My Brother's Girl

by Sienna Blake

  He was somewhere colder. He was somewhere darker. Somewhere far out to sea.

  “I thought maybe it might still be here,” Darren finally said, his voice almost indistinguishable from the wind.

  I tried to cling to it, but it slipped through my fingers and was carried out into the cold, lost forever.

  “Why are we here, Darren?” I asked. I tried to keep the fear from my voice; I failed.

  Darren was still staring down at the dirt and rocks, shifting both around with the toe of his grease-stained boot as I searched his unreadable face.

  “It should be around here somewhere,” he said.

  “What?”

  Darren didn’t look at me as he answered, “The wrench.”

  I frowned in confusion, twisting around to look around my feet. It was just dirt and rocks and trash tangled amongst thorny weeds beneath the guard rail.

  “A wrench?” I asked.

  Darren kicked at the same patch of dirt and seemed confused to not find any glint of a wrench.

  “I don’t think anyone would have taken it,” he said. “It was a piece of shit. I could barely hold it myself. Damn thing kept slipping in my hands. I don’t know how many times I sliced myself open because of it.”

  I narrowed my eyes as Darren pulled his right hand from his pocket. He twisted it this way and that, studying the jagged scars along his palm as if he hadn’t seen them in years. I’d always assumed he got them working on cars; I had only been working on cars for a few weeks and I already had a couple of scars in the making of my own. But I was starting to sense that Darren’s scars came from one specific car, on one specific night.

  “Darren, what happened here?” I asked, voice nearly trembling.

  I reached over to grab his hand—half for his sake, half for mine—but he flinched away from my touch like I’d burned him somehow.

  “Please,” I whispered.

  Darren slipped his scarred hand back into his pocket as if ashamed at the sight of it and sighed softly, tiredly.

  “I thought I couldn’t possibly love anyone more than I loved her,” he started, still staring at his dirty boots, still not lifting his eyes to the city lights, still not lifting his eyes to me. “Her name was Sophie and I wanted her more than anything. Or at least at the time I thought I wanted her more than anything, more than anyone.”

  My heart rate quickened but I bit back the questions, the millions of questions, that raced into my head.

  “Of course, her father didn’t approve of me. He wanted his daughter to marry a lawyer or a doctor, like him. Not a dirt-poor, no-future mechanic,” Darren continued. “We were going to leave. To America, we thought. I don’t think I had enough money to get us across to England, let alone America, but we were going. Nothing would stop us. Because we had each other and that was enough.”

  Darren was silent for a long time after he said this, head bent in petition like there was a crucifix somewhere underneath the pebbles and dust.

  “Jaime caught me as I was leaving,” Darren finally said. “He wasn’t supposed to. But that damn stair, the third one from the bottom, creaked.”

  I knew the one. I’d seen Darren skip it every time he climbed the stairs in Ma’s house.

  “We fought,” Darren continued. “He couldn’t believe I was choosing Sarah over my family. He couldn’t believe I would put anyone over Ma, over my brothers, over him. He couldn’t believe I wasn’t even going to tell him. I said I was leaving and he said he was going to the bar to drown my memory in whiskey. We both left black tyre marks on Ma’s driveway because we each took off so quickly, so angrily.”

  Darren swallowed heavily and closed his eyes. “We said terrible things to one another. Terrible, regrettable things,” he whispered. “We said the kind of terrible things siblings always say to each other when they fight, because they always believe there will be time to make up, to say sorry, to hug and laugh and move on. But…but…”

  Everyone says the scariest parts of a roller coaster are the dips, the falls, the hills. But they’re wrong. The scariest part is when you’re climbing, climbing oh, so slowly when the rails beneath the cart go click…click…click…

  That’s the scariest part because you know what is coming, you can see it clear as day. You know the fall is coming and yet there is nothing you can do at that point to stop it.

  My stomach lurched there on the side of that dark, empty road, because I knew then where the story was going. There wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do to stop it.

