had met at her internship. She had seemed pretty smitten and had dropped a pretty heavy hint that she wouldn’t be coming home at all that night.
I showered and forced myself to eat some leftover macaroni cheese from the fridge, and then I stared at my phone for what seemed like hours. My thumb hovered over Blake’s name in my contact list, as it had done so many times over the last few months.
But in the end, I did what I always did; I went to bed, knowing I’d see him in my dreams…
“Amy!” Blake’s gruff voice sounded muffled, like he was calling to me from the other side of my bedroom wall.
Amy?
He hardly ever called me by my actual name. That was weird.
“Ugh, nice dream,” I muttered irritably as I rolled over groggily in my bed and burrowed back down into the covers.
I had just gotten comfortable when I heard a loud hammering sound followed by Blake all but shouting, “Amy! Open the door!”
I sat up straight in my bed so fast I almost gave myself whiplash.
This wasn’t a dream.
My heart skidded to a halt in my chest – then started pounding like it was trying to burst my ribs apart.
I was frozen, like a rabbit in headlights, when the hammering on my door sounded again – this time it seemed like he was about to knock the door off of its hinges. “Amy! Open the fucking door!” he shouted. It was then that I processed how ragged his voice sounded; there was an edge of emotion that seemed barely controlled.
My mouth was dry as I pushed myself out of bed and padded through my apartment to the front door, because that was the moment I knew.
Blake wasn’t beating my door down in the middle of the night just to try and get me back.
Something was very wrong.
128
I opened the door.
His hands were braced on either side of the door frame and he was leaning forwards slightly, breathing heavily. The black hoodie he wore obscured his hair and cast his face into shadow. But I could see the glint of his eyes, dark with depthless pain.
“…Blake?” My voice was barely more than a breath. “What happened?”
For a moment, he didn’t move, it was as if he had been carved from stone. Then, all at once, his face seemed to crumple. “He’s gone,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Fuck – he’s gone.” His voice broke on the last word.
Without even realizing I’d moved, I found myself crushed against him, my arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders as I buried my face in his neck.
I didn’t need to ask who he was talking about.
It was Connor.
Blake’s arms were around my back like a vice, squeezing me, his fingers digging into me. My hands were bunched in the back of his hoodie; my knuckles must have been white from holding on so fiercely. His face was buried in my hair and he was crying; his chest heaved against mine and I heard his strangled cries as he fought in vain for control.
The tears fell from my own eyes in silent streams as I held him, my heart breaking for him even as I felt numb to my own loss. My thoughts were jumbled. But one thing that kept coming back around in my mind was that I wasn’t shocked. I understood that deep down, somewhere subconscious and hidden, I had been waiting for this.
This was where Connor was headed all along.
With the acknowledgement of that truth, came a kind of emptiness. I knew that I should feel sad or angry or…well, something.
But I didn’t.
It was as if, when I had flung my arms around Blake, I had kind of channeled his pain, but after the initial wrench that coursed through me, all I felt was a kind of resigned numbness. It was as though my brain had just switched off my emotions. Like, click, we’ll deal with those later.
Minutes or hours later, I realized that Blake had stilled. Gradually, he relaxed his hold on me and we pulled apart. His head remained bowed, his face in shadow, as I pulled him inside the apartment. The darkness thickened around us as I shut the door. Taking his hand, I led him into the kitchen and turned on the light. I made coffee, my hands working unconsciously as my mind seemed to just…float.
When our drinks were ready, I set our mugs on the table and sat down next to Blake. He was sitting with his elbows propped on the table, his head in his hands.
When I finally spoke, I didn’t recognize my own voice. It sounded flat, empty. “Tell me what happened.”
If I sounded bad, Blake sounded worse; I had never heard desolation like it. “Overdose,” he rasped. “Roni called and said he was in the hospital, that it was bad. By the time I got there it was too late…he was – he was already…” His fingers grasped his hair tightly under his hood as he stumbled over the word he couldn’t bring himself to utter. “I had to identify him. Roni said she couldn’t do it.”
I put my hand over my mouth as I he spoke, horrified at his suffering and feeling completely helpless to lessen it.
“He just looked like he was asleep…he looked so fucking young, like when he was little and we used to camp out in the back yard, he always fell asleep first…” He broke off again, fighting for control.
Not knowing what else to do, I curled my body against his side, resting my head on his shoulder and winding my arms around him. He didn’t hug me back, but I felt him lean into my touch.
So I just held him.
