by Dani Hart
"They need me. I need to save them. Tessa needs me. Please, let me save them!" I was yelling and crying and flailing around.
"Bay, you can't save them."
I tried to peel his fingers off me, but he was too strong, so I started hammering my good fist anywhere I could reach. "No, they need me. I can help them. Please, just let me help them." I was weakening. Everyone working at the crash site stopped what they were doing to watch me, and I screamed at them since Brandt wouldn't listen. "Let me save them. Please!" The way they stared back, full of remorse, killed me. "Don't look at me that way. They aren't dead. They aren't dead."
Just then a group of investigators dispersed from where they were congregating, revealing a long row of body bags.
"Oh my—Nooo, no, no, no!" I covered my mouth with my hand, trying to hold back whatever was left in me. Shaking my head violently, I just repeated “no” over and over again.
Someone punched right through my chest, removed my heart, and crushed it beneath their shoe. The determination and hope left in me poured out of the large gaping hole and seeped into the gravel beneath my feet. My body had gone limp, so Brandt fell to the ground with me, cradling me in his arms.
Grady squatted in front of me and twisted my hair around his finger and his eyes full of tears, remembering the simple gesture Tessa and I shared. "She's gone, Bay. They're all gone."
I saw him stripped raw and kneeling before me with no hope for the future. We had both given up. I reached out and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling his face close to me. I rested my forehead on his, truly feeling the void we were both living with now. We didn't have to speak. We just mourned.
I couldn't walk, not only because I had no strength but also because I had caused more damage to my ribs by running, so Brandt picked me up and carried me toward the crowd. Several people lifted the tape, so he could make it through more easily. One by one, people paid their condolences. I knew I should have done the same since the odds were a lot of them were mourning, too, but I couldn't. I was empty. Numb.
I hid my face in Brandt's chest and listened as he replied to the spectators. We passed by an expansive memorial of flowers, stuffed animals, and candles created to remember the victims. The dead.
I didn't want to remember. Not now.
I just wanted to forget.
I SAT ON the balcony of our hotel suite, watching a tree sway in the wind, trying to block out the images of the crash. The gravity of my loss.
"I thought you might be cold." Brandt wrapped a blanket around my shoulders.
"Thanks."
"Do you want some tea or something?"
"No, I'm okay."
He sat next to me and let out an exhausted breath. He bent over his knees and rubbed his face hard.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked hesitantly.
He sat back in the chair and studied me. “Man, Bay, when the trains collided, I couldn’t get to you fast enough. Grady and I had no idea what had happened. To us, it felt like a simple jolt, but then overhead lights went out, and a sick feeling consumed me. We raced to the window and saw the fire and overturned cars. I don’t even know what was driving me because the adrenaline was so strong.” He shook his head.
Sobs caught in my throat as I relived the nightmare with him.
“When we got to the first overturned car, we had to hop off the train and run alongside the outside. The debris was everywhere, Bay. It was like a plane crash site. And the screams…” He brushed his hand over his face.
I buried my face in the blanket, drying my tears. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
He turned to me and stared, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was seeing the accident all over again.
“Once we got to what we presumed was our car, there was no way in. It was overturned and the door in the back was jammed, so Grady helped me climb to the top. The view was horrific from above. I couldn't tell where the front of the train was because it mangled with another train that also had overturned cars, and the smoke billowing from the flames was so thick it was hard to see. I climbed through the window, but I was not prepared for what I saw. Blood splattered everywhere and body parts. But the worst part was the eerie silence, and when I saw your wedding dress my stomach knotted so tight, because how could anyone survive what I was standing in the middle of? How Bay?” He choked on his tears.
I cried along with him. He had been acting so strong, but that was all it was, an act.
“Grady found Tessa first. He might be alive, Bay, but I swear I saw him die in that moment.” He tried to shake off the memory. “When you responded to my call, there was nothing else. In that second, it was just you.”
