“Chuck?”
“We know you’re in there.”
“Open the goddam door, Chuck.”
“Your bike is outside. You’re not fooling anyone.”
“Come on, Chuck.”
“Let us in, at least, if you’re not going to come out.”
I breathed deep and slow, trying to stem off the rise of panic inside my chest, fully dressed, sitting on the couch in my living room. It wasn’t much of a living room, really. When there was bad weather, I’d even throw down some old cardboard and newspapers and wheel my motorcycle inside to protect it from the elements. Wasn’t that what a living room was for? Living? That was what my living room was a couple of places to sit down and unwind instead of a stuffy room with over-the-top drapery and uncomfortable furniture that no one was ever encouraged to use.
“Chuck!”
The knocking resumed on my door and I put my face in my hands. I’d done good, up until this point. I’d made it out of bed, gotten myself dressed, and tried to get a little coffee in me, but that was where things had unspooled. It had been so, so easy to dump a little bourboninto the coffee, just to take the edge off what today represented. It didn’t matter what I knew to be true that the second the buzz set in, it was a swift spiral down to despair. If I could just keep chasing that notion of being okay, just another pour, until the coffee became superfluous and there was only bourbon in the mug, and I was drunk and unable to leave my home on a day when I needed all the distraction I could get.
“Chuck, just tell us what’s going on.”
My friends’ requests to try and get me to open the door were turning more and more pleading, and I felt bad. I’d agreed to go on this ride today, thinking it would be a good distraction, but knowing now that getting on my motorcycle wasn’t a good idea.
It wasn’t a good idea at all.
My phone buzzed beside me and I picked it up, despondent. It was Haley. I didn’t want to talk to her like this, knew that Brody or Ace had probably texted her to see if she could raise me, and sighed heavily as I went ahead and took the call.
I couldn’t deny Haley anything.
“Hello.” My voice sounded foreign to my own ears, thick with syrupy bourbon and sadness.
“Chuck, what’s going on with you?” I could hear Haley’s frown in her voice, even if it was tinny on my crappy phone. The guys were always on me to upgrade my devices, but I was something of a luddite. If I couldn’t fix it with my own two hands, I didn’t trust it. If and when I dropped my phone, the battery simply bounced away from the back of the casing. I didn’t have to worry about shattered touch screens or shelling out hundreds of dollars for a replacement.
“Are you there?”
“I’m here,” I said, heaving a sigh. “How are you?”
She laughed, incredulous. “Don’t you dare ask me how I am. Ace told me you’re not answering the door to your place.”
“Just not feeling well today,” I said.
“You should try to suck it up,” Haley said, not unkindly. “Spring has sprung, Chuck. Everything is in bloom. The sun is warm and the air is cool, and if you guys would let me into your little club, I’d love to go for a ride.”
Improbably, I felt my lips quirk into a small smile. “You don’t have to be in the club to go on a ride. Anytime you want to go, I’ll take you. Any of us would. You know that.”
“I know that. I also know that you’d better let the rest of the guys into your apartment before they break down the door.”
“Okay. Maybe I will.”
“Chuck?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
And that was the question, wasn’t it? Most days, I was okay. Or at least as okay as I could’ve been, after everything. But then there were days like today, when the grief of losing my twin sister was too much for me to handle. It was the anniversary of her death today, and that was something I’d never failed to mark and dread. It hadn’t gotten one bit easier, not even three years after her passing.
“I’m okay,” I said finally, reluctantly, willing it to be so even if I didn’t think it was fair that I should want to be okay if Chelsea wasn’t. I’d never anticipated a world without my twin sister.
“Okay. Open the door. Let your friends in.”
“All right.”
“Promise?”
“I do.”
“If Ace texts me again and says that you lied to me, Chuck, and didn’t let them in, then so help me God…”
“I’m not lying. I’ll do it now.”
“Good. Remember that you have good friends who would do anything for you, if anything is wrong.”
The sad and terrible story of losing my twin wasn’t something I was about to burden Haley with. “You’re right. Thanks, Haley.”
“I’ll see you later at the bar, after the ride.”