We sat in silence for a long time after that, our coffee untouched.
Finally, I asked the question that was bubbling in my mind. “Is it my fault?”
Blake stiffened suddenly, like an electric current had shot through him, and he lifted his head from his hands and turned to me, his expression fierce. “No. Fuck no!”
“But he was clean when I left –”
“Yeah. He was. And he stayed clean until he went to meet up with those fuckers he calls friends!”
“Matt and Luke,” I said flatly. Connor’s go-to stoner buddies. Only they weren’t just stoners, they were way worse.
“Yeah,” he snarled. “They were at the hospital, actually fuck
ing stuck around this time. Said they were just having a good time and then he just…” He shook his head and I saw the muscles in his jaw bunch. His eyes were hard as he reprimanded me, “This was not you. This had nothing to do with you. Do you understand me?”
“…yes,” I whispered.
He searched my eyes for a long moment until, apparently satisfied, he nodded and then gently, but firmly, pulled my arms off of him and stood up.
As I looked up at him, I actually saw the walls going up. The sorrow in his face was masked now, the only evidence that it had been there at all was the lost look in his eyes; like he was adrift, a man alone. It tied me in knots to see him that way. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, more dethatched. “I gotta go. Roni’s useless, and this shit ain’t gonna sort itself.”
I stood up too. “What can I do? Let me help.”
“No.”
“Blake, you don’t have to do this alone.”
“I do.”
I shook my head. “You don’t. I’m here –”
“No.” The steel in his voice told me that there was no point in arguing further. He had made up his mind, there was no changing it.
I gave in quietly. “Okay. You know where I am if you need anything. Please don’t do this alone.”
He jerked his chin in a kind of cursory nod as he turned away from me. His strides were purposeful as he moved towards the front door, his back was straight and his shoulders were set, all vulnerability put aside in the face of his responsibilities.
129
The next few days were a hazy blur. I went through the motions. I existed in a kind of limbo. I think we all did.
We ended up at Hayley’s house; we all gravitated there, needing to be close to one another. Her mom was amazing; cooking meals for us all, urging us to stay over, letting us use the house like a hotel. Derren pretty much lived there, and Hayley didn’t leave his side. Kane and I came and went, doing our own thing but unable to stay away from the group for long. Mel showed up now and then and sat with us as we watched movies together late into the night. I couldn’t tell you what we watched, and I don’t think any of the others could either, but that wasn’t really the point.
It was just that none of us wanted to be alone.
Blake was the only exception.
I tried calling him, but he never picked up. I almost went to his house, but Kane stopped me, telling me Blake had made it clear he wanted to be left alone. He’d pretty much kicked Kane out of the house they shared and I got the impression there had been at least the threat of violence involved. The only time I caught a glimpse of him was when he came over to talk to Derren and Kane. The three of them went into the back yard for twenty minutes before Blake left without a word to anyone else.
“What was that about?” Hayley asked, when Kane and Derren came back into the living room.
“Funeral’s the day after tomorrow,” Derren said quietly. “Blake wants me to give the eulogy.”
“Are you gonna be able to do that?” Hayley asked, her concern evident.
Derren rubbed his forehead and murmured, “He was my best friend, I need to do it.”
Hayley put her head on his shoulder and cuddled into him. “Is Blake gonna sing?”
“Yeah, but he didn’t say what.”
I bit my lip, unable to contain my worry. “Is he doing okay?”
Kane shook his head. “Hard to tell. He was all business.”
“I’m worried about him,” I admitted, probably for the hundredth time. “It can’t be good for him to be alone.”
“I’m worried too,” Kane sighed. “But it’s what he wants. We’ve gotta respect that.”
I nodded silently, but I was starting to wonder if that was really the right thing to do.
Kane seemed to read my mind. “You know Blake, you can’t make him do anything he doesn’t wanna do. Fighting him on this’ll just make it worse.”
“…I know, it’s just…hard.”
“Maybe you could just text him again,” Hayley offered. “Just tell him we’re here.”
“Yeah, I will.” It would probably be the twentieth text that I had sent him, but I couldn’t just do nothing.
“There’s something else,” Kane said, his voice heavy. “They got the toxicology report back. Pretty much confirmed what we already thought. They found alcohol and cocaine in his system. He overdosed and it caused a massive heart attack. He died almost instantly.”
The bare facts were clinical and impersonal. It made Connor sound like he was just another statistic, that what happened to him was just science at its worst.
Then came the funeral.
