On. The. Piano.
I turn to the living room, and the aliens must have extinguished Jeremy because now he’s leaning over the piano and thinking he’s Frank Sinatra.
“Dude, don’t touch that.” I walk over and stand next to the keys.
“Just let me play this one song.”
I shake my head. He knows this is my one rule. “Don’t.”
He pounds out more notes, and he’s about to hit the chorus, and I’m not okay with this on so many levels because this is my brother’s piano. He fancied himself a regular John Legend.
“I’ve got game when it comes to the ivories,” Ian would say, then launch into “All of Me.” I swear the dude got laid to that song more than the singer did.
Well, maybe. Legend can pull.
“Jer. Off.”
Something in my voice stops him, so he backs away and holds up his hands. “Sorry, bud.”
“Go play air guitar if you want to play something,” I say, easing up a bit on my friend.
He laughs then stares longingly at the keys. “I wish you’d let me take this off your hands. You know you’re never going to use it.”
“It’s not about using it.”
“Exactly. So let me help you. There’s so much you need to get rid of.” He flaps his arms, gesturing to the whole damn house.
Mine.
This house I grew up in is all mine.
The home that our parents owned outright, that became ours years ago, is suddenly mine, courtesy of a heart that no longer beats and a sister who didn’t want a thing. Everything under this roof is mine, and all of it weighs ten thousand tons.
Like Ian’s clothes. His law school tomes. His desk. Yes, even his piano. And, of course, his baseball cards. “Someday this fortune will be yours,” he’d joke while flipping through cards—some worth something, some worth nothing, but all worth everything to a fanatic like him. I couldn’t look at those boxes, so I shoved them into the hall closet the other day.
“Yeah, I know I need to get rid of everything. Maybe next time you want me to interact with people, you should convince me to have a personal-effects party. We could gather around the boxes, sort through them all, and pick and choose the keepers and what goes to Goodwill,” I say drily. “You want the signed Clayton Kershaw jersey, or should we see if Ethan calls dibs?”
Jeremy sighs. “Shit, man. Sorry.” He gestures to the pool, where nearly everyone has gathered. “I thought it would be helpful.”
Jeremy wanted to throw this party. He said it was what I needed. “Gotta keep things normal, man. Keep going. Keep talking. Hang out with people. Let us be there for you.” I agreed because I should be studying for the Bar, and anything’s better than that.
I clap his back. “It’s fine. You can have the jersey.”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. You keep it.”
“I mean it. I’ll track it down for you.” I nod to the pool. “Now go. Have some fucking fun.”
“You’re not pissed off?”
I laugh, but it’s mirthless. “I wish I were pissed off.”
Pissed off at least would feel like something.
Jeremy heads to the pool, and I survey the scene in my yard, trying, trying so hard for a contact high as I watch my friend jump into the pool and smack a volleyball at a girl in a yellow bikini.
I love pool volleyball. I should be out there.
“You could join them.” I turn around to see Trina has arrived.
“The woman of the hour.” I hold out my arms and flash her a big, practiced grin.
She shakes her head. “Andrew.”
“C’mon. You love me. That’s why you’re here.”
She rolls her brown eyes. “You’re not making this any easier.” She tips her chin to the party. “That’s what you should be doing.”
I press my hands together, turning myself into a beggar. “Yes, and I will. But for now, I could use a snack.”
My brother’s good friend—one of his closest friends—dips her hand into her pocket and glances around the living room as if sweeping the home for spies.
She takes out a Ziploc bag and presses it into my palm. “This is all I had handy at the hospital, and I could lose my job, so don’t say a word.”
“I’m a vault, Trina.”
“People say that . . .”
“But it’s true in this case. Only the dog knows my secrets, and she doesn’t talk.”
“Let’s keep it that way.”
I mime zipping my lips. “I’ll administer them sparingly.”
She narrows her eyes. “You better. I swear.”
Trina has been friends with my brother since they went to high school together. Since she helped him in science, and he helped her in history. Now, she has an MD and a soft spot when it comes to the dead’s younger brother.
Lucky me.
She heads to the kitchen, pours a glass of water, and thrusts it in my hand. “Just take half. I already split them.”
“Bless you and your pill-cutting skills.”
I fish around in the bag and find half a tablet. I swallow it, chasing it with water.
“I’m a good boy. I took all my medicine,” I say, but she doesn’t laugh.
She shakes her head. “Your brother would kill me.”
“He would understand. Trust me.” I’d hit his stash, but it’s long gone. Kate cleaned up quickly. That was the only thing she cleaned up quickly. All the other shit is up to me.
I gaze out at the pool, a sea of glistening flesh and fun. The problem is there’s no secondhand high from my friends. But maybe, just maybe, a welcome pharmaceutical haze will kick in shortly and . . . help me fake happiness.
“I need to go,” Trina says, with a reluctant smile.
“I love you madly. You know that?”
She laughs, shaking her head. “You don’t love me. You love my degree.”
I walk her to the door and open it. “Drive safely, okay?”