I still didn’t think I was in any shape to go for a ride, but I agreed, not wanting to sound like I was trying to be contrary. Maybe I could catch a ride from one of the guys to drop me off there so I could at least drown my sorrows in the presence of strangers. Even though there was no way to drown the rising tide of sorrow, really. Time hadn’t done it. Alcohol didn’t help, either. It felt entirely plausible that I would feel this bador worse for the rest of my life, and maybe that was what I deserved for still being alive when she was gone.
I ended the call and took several deep breaths in an attempt to keep my emotions at bay.
“So are you going to open the door, Chuck?” I recognized Jack’s voice on the other side of the window behind me. “We heard you talking.”
“And Haley just confirmed that you promised her you’d open the door,” Ace said. “Come on, bud.”
“I’m coming,” I muttered, feeling tired and beaten down even though I hadn’t been up for very long.
The faces that met me when I swung the door open would’ve been comical in any other situation. Jack’s concern was hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, but Ace had pushed his atop his head, squinting in the bright sun. Haley had been right. It was a beautiful day outside. The perfect day for a ride, if my head hadn’t been so messed up.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Brody demanded, his arms crossed over his barrel chest.
“Turn it down a couple of notches,” Sloan suggested to him. “Chuck, what’s going on? Did you oversleep? Can we come in?”
“Fuck, it smells like the bar in here oh, shit, that’s just you.” Brody gave me a long look, and I felt the sharp prodding of anger along my spine. It felt good, actually, to feel something other than grief.
“You know what, fuck you,” I suggested. “I don’t come into your house and judge whatever you’re doing there.”
“Hey, no worries,” Jack said easily, patting Brody on the back as he stepped around him. “This is definitely a no-judgment zone. We’re your friends.”
“You know, though, if you really wanted to day drink instead of go on a ride with us, you could’ve at least invited us,” Ace said. “Just saying.”
I shook my head. “It’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like, Chuck?” Sloan asked. “Tell us what’s wrong.”
I couldn’t stop shaking my head, back and forth, only dimly aware that my hands were shaking, too. “Today’s just not a good day for me.”
“Hey, we get it,” Jack assured me. “We all have bad days. You still have any of that what is that smell? Whiskey?”
“Bourbon,” I mumbled, feeling like an asshole. “You want a shot or something?”
“If you’re drinking because you’re sad, we’re not going to let you do it alone,” Ace said. “Got any clean glasses?”
“In the kitchen,” I said. “I can get them.”
“No, no, no,” Ace said, waving me away. “I’ll be the bartender today. I don’t mind.”
“It’s your day off,” Brody said. “Of course you mind.”
“Not for my friends, I don’t.” There was some rummaging around in the kitchen, and Ace’s whistle was pitched low with wonder. “You’re running a little low on that bourbon, bud.”
“There’s another bottle on top of the fridge,” I said.
“Ah, got it.”
Soon everyone had a glass with a finger or two of amber liquid poured into it.
“You going to tell us what we’re drinking to today, Chuck?” Jack asked, clinking the rim of his glass with mine.
I cleared my throat, raised my glass. If we were really going to do this, we were going to do it right. “To my twin sister. To Chelsea.”
There was a pregnant pause before Sloan started to stammer. “To…to Chelsea.”
Everyone took a solemn gulp of their drinks, but I only let the bourbon touch my lips. I really didn’t think I could stomach any more alcohol today. I just wanted to crawl into a corner somewhere and go the fuck to sleep, escape the grief rolling around in my brain.
Jack let out a heavy sigh. “This is the anniversary of Chelsea’s death, isn’t it?”
I gave a short nod, not sure I could trust my voice to confirm.
He cursed. “I’m sorry we didn’t…didn’t realize. That it was today.” That she was the reason I was drunk in the middle of the morning. He didn’t have to say that for me to know what he meant.
“You should’ve told us, bud,” Ace said. “Given us a head’s up, or something.”
It wasn’t something that I could talk about so easily, and they should’ve realized that, too.
“Should I go pick up a case or two of beer?” Sloan asked. Brody gave him a disapproving look. “What?”
“Do you really think that’s what Chuck needs right now?” Brody asked him.