130
As Mel and I entered the cemetery, through the curling, wrought iron gates, we passed a group of reporters. Apparently the sudden death of a ‘potential future rock star’ was enough to interest the local media. A couple of them called out questions as we passed; things like “How did you know Connor Maxwell?” and “Would you care to make a comment for The Herald?” We ignored them, clutching each other’s hands as we walked across the rolling grass, falling in with the steady stream of mourners winding their way through the headstones.
There was a huge crowd of people, clustered together like a murder of crows, all wearing black suits and dresses. Connor had a lot of friends; people he grew up with, members of other bands, guys from work. It seemed like everyone he ever met had shown up to pay their respects.
As we joined their midst, falling in naturally beside Hayley, Derren and Kane, I instantly recognized Connor’s mother, Roni, and his brother, Jace. Standing alongside them was a man that could have only been his father. He looked like Connor, although he was fleshier and wore an unkempt beard. Next to him was Nate, Blake’s dad. Even if I hadn’t already known, it would have been clear that they were brothers; they were practically identical – only Nate was much better turned out.
My eyes searched the crowd for Blake, finally finding him standing apart from everyone else. I know we probably all looked awful, but even so, the sight of him chilled my blood. Although he was immaculately dressed in a black suit and black button down, his face was drawn and pale, the dark circles under his eyes looked like bruises. His eyes were sunken, glassy and emotionless. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
But those observations dropped from my mind when my eyes finally followed his gaze to rest on the coffin. It was a pale, oak casket with Connor’s brown leather jacket draped over the top. The sight of that jacket awakened a sense-memory in me that dragged me back in time; the tang of old leather, smoke and stale whiskey drifted up into my nostrils. An untamed scent that was all Connor.
Then it finally hit me.
Connor was really gone. He wasn’t just on tour, or avoiding me, or getting on with his life without me, like he should have been. He was just gone.
Forever.
I don’t remember starting to cry but I do remember Hayley and Mel putting their arms around me and squeezing me tightly, like they thought that I would simply unravel and crumble to dust if they let go.
I was filled with an overwhelming, crushing sadness that the man that I had adored so much, for a few whirlwind months the previous fall, was gone. As I stood by his graveside, I wasn’t grieving for the man in the coffin; I was grieving for the man that I had met a year ago.
The man who had swept me off of my feet and taken me on an adventure to the roof top of a derelict bowling alley and shown me the lights of Las Vegas sprawling out before me.
The man who took my virginity with more care and attentiveness that I ever imagined he could.
I grieved for that version of Connor.
Everything else just fell away.
I didn’t hear what the priest said; I didn’t hear Derren’s eulogy; the only time I came back to myself was when I heard Blake’s gravelly voice addressing the crowd. “A lot of you probably know that one of Connor’s favorite bands is Oasis.” I looked up to see him standing with his acoustic guitar slung on a strap over his sho
ulder. “He had every CD they ever released. So it seems right to play one of their songs.” His gaze dropped to the coffin. “This one’s for you, buddy,” he said quietly.
Then he played Don’t Go Away.
It was perfect and heartbreaking and honest.
131
The wake was held at Connor’s mom’s house, which was in the same neighborhood as Blake and Kane’s place. Although it was a little bigger, with a first floor and a garage to the side, it still had that run down look.
The house was crowded with what seemed like hundreds of people, and our little group ended up clustered together in the corner of the living room, next to where Connor’s drum kit had been set up. A framed picture of Connor whaling on the drums, his sticks a blur and his eyes scrunched shut, had been placed on the stool behind the kit. In front of the picture, there was a small glass of bourbon, Connor’s drink of choice.
I felt myself tremble a little at the sight of it and Mel squeezed my hand tighter.
Derren doled out shot glasses to us all, identical to the one on the drum stool, and Blake filled them before taking a deep pull straight from the bottle.
Without pausing to consider, I knocked back the shot in my hand, relishing the burning in my throat as I held out my glass for a refill. Blake’s eyes met mine impassively as he obliged.
“It was a…beautiful ceremony,” Mel said haltingly. “Derren, your eulogy was perfect.”
“Yeah, it was,” Hayley squeezed his arm.
Derren smiled thinly and nodded, before swiftly annihilating his own shot of bourbon.
“Yeah, man,” Kane agreed. “And that reading you did at the end summed him up completely. Pure Connor.” He smiled a little.
“Absolutely,” Hayley was starting to smile now too. “It reminded me of his rebel streak, all the times he would get kicked out of school.”