He fell to the ground in front of me, wrapping his arms around my waist and burying his head on my lap. We sat their sharing the grief and losing ourselves in the nightmare for a long time, and then the door slammed shut, startling us both.
"I'll go." Brandt got up, but I followed and the stench of alcohol was thick to Grady's room. He was lying on the bed in the dark.
"What do you want, man?" Grady rubbed his eyes.
"You all right?" Brandt asked.
I stayed hidden behind Brandt.
"Yep, I'm golden. My girlfriend and parents are dead. All good over here. Now, leave."
"And the alcohol?" Brandt pressed carefully.
I peeked over Brandt’s shoulder.
Grady sat up. "So what? Are you my keeper now?"
"You're not even twenty-one yet. Where did you get it?"
"They don’t card at the bar down the street. I'm going to be twenty-one soon, so ease up. It never stopped me before. But, seriously, man, I'm great." Grady got up and went into the bathroom, slamming the door.
I squeezed Brandt’s shoulder, and he placed his hand over mine.
“He’ll be okay. I did the same thing after Chris died. It’s how the Reilly boys cope, I guess.” He sighed.
WE STAYED AT the hotel for the week leading up to the funeral. I never left the suite. I sat on the balcony most of the time still processing that Tessa and my parents were gone. After Brandt’s breakdown, I rarely spoke. For the first time in my life, I was lost. Grady had taken up drinking to cope. I wished it were that easy for me. Brandt tried to talk to me about it, but I sided with Grady.
"I'm worried about him. He's been drunk all week," Brandt said, sitting on the other lounge chair.
"What do you expect from us, Brandt? We are trying, and this is how we are doing it," I snapped. "And don't be such a hypocrite. Look at your hands. I doubt punching things is considered the best way of coping, either."
"That's not fair. I lost people, too, Bay."
"None of this is fair. It sucks ass, Brandt. Grady is dealing with it however he can right now, and if drinking gets him through the next day, then give it to him."
"Am I allowed to worry about you?" A cynical undertone surfaced.
I should have responded, but what was I going to say? “No, I'll be fine,” because I knew I wouldn't be. Or “yes,” because I never would be?
"You're becoming distant, Bay. All I want to do is be here for you, but you have to let me. You have to let me in."
The last few nights I had stayed up with Grady in this same spot just talking—the only talking I did during our stay. Our conversations sometimes wandered to Tessa, but mostly they were about stupid stuff. For whatever reason, I took solace in Grady's presence. Right now with Brandt, I felt watched. I knew he loved me and, of course, I loved him, but I feared that was the problem. My attachment to him was unhealthy, and if I ever lost him amidst everything else, I wouldn't make it. Hell, I didn't even know if I would make it either way.
He eventually gave up when I didn't say anything else and went inside. I later heard him zipping up luggage. We were leaving the hotel today and heading straight to the funeral for our families. Brandt organized everything and decided on one funeral for both of our families. One was already too many.
Brandt had retrieved my black silk b
utton down and a pair of dark jeans from my house, so I put them on obediently, trying to block out the reason for me leaving the balcony. Grady sat at the dining table with a vodka-filled glass. Something I rarely saw him without anymore.
When Brandt left the room to load the car and close our bill, I went and sat with Grady. His eyes were glazed, but he wasn't drunk. It was the familiar glaze that stared back at me in the mirror. Detachment. I placed my hand out over the table and he reached out and took it in his. We didn't have to speak. We knew today was going to be absolutely devastating, but we would face it together, like we had been since the accident. I went to twirl my hair with my free hand, but stopped just before and put my hand back on my lap.
"Don't," he said suddenly. "Don't do that, please. Don't try to hide who you are because it's a reminder of who she was. Please.” His voice was desperate.
"I just… How do you do it, Grady? How do you look at me and not see her?"
"It's why I'm surviving, Bay."