“Beer might be easier on his belly than bourbon,” Sloan said. “Aw, man. Have you eaten yet, Chuck?”
“Just coffee.” It felt like there was a wave pool of lava sloshing around in my stomach. I knew it would burn just as much coming up as it did going down, and I began to dread it as an inevitability.
“So the answer to that is ‘no,’” Sloan said wryly. “All right. No problem. I’ll go pick up some beer. Brody, maybe you should head to the diner and get some plates to go.”
“How about it, Chuck?” Brody asked. “Think you can stomach some breakfast?”
“It could be like a club breakfast,” Ace suggested. “Instead of the ride.”
“I wanted to ride today,” I said quietly. “I just don’t think I can right now.”
“Hey, no problem,” Jack said, his voice steady, something I could lean on. “The day’s young, anyway. It’s first thing in the morning. A sunset ride might be even nicer than a morning one.”
“I wanted to… I was going to go to the cemetery today. Where she’s buried. Put fresh flowers on the grave.” It sounded stupid and pathetic even to my own ears, but there it was, my weakness hanging in the air, everyone giving me looks that ranged from sympathetic to worried and everything on the spectrum in between.
“We can do that,” Jack said. “That would be a good ride.”
“I can’t do that right now.” It was painful to admit. So painful. That I was failing Chelsea in death just as I’d failed her in life, that I was weak and ridiculous and now all my friends knew that, too.
“Then we’ll all hang out here, if that’s all right, and go later, when you’re feeling up to it,” Jack said. “How does that sound?”
It sounded like everyone was looking to give up their day because of my weakness and stupidity, but everyone was making sounds of assent and Sloan and Brody were stepping out to get beer and breakfast and Ace was making more coffee and Jack was helping me sit down on the couch, talking to me, the words not making sense, washing over me.
When I woke up later with a nasty headache and a dry mouth, on the couch, I was surprised to find the impromptu social gathering still in full swing. Ace and Sloan were laughing about a joke or story or something that I’d been asleep for, and Brody was bending Jack’s ear about a certain craft beer he thought would sell well at the bar. I watched them all for a while, reality seeping back into my brain. This was the anniversary of my sister’s death, and I was obviously still in mourning, but I had the best friends a person could have. They’d given up their entire day, and all the plans they’d had, to simply be here for me.
I felt a little guilty that they could’ve been spending their days doing whatever they wanted, and they’d had to stay and essentially babysit me. Then, a bigger shot of guilt if Ace, Brody, and Jack were all still here, that meant Haley was running the bar on her own. That didn’t mean she wasn’t capable of handling it, but I hated the idea that I was causing her any additional stress.
“Look who’s back in the land of the living,” Sloan said, clapping me on the back and making me jump. “How you feeling, Chuck?”
“A little hungover,” I was forced to say, coughing.
“A beer will clear that right up,” he said, laughing.
“Or he can try some aspirin and water,” Jack said, shaking his head at Sloan in disapproval. “What do you think, Chuck? What are you feeling like?”
Not like bourbon, that was for sure. But one of the breakfast platters from the diner wasn’t half-bad, warmed up in the microwave, and after some reheated coffee and a pair of aspirin, I was somewhere close to feeling like myself again.
“Sorry that you all had to just hang around here,” I said after I’d brushed my teeth and splashed a bit of water on my face. I’d looked like an old man to myself in the mirror, deep lines carving up the real estate on my forehead. I wondered which heartbreak had caused which wrinkle, but there probably wasn’t a way of really telling. “You didn’t have to, you know. You could’ve just gone on with your day and left me to sleep it off.”
Jack opened his mouth to say something and closed it again, seeming to think better of it. “It’s not every day we get to chill out and have a house party,” he said instead. “It was kind of a nice change of pace from being at the bar.”
“We should have a house party every week,” Ace added. “We could rotate who hosts it. Could be fun.”
“Maybe,” I said, uncertain, trailing off, hyper aware that they were humoring me. They had to be. “What time is it?”
“Time to go for a ride, if you’re feeling up to it,” Brody said. “Everyone else feel good?”