  “At a gas station about ten or so miles down the road from here, I called Ma’s house just like I planned to,” Darren went on. “I was going to just leave a voicemail explaining where I was going, assuring her that I would be fine. It was just going to be a voicemail because it was late and everyone should have been asleep…but Ma answered.”

  Click…click…click…

  Darren shook his head just slightly, as if he was confused. “She wasn’t supposed to answer. She…”

  Click…click…click…

  I had been wanting Darren to turn to me, to look at me, to rest his burdens on me since we arrived to this cold, desolate place, but when he finally did I suddenly wished he hadn’t. It wasn’t just the obvious pain in his eyes, it was the knowledge that he’d been holding onto it, all alone, for all these years. No one deserved that, least of all him.

  “She wasn’t supposed to answer,” he repeated once more like a broken record unable to move backward, unable to move forward. “She wasn’t supposed to answer. She…”

  Darren looked away when the threat of tears became obvious in his stormy eyes. He blinked as he surveyed the city skyline below us.

  “Do you see the lights there?” he asked me, guiding my gaze with a pointed hand that was shaking, but probably not from the cold. “Right there next to that high-rise.”

  I nodded; I wasn’t sure I could form words even if I wanted to.

  “That’s where she said they took him,” Darren said. “That’s where she said I needed to go to, where I need to hurry to. That’s where my Ma said I needed to go to say goodbye.”

  Click…click…click…

  Why did I let Darren get off the motorcycle? Why did I let him stop in this godforsaken place? Why didn’t we run away?

  But none of that mattered, because it was too late.

  Click…click…click…

  “I’m still not sure what caused the tyre to pop right here on my way back,” Darren said next. “A piece of glass? A rock? A vengeful God?”

  I followed his eyes to the faded yellow lines along the cracked asphalt. His breath came out shaky and uneven before he continued.

  “I was trying to get the spare tyre on the car when Jaime died. I’d changed a thousand tyres before that and I…I just couldn’t get it on. My twin died and I was working on a fecking car.”

  Darren clutched his chest with his hands, but it did little to muffle the scream of his heart. He was falling and there was nothing I could do but hold on.

  “I was this fucking close.” Darren jabbed an angry finger at the small twinkling lights of the hospital in the distance. “I could see it. I could fucking see it. It was right there. Right there. And I couldn’t get to him. I couldn’t…”

  Darren sank to his knees. I lowered myself to the ice-cold earth next to him.

  “At first Ma didn’t want to tell me.” Darren’s voice was raw. “At first she didn’t want to tell me how much I’d…how much I’d missed him by.”

  I scooted closer to Darren, not caring that the hard ground sliced my knees like tiny daggers, and gently rested my hand on his quivering back.

  “Ten minutes,” he spat. “Ten fucking minutes.”

  Darren rocked back and forth before leaning his head back to stare at the stars above the swaying pines.

  “No one asked me where I was,” he said to the sky. “Even today, no one in my family has dared to ask where I was that I…that I missed him.”

  Finally he looked over at me. I tri
ed not to flinch away from the agony etched across his face.

  “No one knows I was here,” he whispered. “No one knows I was here with blood literally on my hands.”

  Darren stared down at his palms held up against his knees. We both studied the scars as if they might lead to an answer, any answer. But there was none. There never would be.

  “I made a vow that I would never make the same mistake I made that night,” Darren said, again hiding his hands in his pockets. “I vowed to never put my heart before my family ever again. I took my chance at happiness and…and I’m not taking it again. Kayleigh, I can’t.”

  Darren looked at me with sadness in his eyes. My fears were realised in that terrible moment: he was saying goodbye.

  Click…click…click…

  As it turned out I hadn’t fallen yet. I hadn’t even started to fall. I was still climbing higher and higher and higher. The drop was still coming and it was going to hurt like hell, like absolute hell.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I just can’t.”