That’s easier than saying other things. Like, I hope you don’t lose your job and Thank you from the bottom of my cold heart. I hope it conveys my meaning as best it can.
She nods. “Bye, Andrew. Feel better.”
I wait till she’s inside her beater car, a ten-year-old Honda she hasn’t replaced yet since med school loans are sky-high, and once she’s gone, I turn around.
I could join the party.
I could jump in the pool.
I could crash a car, smash a model airplane, leave a restaurant without paying.
I’ve done all those, so tonight I choose something new.
I go up the stairs. I hear the noises from outside, the splashing and the laughing, the sounds of cans opening and voices rising in the celebratory din of the end of an era for most of us, as we nab our JDs and MBAs and finish our MDs, and then the sounds fade when I close my door, crank up some tunes, and tug off my T-shirt.
The room’s feeling fuzzy and warm, just the way I like it, because Dr. Trina’s goodies are kicking in.
I flop down on my bed, toss the goodie bag on the nightstand, and ask sleep to come visit me.
But sleep doesn’t come.
I close my eyes and see Holland, the woman who’s been back in town for the last several weeks.
I was supposed to forget her when she moved halfway around the world three years ago. I was supposed to let her slip from my mind.
I mostly did.
But then she returned, and the first day I saw her again, reading a book about Sandy Koufax to a too-skinny Ian since he was too tired to turn the pages, my heart tried to claw its way out of my chest and fling itself at her.
Now, courtesy of a text asking me if I want pie and a haircut, I’m replaying our greatest hits, as I have a thousand times since she returned a month ago. Mornings at the beach, afternoons in the pool, nights tangled up together. One perfect summer.
That was the deal. We both knew the score.
We went in with eyes wide open, with promises not to fall in love.
And we did it anyway.
Then we split, and she started to fade to black-and-white in my memories.
Now, she’s in technicolor again, and I love it, and I hate it, and I love it.
Her wavy blonde hair, her sky-blue eyes, her lips tasting like strawberry. Her smell—all pure, perfect, blonde California girl. Her laughter, throaty and rich. Her smile, radiant and a little sneaky too, like she knows all your secrets. Hell, she knew mine. She knew one nip on my ear, a hand around my waist, and I’d be ready. I was so fucking easy.
We were twenty-two then. All we wanted was each other. Images of her flick before my eyes—her skin, her lips, the curves of her body—but I don’t feel like jacking off.
Even that requires too much effort.
I watch the movie of her and imagine she’s riding me, her hands linked with mine, her hair tickling my face.
That’s nice. Yeah, that’s something.
My pulse beats faster, and it feels fantastic like this with imaginary Holland. Like I’m alive again, like I’m real again, like the earth is rotating around the sun again.
I’m aroused, and I’m half tempted to take care of this, but only half.
But that’s one of the things no one teaches you about grief—it can wear you down so much you don’t have the energy to jerk off.
* * *
When I wake in the middle of the night, my dog is wedged against me, the noises from the pool are gone, and all my memories of Holland are blurry once more.
The Ziploc bag of a half dozen Vicodin sits on my nightstand. I’ll really need to dole them out carefully if I’m going to get through this endless summer.
3
Holland
The day I finished nursing school a year ago, I went to the discount store and picked up a new set of fitted sheets.
Do I know how to party or what?
But the store was having a kickass sale, and the bedding was 75 percent off. I had a small apartment to furnish, and by small, I mean the size of a drawer.
The next day, I started my first job.
The end of grad school wasn’t a big deal to me or to my family. But as I walk along the beach at dawn, listening to the churning surf, I picture Andrew getting ready for the dean’s reception all alone in his empty home. I imagine the echo he must hear as he walks from room to room, how the silence must hurt.
A simple moment, like getting ready for an event, is no longer easy for the guy I once loved madly. He doesn’t have the luxury of shopping for sheets like it’s the only thing that matters.
I’d do nearly anything to make sure sheet shopping, or errand running, was his top priority. My chest squeezes, since I can’t do that. I can’t do anything to take away his pain.
A pelican circles overhead, scanning the unforgiving Pacific Ocean for breakfast. Once he spots his prey, he executes a glorious dive bomb, spearing an unsuspecting fish in his big, purse-like bill.
A twinge of envy pierces my chest unexpectedly, and I stop in my tracks in the sand. I'm jealous of a pelican?
In some weird way, I suppose I am. The pelican knows what it wants and the pelican goes for it. Me? I have all kinds of stuff to sort out, but most of it isn't even my stuff.
Most of it involves waiting.
I’ve never been particularly good at waiting. I’m a doer, but I’ve had to learn that sometimes you have no choice – you have to wait.
For results. For answers. For the next thing to happen, even if you have no clue what the next thing might be.
Maybe even especially when you don’t know.
I desperately want to tell Andrew I may be leaving again soon. I want to ask him what he thinks of my plans. When my first job ended last month and I chose to return to California to care for Ian through his final days, my trip was open-ended. Since then, I’ve been looking for work anywhere and everywhere, including here. But the job I’ve found that suits me best is on another continent. Like a magnet, I’m drawn to the other side of the world.