“I could ride, definitely,” Sloan said. “How far away is Chelsea, Chuck?”
It was strange, but nice, the way he’d just casually said her name and not added anything macabre, like her grave or the cemetery where she was buried.
“I think it’s about an hour or so, depending on traffic and how fast we go,” I said. “The landscape isn’t much to look at, though.”
“A ride’s a ride,” Jack said. “You ready to go? Want something else to eat or drink?”
“I think it’s time to get on the road,” I said. “If you all are ready.”
There was something special, something that couldn’t quite be replicated, when I was riding my motorcycle in the dead center of the group of five roaring bikes, eating up the miles of pavement before them. Jack always took the point position. It was just the way he was, and I figured it had something to do with his time in the military, though he didn’t remember it. Ace trailed after him, his long hair whipping behind him, in real danger of coming loose in the wind we generated. And I brought up the middle, sort of a counterweight to the rest of the group, the fulcrum of Horizon MC. I knew without glancing in either of my side mirrors that Brody was right behind me with Sloan bringing up the rear because he liked to see all of us spread out in front of him.
It felt goodmuch better than I thought it wouldto be out here on the road with them, the sun approaching the horizon, spring visible in so many different ways across the normally barren landscape. The cacti were in bloom, for one, and it added breathtaking pops of color across the sand. The mountains were smudges in the distance, but they changed color the same way everything did in the setting sun. The closer we approached the river, the more the landscape fleshed out honest to God trees, flowers, brave grass taking root in good soil.
Our parents had raised Chelsea and me in a small town that I just couldn’t handle staying in after her death. I’d sort of drifted away before putting down roots in Rio Seco, which was simultaneously similar enough and different enough to be something of a comfort to me. Rio Seco was a small town, too, so it was easy to get to know people after you ran into the same ones day after day. But it was situated firmly in the desert, which was different from my hometown. The scenery was alien and beautiful, in a savage way, and just looking outside my window assured me that I was far enough away from those terrible memories that lingered at home.
Far enough away from my twin sister’s grave that I could operate under the illusion that everything was going to turn out okay for me.
The closer we got to the location, the farther up in the pack I pushed until I was in the front. It was a natural thing to do, and Ace and Jack slowed to let me overtake them. I knew where we were going, and they didn’t. It wasn’t about power or position. Horizon MC wasn’t like that at all. We supported one another. If one of us had to fall back in order to do that, then it was fine.
The scenery changed, too. It got greener, lusher, more promising for life, especially if you didn’t know anything about all the life that could survive in the desert. For me, though, after Chelsea’s death, seeing the landscape green up like this didn’t remind me of life at all.
I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I signaled a left-hand turn to the rest of the club, pointing across the road at a place I knew only all too well. I hated coming here, even if I was obligated to. Where else could I pay respects to my twin sister? I remembered the day we put her in the ground like it was yesterday, my mother collapsing just prior to the services, having to miss the entire funeral because she was at a hospital being evaluated. My father had gone with her, and I had been the only immediate family member at the service, sitting in the front row of folding chairs all by myself, no one else knowing what to do. I’d wanted to collapse to the ground, too, just like my mother, but I had to hold it together. I couldn’t let them put my sister in the ground without anyone there for her. When it was time to drop a rose onto the casket, I made sure to drop two extra for our parents, who couldn’t seem to stand the sight of their daughter being interred into the ground, a grave that was opened for her entirely too early.
The hardest thing by far, though, was having to stand there long after the ceremony was over, accepting people’s condolences, standing as they practically lined up to pump my hand and yammer at me. All I could see, even as well-wishers recalled their favorite memories of my sister, was the bulldozer waiting just beyond the grave, ready to fill the hole with dirt again, seeking to render my sister to dust.
The parking lot of the cemetery was empty, which was probably for the best as five motorcycles idled in it loudly enough to wake the dead before everyone cut their ignitions, aware of where they were. I was relieved to make it to the cemetery at all today, even if the sun was gilding everything in gold, well on its way to setting. But there was still that persistent dread I felt every single time I came here or thought about coming here.
Every time I thought of my sister’s bones in the earth, planted like seeds that would never grow.