  Click…click…click…

  Kayleigh

  I clung to Darren’s back as he drove us home. But the warmth of his body against mine no longer filled the void, cold and black and empty. The wind was crueller, the road longer, the night was never-ending darkness.

  “Can you stop at the garage?” I asked at a swinging red light of an empty, silent intersection.

  Darren twisted his head back.

  “I forgot my beanie,” I said, answering his question before he had to ask it. “And if I’m not going to be, um…well, it might be a while before I’m back if—”

  “Alright.” Darren’s voice was distant as if it was just an echo and he was still back in the dust alongside the guard rail. I was holding onto a ghost. Despite the fact that I could feel his heart beating beneath my palm, I couldn’t help but think it wasn’t entirely untrue.

  Darren switched on his turn signal. I leaned with him as he guided the motorcycle through the turn. We moved together, but it was obvious that we were being dragged apart.

  If I wanted Darren, I was going to have to fight for him. But I wasn’t raised to fight. I wasn’t sure I knew how. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to change a mind that was set in tragedy, petrified with guilt.

  The headlamp of Darren’s motorcycle stretched across the garage door. We both sat in silence as it clanked and clattered on its way up.

  “Umm, I’ll be right back,” I said awkwardly over the idling of the engine.

  All I received in response from Darren was a curt nod of his chin in his all-encompassing helmet. As I walked across the driveway, I glanced back at Darren, but his helmet was faced away from me. My eyes avoided the crooked toolbox at the front of the garage and the mess of tools around it as I made my way to the back to retrieve my beanie.

  If I looked over at the toolbox I would remember Darren’s body crashing into it, mine following after. I would remember the heat of his lips against mine. I would remember how close we had been, how damn close…

  After snatching up my beanie, I dusted it off by slapping it across my knee. But there were smudges of dirt from the floor and I knew the beanie was ruined. It was no longer white and pristine and beautiful. Most would throw it out, get a new one.

  But I wanted this beanie. I loved this beanie.

  I walked to the front of the garage but did not step outside.

  “I reject your goodbye, Darren,” I shouted out to him.

  He pulled off his helmet and tucked it under one arm. I was waiting for his eyes when they found mine. “What?” he called out.

  I cupped my hands over my mouth and shouted each word as loudly as I could, “I. Reject. Your. Goodbye!”

  Darren switched off the ignition to his motorcycle and irritably waved me over toward him. “Come on, Kayleigh. It’s getting late.”

  I shook my head. “Nope. You can take your goodbye and shove it.”

  Darren sighed and rubbed at his eyes. “I’m tired, Kayleigh. Let’s please go.”

  “No.”

  My toes grazed the line between the garage and the driveway. I would not cross it. Darren would have to drag me kicking and screaming across it if he wanted me to leave. I wasn’t going anywhere. Hell, no.

  “Kayleigh, get over here or I’m leaving,” Darren threatened.

  I petulantly crossed my arms over my chest. “Then leave,” I challenged. “But know I’ll be right here whenever you come back. I’ll be right here. Because I’m not saying goodbye. Not tonight. Not ever.”

  Anger entered Darren’s voice. “Cut the shite and get over here so we can get some sleep.”

  “I don’t accept your goodbye, Darren,” I called out to him in the dead silence of the neighbourhood.

  Families were enjoying hot chocolates around twinkling Christmas trees, but I no longer cared if they heard me. I didn’t give a fuck if I was interrupting any “Silent Nights”. If peace on earth meant letting Darren go, then for all I cared the whole fecking world could burn to ashes.

  “I am not doing this right now, Kayleigh.” Darren’s voice shook with something that was nearing fury as he pointed at the concrete next to his motorcycle. “Get over here.”

  My response to this was simply to pull on my dirty grease-stained beanie and glare across the driveway at him in the harsh glow of the headlamp of his motorcycle. Darren finally threw his helmet to the concrete and stalked toward me in the garage.

  His voice was a low, dangerous hiss as he said, “Which part of what I explained to you up there didn’t you understand?”