My heart burst. He saw Tessa through me, but what did he think that meant? I couldn't ever be her replacement. Not in that way. He would never truly deal with Tessa's loss with me in front of him every day. Our relationship had become a necessity, like breathing, but I now realized how detrimental it was for him. He needed to move on, which meant I needed to leave. I needed to stop being a crutch. I knew what I needed to do for him, but I would wait until after the funeral. We would need each other more than ever to get through it.
"You're not only going to survive, Grady, but one day, you'll thrive again. I promise." I squeezed his hand. Brandt came back, watching our exchange uncomfortably. I knew he would never think I would cheat on him, but I also knew it hurt him seeing me lean on Grady instead of him. Something I needed to change.
"We're all packed up," he stated.
Grady threw back the rest of his drink, got up, and walked out of the room.
"He'll be okay, Brandt. I'll make sure of it." I was a different story. I joined him at the door, grabbing the LA Times the hotel left for us. On the front page was a picture of Brandt carrying me from the crash site last week. My heart dropped as I relived the moment. The photo was from the perspective of the crowd with the wreck behind us, so it was probably taken with a cell phone. “Surviving is All Relative” was the title of the story. Someone had recounted my meltdown to a reporter. I wanted to put the paper down, knowing the pain it would bring, but I couldn’t. I needed to know everything about the crash. Every injured person, every lost life, every single detail.
Baylor Reilly was one of three survivors from the cars that rolled over with the force of the impact. She is the only remaining survivor in her family. Thanks to Ms. Stone, eleven-year-old, Elizabeth Evans, survived. Miss Evans lost her grandparents in the collision.
Victims on top of victims.
The article detailed my parents' presence in the community, and it also mentioned Tessa's acceptance to Stanford. The article focused mainly on Lizzy and me, but it did reference that seventeen people had perished and over 225 more were injured. Only three had survived in the front cars of the Union Pacific Railroad and Metrolink trains. I let that sink in. Why had I been spared? How had I not died? None of it made sense. I should have died with my family.
"We need to get going," Brandt reminded me.
I folded the newspaper and took it with me.
"The crash has been front page every day," he said in the car.
I stared out the window. Grady was in the back seat doing the same thing. As we traveled through the center of town, I saw makeshift memorials outside of stores and picture posters on walls. All to remember the dead. One was a picture of a family of five, the mom holding a baby as two little ones wrapped around their daddy's leg. I gasped and wiped away a tear. The whole community had been affected by the crash.
One night at the hotel, Brandt told me the investigators determined the conductor of the Metrolink train was texting before the crash, so they suspected he had missed the warnings that the railroad switch had failed, putting us on a head-on collision course. You would think alarms would ring and dispatchers would be yelling. Human idiocy and technology errors had taken the life of not only my family but also many more. All the survivors were psychologically scarred, and many permanently disfigured. The sheer mass of devastation was nauseating.
The parking lot to the cemetery was packed. In fact, the streets were lined with cars, too. My jaw dropped. "There are so many people," I muttered.
"Your parents were pretty big in the community, Bay. Everyone wants to pay their respects."
I was overcome with emotion when I saw the sea of people on the grass. They were everywhere. Brandt pulled into a spot reserved for us.
"This is it," he announced.
It really was. This was our closure moment. What a joke! What did that even mean?
Brandt put his hand on my knee. "You can do this. I'm here."
I felt Grady's hand on my shoulder. "And I'm here, too."
I put one hand over each and squeezed. "We can do this," I said. After a shared moment of silence, we made our way around the outskirts of the crowd to three chairs reserved for us. I sat in the middle with the boys on either side of me. I heard the hushed whispers in the crowd, but I tried to tune them out. I wondered if they thought the wrong person lived, because I wondered the same. The boys held my hands through the whole service. It was hard to focus on what was being said, because all I could do was stare at the five caskets laid out sporadically on the lawn, ready to be buried. Brandt offered to speak on our behalf. It was just too much too soon for Grady and me.