“Fuck,” I said, pausing in taking off my helmet.
“What’s up?” Sloan asked me. “What’s wrong?”
“I completely forgot about getting flowers,” I said. “It was the whole reason I wanted to come up here in the first place, to put flowers on” On Chelsea’s grave, even if I couldn’t get it out of my mouth without choking.
“I do that all the time,” Sloan assured me. “Get on the bike to run an errand and find myself dozens of miles from where I meant to be. It’s the reason I like riding so much. It takes me out of my own head.”
“The flowers were important,” I said, and I couldn’t understand why this was the worst I’d felt today. I’d woken up and started drinking bourbon, for God’s sake. The flowers…the flowers were smaller than that, less important, and yet I felt like I was about to burst into tears right there and then, in front of my friends. I really, really didn’t want to do that.
“What’s going on?” Jack approached us, his helmet tucked underneath his arm. “We’re at the right place, aren’t we?”
“Flowers,” I mumbled, closing my eyes, loathing the prickle at the back of my throat, behind my eyelids. “Forgot the flowers.” They were a small token, but it was a sign that I still remembered my sister, still thought of her, and if anyone passed by her grave, they would know that there was at least one person who had her in their heart. I didn’t think my parents had ever come down here, even after they missed the funeral.
Jack did a strange thing he laughed. “You might’ve forgotten flowers, but there are flowers.”
“What?”
“Open your eyes. Look around.”
The river ran near the cemetery. I’d forgotten that. But the river was close enough, just over a bluff, that things were greener here. It was easy enough to divert water to ensure that the graves actually had green grass covering them, like an actual cemetery. The lawn was cropped closely, carefully, but the grass outside the gates was wild, and there were actual…
Well. There were actual wildflowers growing among the tangles of brush and long patches of grass, flowers of every color and variety, growing like they’d been planted by a talented gardener who didn’t give a shit about anything other than their success. All the seeds planted that were intended to grow, in defiance of death and decay.
There were so many flowers. Why was I crying? There were plenty of flowers for Chelsea. They were beautiful flowers. There was no reason to be blubbering like this in front of everyone. Not when there were plenty of flowers.
A pair of arms wrapped me up in a hug, and I couldn’t even open my eyes to see which one of the guys was holding me, propping me up against my grief. I gritted my teeth against the rising tide of emotion, trying to get myself to stop sobbing, but it was no use. The hands that gripped me clapped my back.
“It’s fine, brother. Everything’s going to be okay.” Sloan. “We’re all here for you. We’ve got the flowers covered. You don’t have to worry about anything.” Normally, I would’ve teased him about referring to me as “brother,” since I’d done it before just because his hair was black didn’t mean that he was black like me and could call me a brother. But I couldn’t do that, now. Being here, in the cemetery, and seeing all of those impossible spring flowers in bloom had made the sun inside of me retreat behind a cloud. I couldn’t find it in me to laugh. Laughter seemed about as probable as aliens touching down in the middle of the parking lot and asking to be taken to our leader.
My grief was a sharp thing wedged precariously inside my body. If I shifted too far in one direction, it would cut me, so I just tried to stay in the middle somehow. Staying in the middle, for me, meant trying not to think too much about Chelsea, trying not to cry if I was feeling sad, and trying to redirect my thoughts if I felt like things were getting out of control. Right now, though, all of that was proving to be impossible.
“Look, Chuck.”
“Yeah, check this out.”
“This’ll work, right? I mean, there’s plenty more where these came from. We can always get more.”
I stepped back from Sloan and pushed at my eyes as if I could hold in my tears by simply shoving them back from where they came. When my vision finally cleared enough to be able to see, an almost comical sight greeted me.
Jack, Ace, and Brody had been gathering flowers while I’d been having my breakdown, and it was a strange look for them, indeed. Jack was fairly clean cut, but Ace had long hair and a beard, and Brody looked kind of like a handsome skinhead. To see the three of themso obviously members of a motorcycle club with armfuls of wildflowers was really something. Ace even had pollen dusted through his beard.
The laughter I’d thought to be lost forever somehow found its way up my throat and out of my mouth, and I laughed at the three of them. There might’ve been a note of hysteria tailing my mirth, but I’d take laughing over crying any day.