If it happens, I’ll have to tell Andrew, no matter how hard it’ll be to say.
Right now though, I don’t think he’s ready to hear the details. Not when his eyes light up when I knock on his door. Not when he smiles when I bring him Chinese takeout.
He thinks I don’t know he misses us.
But I know.
And I miss us too, even after three years apart.
I miss us desperately.
That’s why I haven’t told him. Because I’m not ready to say goodbye either.
* * *
After the waves have done their job clearing my mind, I head to Andrew’s home, bracing myself for today’s act of restraint when I see him. Is it wrong that I thought about kissing him after his brother’s memorial service last month?
Yes, it’s so wrong.
But even so, I wanted to kiss the breath out of my former summer love when I found him alone on a bench, sunglasses on, staring at the sea. I sat with him, quietly.
I took his hand in mine, and our fingers linked together.
He met my gaze, his brown eyes brimming with sadness.
Sadness came over me too, but so did a potent desire to kiss him hard, to take on all his pain. I could do that for him. I’m strong, and I’m tough, and I could bear his burdens.
I want to take everything on for him – it’s my instinct, it’s my gut.
But that’d be the riskiest thing I could do.
4
Andrew
I have a front-row view of the tossing of caps and hugging of professors right here on Instagram. Look at all those smiling faces, happily celebrating and hashtagging the hell out of it.
I crush the can of Diet Coke in my hand and chuck it in the recycling bin as I scroll through the social media feeds of the law school graduation I’m not attending.
No one’s making me go.
No one really can.
Ian’s not here to give me that sharp, brotherly stare. “C’mon. Get a tie and get your ass to the dean’s reception now. I told you—the luncheon has the best shrimp cocktail in the free world.”
But hey, that’s what he’d say, so I head upstairs and find my lawyer costume, showing the tie options to Sandy. “Green with stripes or red?”
She doesn’t bark from her post on the tiled floor.
“Neither? Okay, I get it. Red is too much of a power-douche statement. That’s what you’re saying, right? Don’t be a power-douche.”
She jerks her gaze to the window. A bird chirps outside.
I grab a light-blue tie with . . . cartoon giraffes on it? “Why do I have this?”
She cocks her head as I hang up that one. “Did you buy it for me?”
She drops her chin to the floor. Guilty as charged.
I find a navy-blue tie. “There. I’ll blend in. It’s perfect, right?”
Her tail thumps.
I button a shirt and drape the tie around my neck.
I hold my arms out wide. “You’d totally hire me if you needed someone to make your case, right? Of course you would. You’d want a pit bull for a lawyer.” I play-growl at my brother’s dog.
She play-growls back.
My doorbell rings, and Sandy erupts into a flurry of barks then rushes downstairs. I follow her, picking up the pace, feeling something. Her excitement is infectious. I don’t bark, but if I had a tail, I’d wag it when I peer through the peephole and see who’s here. Holland.
The gears whir to life. The cogs in the machine start turning.
I open the door, and she sports a most mischievous grin.
“The first rule of Pie Club is—”
I smile. “Don’t tell anyone about Pie Club.”
She brings a white box from behind her back then hands it to me. “Rum chiffon.”
I laugh. It’s the first time I’ve laughed in days. “I didn’t even know rum chiffon pie was a thing.”
“Totally a thing. And a better thing than prune chiffon pie. Did you know the One and Only Pie Shop make
s prune chiffon?” She crinkles her nose.
“On the scale of retro pies I find acceptable, that’d be a zero.”
“I know,” she says, then taps her fingernail against the cardboard. “But rum has to be tasty.”
“Should I get drunk on it before the speech at the reception?”
“All speeches are best delivered intoxicated,” she says, then eyes the home behind me. She knows it well, not only from the summer we spent together, but from the years we were friends before we were anything else.
“Come in.” I take the pie and head to the kitchen.
“I saw you have a rental car in the driveway. Where’s yours?”
“It’s kind of a funny story,” I deadpan. Then I give her the barest overview of the other day.
She blows out a long stream of air. “Then it’s a damn good thing I brought pie.”
That’s another reason why this woman owns prime real estate in my mind—she doesn’t judge me.
“I promise not to smash the pie.” I grab two forks and set them next to the box of pie.
She taps me on the shoulder. I turn around, surprised to see her inches away. “Hey.”
My heart speeds up. I wish she wouldn’t hey me. I wish she’d hey me all day long. “Hey.”
Then, the slow-mo begins. She opens her arms, steps closer, wraps those toned, strong limbs around me.
I sigh louder than I should.
I want to bury my face in that blonde hair and get lost for the day, for the week, for the summer. She’s so warm, and I don’t want to let her go. Not when her embrace feels like the solution to world peace. To my peace.
She whispers against my shoulder, “How are you doing today?”
“Fine. I didn’t go to the ceremony.” I hum a little as I sneak an inhale of her shampoo. Citrusy, like the rest of her.
“I know.”
“I watched it on social media.”
“Do you wish you’d gone?” She lets her arms drop, and we separate.
I shake my head. “Hell, no.”
Unbreak My Heart Page 2