A few people, who were close with our parents, said a lot of wonderful things, and close friends of Tessa’s spoke as well. I had so much in me to say, but where did I start? Which stories did I choose? How could I choose between the most significant moments of our lives together when I felt like they were all significant? I couldn't, so I remained quiet.
Brandt stood up and walked slowly to the front. Even in his darkest hours, he was glorious. He cleared his throat and paused, raking his hand through his hair.
"I was talking to Bay about this moment, and we both agreed it's too hard to sum up the entirety of five lives in just a few minutes, so I won't. We heard many heartfelt stories from friends, and I think that's a great way to remember them. We aren't blind to the fact twelve others lost their lives, and many others are permanently injured. Our hearts go out to all of them." He picked up a bunch of forget-me-not flowers from the mound. "This is a forget-me-not flower. Bay and I chose this flower on our wedding day for the same reason we chose it today. Moments are meant to be remembered even long after they were made. When you toss this flower, it's your promise to never forget the memories you have made with them." He took up four more bunches and tossed one onto each casket and then sat back down, taking my hand in his again.
I thought we were done, but then a little voice broke the silence.
"I'd like to say something." When the voice made it into my line of sight, I almost lost it.
"It's Lizzy," I said shakily. She looked so battered sitting in a wheelchair. Her left arm was gone, lost in the accident. Her parents wheeled her to me.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," I replied through my tears.
"I wanted to come today to say thank you to your parents and sister for raising such an amazing person. You could've left me to find your family, but you didn't. You saved me."
Lizzy’s mom spoke up and tried her best to talk as she cried. "What you did for my daughter…what you did for us…we can never thank you enough. She's our only child and a miracle from conception. I don't know what we would've done had we lost her." She couldn't talk anymore.
"We are very sorry for your loss," Lizzy's father said softly as he wheeled Lizzy off to the side.
Without thinking, I stood up and walked to the front to face the crowd. I twirled my hair around my finger as I counted to ten in my head to calm my nerves. The only sound in the crow
d was a baby crying. Brandt looked hopeful while Grady look defeated.
"I didn't expect to speak today," I said, clearing my throat as Brandt had done, "because I didn't know how to summarize twenty-two years of my life with my family in a few sentences. I still don't know how. I'm still in shock and am not sure all of this hasn't hit me yet, but I needed you to know that their purpose in life didn't stop when they died. By the size of this crowd, I know my parents made a difference. They made an impact in this world. And my sister was on her way to do the same.
“I know they are gone—something I don't quite understand right now—but they had a purpose, and they gave us all a purpose in one way or another. Please, remember them for however they helped you, and pay it forward. Remember them in your everyday actions. Remember them, because they deserve to be remembered, not forgotten."
I sat back down and watched as everyone was given a handful of forget-me-not flowers to drop onto each casket. The crowd lined up, and the caskets were quickly covered in them.
"Thank you," I said to Brandt.
"For what?"
"The flowers. I don't want us to ever forget them."
When it was our turn to throw the flowers, it was harder than I thought. I started at Brandt's parents' caskets and made my way to my family. I stopped at my dad's first.
"I don't know how to say goodbye to you, Daddy. If you were here, you would tell me what to say and somehow make me understand all of this. I don't know what I'm going to do without you."
I laid a bundle of flowers on top and walked to my mom's casket. "I know a mother never wants to bury a child, but a child never wants to bury her parents either. Not this young. It was too soon. You were supposed to be a grandmother to my children. I promise I will make sure they know who you are." I placed a bundle onto her casket.
I left Tessa's for last because I knew it would be the hardest. I was her big sister. I was supposed to protect her, and she was my best friend. "I don't know what to say, baby girl. I love you so much, and every time I look in the mirror and every time I twist my hair, I will feel you. I will remember you. I will never forget you." My heart was done. It couldn't take any more. I was laying to rest my whole life, and I could feel it was all about to hit me. Grady noticed I was weak and grabbed me. We stood in front of Tessa's casket, quietly sobbing together.