“You all should see yourselves,” I managed to guffaw, wiping my face with my shirtsleeves.
“Oh, the entire world should see them,” Sloan agreed, taking photo after photo of the trio using his phone.
“I’d better not see that on social media,” Brody warned, pointing a finger at Sloan. Ace sneezed, and the pollen that had been in his beard dispersed in a golden cloud into the sunset.
“What do you think, Chuck?” Jack asked me. “Enough flowers?”
They hadn’t just tugged up flowers at random. Each of them had different varieties of all colorsreds, yellows, purples, whites and the bouquets were surprisingly tasteful. They were, perhaps, even better than what I could’ve found at a supermarket on the way over here, and it meant more that my friends had helped me get them.
“I think this will be fine,” I said. “Let’s get them up there before it gets dark.”
It wasn’t a big cemetery, and Chelsea’s plot was situated on a space that was meant for my parents, beneath a tree that swayed gently in the wind that buffeted the gentle knoll. The last bouquet that I’d left was still there, dead and dried, and I reached down to collect them, wondering if I should speak to the maintenance crew for the grounds. The dried flowersand the lack of fresher ones also told me that my parents hadn’t visited since the last time I’d dragged myself out here. It wasn’t their fault. If they couldn’t even stomach the burial, there was no reason to torture themselves by seeing their daughter’s headstone. They probably kept her memory alive in other ways, even if communication between us had dwindled. I figured it was because I was a living reminder of the child they’d lost, the one who had been born at the same time as her but allowed to remain on the planet longer.
Life wasn’t fair.
The guys deposited their bouquets at the base of the granite stone marking Chelsea’s final resting place, and their tenderness touched me. They silently arranged the flowers until the dispersion of color was even, the blossoms blanketing the stark emptiness of the clean grave. It was like they were pulling a vibrant quilt over my sister’s slumbering form, intent on giving her comfort.
Sloan brushed a stray bit of grass from the top of the stone. “We’ll just be in the parking lot down the hill to give you some privacy. Call us if you need anything, okay?”
“Thanks,” I said, a little relieved. “I won’t be long.”
“Take all the time you need,” Jack said, clapping my shoulder as he and the others headed back down the hill.
In life, Chelsea and I had been something of a force of nature. We were, of course, fraternal twins, but our energies bounced off and complemented each other. People had a habit of gravitating toward Chelsea. It was something about her face, the way her constant smile opened it up, and I just happened to be in that same orbit. We were a hit at parties.
I had no closer friend than my twin sister, and even though I understood my parents’ reluctance to visit her grave, I resented them. Who had lost more than me, who grew in the same warm, secret place as her, our developing limbs twining around each other? There was nothing closer than that, sharing a womb, and I felt completely unmade without my twin, almost like half of a person. That was how close we’d been.
People had been afraid to date her because of me, in fact.
“You have to lighten up,” she’d told me one day. I was a rookie in the local police department, and she was going to community college. She wanted to be a teacher. Both of us wanted to protect people, even if we went about it in different ways.
“He wasn’t good for you,” I said, referring to her man of the moment. It was true. Chelsea had been paying for everything they did together, buoyed by the income she was getting by substitute teaching and tutoring at every chance in her busy schedule.
“You didn’t know him,” she protested. “There was a real connection there.”
“I knew enough to see the real connection he had to your bank account,” I said, unrepentant. “You’re a good person, Chelsea, but you attract the worst people.”
“That was the king of all backhanded compliments.”
“It wasn’t a compliment. It was a warning.”
“Seriously, you’re intimidating enough as it is as a black man,” she teased. “You didn’t have to go off and become a cop to frighten people even more.”
“I prefer the intimidation factor a badge gives me than my skin,” I rebuked her, mildly, flicking at her fingers. “And if your boyfriends can’t act like a man in front of a cop, then maybe they have something to hide.”
“Chuck. You scare them half to death. You don’t have to show up to meet them in full uniform, do you?”
“Are you ashamed of my job?”