  I stood my ground inside the garage as he stopped in front of me just outside of it, chest heaving in anger.

  “Huh?” he said, lowering his face so his nose was an inch from mine. “What part of do I need to explain again to get through your thick, stubborn skull?”

  I wasn’t backing down. Not this time. I pushed myself up onto my tiptoes so Darren had to lean back to avoid our lips again colliding. “You need to explain to me the part where any of what happened that night means that you no longer deserve happiness,” I said, voice not wavering even in the slightest.

  Darren’s wide eyes flashed with anger. “We’re leaving.” He reached for my arm to drag me back toward the motorcycle, but I wrenched it free from him. “Jaysus fuck, Kayleigh!”

  Oh, was he angry? Was he? Well that made two of us then.

  “This is my garage,” Darren said, following after me, tight on my heels as I marched farther inside. “This is my garage so you need to get out. Now.”

  I whirled around and jabbed a finger against Darren’s chest. “Your garage?”

  The surprise that widened his eyes was expected as he continued to glare at me, his chest rising and falling raggedly.

  “Is that what you really believe?” I pressed, this time forcing Darren to step back as I advanced. “You really think that this is your garage?”

  “Of course, I do,” he said. “Who else would it belong to?”

  Without a word, I turned on my heel and marched straight to the back office.

  This time Darren did not follow after me. He remained where he was as he called after me. “What in the hell are you doing?”

  I ignored his angry shouting as I kneeled and yanked open the bottom file folder drawer that I organized one of the first days of working for Darren. All his invoices had been in a haphazard, wobbling pile atop the dust-covered boom box in the corner of the office. My fingers quickly carded through the different manila folders I painstakingly labelled till I found the one I was looking for: O’Sullivan.

  Making sure to speak loud enough for Darren to hear me outside the office, I read from the invoice: “Noah O’Sullivan dropped off his car on April 5th for a ‘strange noise’. Result: no noise found.”

  I flung the invoice over my shoulder and outside the office.

  “Eoin O’Sullivan dropped off his car on April 18th for ‘possible flat tyre’. Result: tyres fine.”

&nb
sp; The flimsy yellow invoice wafted to the concrete floor behind me as I snatched up the next one.

  “Miriam O’Sullivan dropped off her car, brand new, I might add, on April 22nd for ‘weird rattle sound’. Result: brand new car is brand new and just fine.”

  Invoice after invoice I shouted out and tossed behind me. There was a small spread out stack on the grease-covered floor behind me, and I hadn’t even put a dent in the O’Sullivan folder. It was “weird noise” after “strange sound” after “need a check-up” after “wobbly tyre”: made up excuse after made up excuse after made up excuse. I was grabbing yet another invoice when I heard Darren’s footsteps. Kneeling there on the floor of the back office, I glanced over my shoulder to find Darren standing in the doorway.

  “Should I keep going?” I asked, no longer shouting.

  The anger had drained from Darren’s face as he stared down at the pile of invoices at his feet. He was left looking lost, confused, helpless. From the floor, I stretched out a hand to him. He glanced over at it, hesitated, but then slowly slipped his hand into mine. I eased him to the floor of the office next to me, pulled the file folder out of the drawer, and placed it in Darren’s lap.

  He didn’t open the folder. He didn’t card through the remaining invoices, all from his family. He didn’t even touch them. But he didn’t look away from the overwhelming stack.

  “I know that you see this garage as your prison, Darren,” I said softly.

  Darren flinched at my words but did not look up from the file folder.

  “Because you were working on a car when Jaime passed, you feel it is your punishment to work on cars forever,” I continued, my words bolder than any before in my life. I swallowed heavily, fighting back doubt and uncertainty and went on. “You think you deserve to be trapped in dark, tight spaces. You think you deserve to have your fingers bleed daily, your body ache nightly. You keep it cold in here, barely using the heater, to torture yourself. You keep it dark because prisons are dark. You think you deserve to be locked away in a cold, grey block, separated from happiness. Separated from your family.”