“Don’t be an idiot. It’s not becoming. You purposely leave everything ongun and cuffs included when I invite you to meet guys I like.”
“So?”
“So you’re doing it to fuck with them.”
I raised my eyebrows at that. “I hope you’ll forgive me for being suspicious of people who are afraid of a uniform.”
“Cops make people uncomfortable, Chuck. That’s a given.”
“Not the right kind of people.”
“All kinds of people,” she said, throwing her hands in the air, exasperated. “At this rate, I’m either going to have to become a nun or just never introduce you to the men I date, and you know both of those options would break my heart. Don’t make me freeze you out.”
“I’m sorry,” I sighed, a real thread of guilt worming its way in. “I just don’t think anyone I’ve met so far has been good enough for you.”
Chelsea’s sigh mirrored my own. “You don’t think anyone is good enough for me.”
“Is that such a terrible thing?”
“It’s a sweet thing, but that doesn’t make my love life any easier.”
“No brother ever wants to hear about his sister’s love life, for your information.”
“Then stop butting into it,” she said, flapping her hand at me.
But she was just as guilty as I was at it, as protective as me as I was of her, and in all honesty, maybe I should’ve been even more invasive. I could’ve handled Chelsea being angry at me, or our relationship losing some of its closeness, if it meant that she was still alive.
The sun faded over the horizon, and I had to admit that it was a truly stunning sunset, as if someone had taken a paintbrush and made a work of art of the sky. She should’ve been able to enjoy this sunset, and all the ones that had come before it over the past three years. It wasn’t fair that she wasn’t here, and I sighed, studying her name etched in the rock.
“Another year without you,” I said, watching the way the flowers brightened the gray of the granite headstone. “I know this isn’t where you are anymore. At least, that’s what I think. You’re not here, and it sucks for me. Sucks for everyone who loved you.”
I felt a little silly standing here in the deepening evening, talking to a piece of rock and a couple of armfuls of flowers, but it was the gesture that counted. I couldn’t pretend to understand death. Maybe she was tied to this place somehow. I would’ve hated to imagine her stranded here without anyone visiting. My parents sure as hell weren’t going to spend any time here.
“I miss you, Chelsea. Everyone does. I miss you every goddamn day, and it’s not fair that I have to stay here, in this place, without you.”
My mother, who had grown up religious and raised us to attend church every Sunday, had lost her faith after Chelsea died. God had given her no comfort whatsoever, no solace in her time of need. I wondered what she thought, now, about how things were going to pan out after her death. Did she think she’d be reunited with her lost daughter? Or was there just a void waiting to accept her after she breathed her last?
I shook myself. “Wherever you are, I hope you’re happy. Or, you know, not in any pain or fear. And I hope you know I still love you. You’re my best friend. I’ll always love you.”
Maybe it was a cliché, but since my parents had been incapable of organizing most things for Chelsea’s funeral, it had been left to me to make the majority of arrangements. This included the engraving on her headstone. Besides her name and the dates of her birth and death, there was a single word: “Beloved.” I wished I could’ve thought of more to say, but there was too much. She was vibrant. She lit up whatever room she happened to walk into. People were drawn to her like moths to a flame. Her laugh was a catalyst, bringing other people joy. She would’ve done great things if only she had been given a chance to succeed, a chance to make her mark on this world. Countless lives would’ve benefited from having someone like her to teach them. Everyone who met her loved her, and she loved them fully, with every ounce of her being. There wasn’t a monolith big enough to list all the things Chelsea was, and all the things the world lost when she left it.
“I’ll come back soon,” I vowed, and turned away from the flowers and the grave. As hard as it was to come here, it was always more difficult to leave.
As I shuffled into the parking lot, no one said anything. I was grateful for that. I’d emptied myself of all words up there with Chelsea. We just strapped on our helmets, started our bikes, and roared life back into the place, a throaty affirmation as we wheeled onto the road, stars blinking on, one by one, in the purple sky.
Rio Seco awaited us. And no one would judge me if I sanded down the edges of today with a little more booze. They’d join in, talk to distraction, and put me to bed if I got too sloppy. My friends and Horizon MC saved my life and kept me going more times than they probably realized.