“Do you even remember?” 

The empty bus rattles; with my phone to my ear and Darren on the other end of a voice message he’d sent me two months ago, I find myself coveting for a sign I may have missed.  

“You were so little; I just.. don’t think you’d remember. It was back when we were bouncing around Jersey.” 

There’s teasing in his voice- I respond to him in my head, of course I do. That’s not something I could forget, dumbass. I’ve come back to this voice message a couple times over the past two weeks- but this story wasn’t one I’d just.. forget.   

“You took Nicole’s car as a Freshman because I pregamed too hard and we ended up breaking into Jacob’s house because we thought the party was at his, and we scrambled out so fast when we realized no one but his grandpa was home-” 

And you- 

“-and you instantly wrapped her car around the telephone pole on Hart Street because we were so preoccupied with leaving..” 

He always gets that story wrong; he grabbed the wheel from me and turned it into the telephone pole- I am a fine driver. I always have been.  

Instantly 

The old motel, one of many, flashes by in an instant. This vacant bus acts as a beacon for moths and people alike, but tonight I’m alone. The word “instant” used to be described by Nicole- mom- when she’d microwave Darren and I instant mashed potatoes from that first-floor room all the way on the left end of the now decaying building. It was one of the many tarnishes in Darren and I’s lives, pieced together in patchwork cloth pulled from the jumbled prologue that was our childhood. Salted and buttered instant mashed potatoes were our favorite food when we’d jump from motel to motel- never having a sure place to sleep.  

Shitty motels, stiff futons, our 2004 Toyota Camry, a couple of sympathetic friend’s houses- Darren and I were once merchants jumping from room to room; a collection of experiences I’m now able to pull out of a bag to show people like jewels- jewels that are only valuable during ice breakers, at least. I wouldn’t call the memory of Darren throwing up blueberries after eating two huge containers of them, which stained a motel carpet a royal blue, a valuable jewel.  

When we did have the liberty of sleeping in a room, the motels never bothered Darren and I. In recent times, however, I’ve reconsidered that idea. They probably bothered him and he never showed it, but since I was so little, seeing him happy never made me consider those motels as bad experiences.  

Nicole always made sure that when we did have a motel to stay at, it’d at least have a pool. We’d surf antique shows on the TV if the motel had one, shitty premade breakfast food and uncomfortable bed sheets were Darren and I’s silk road. But the pool was our own luxury- it was our spice and our ivory. The feeling of sun drunk warmth juxtaposed by cool water felt like we’d dove head first into gold. Rich cold against skin was only rich when Darren was with me- no matter how cold it was, the frigidness could never triumph the joy in youth that Darren brought to the otherwise dank motels.  

As I’m scrolling down through Darren and I’s text messages over the last few weeks, I anticipate the bus to stop here like it had when we were kids. I recall how it had rumbled to a stop; how the organs of its gears died at my worn feet and I’d soon be forced to come to terms that distractions like lacrosse practice are fleeting- everything these past two weeks have been the carnage of giant, fleeting distractions. My eyes meet the bus stop we’d get on to come home from lacrosse practice after school, but the bus doesn’t even slow down. It doesn’t bend to the wish of a college student with no youth to spare, it doesn’t cater to the remaining dreams I’ve been stockpiling. Deep down, I know most of them won’t be relived or revived.  

“What do I always say-” I jump at Darren’s voice in my ear, eyes darting to the voice message my finger had accidentally landed on. He’s cut off over the sound of the bus’s engine collapsing as its last breaths are stunted to a squeal. The screech of the doors open for no one but the stale smell of cigarette smoke- wish I had one right now.  

I press the voice message again; it was something he’d told me a couple times over the years. I knew by now what the rest of the sentence was.  

“What do I always say, all you need is twenty seconds of courage.” 

The first time he told me that was after a Lacross game in eighth grade when I hadn’t been aggressive enough to shoot. Darren and I had been homeschooled until I was in sixth grade and he was in eighth; so I’d felt more connected to him than ever when I entered eighth grade. I’m a midfielder, that means I’m fast and prepared to transfer defense to offense. For the last couple of years, I’ve been gritty enough to run into a pile of people at war over getting a ground ball. That day, Nicole had her instant coffee as I came “home,” Nicole’s friend’s house we were staying at for the time being. I only got into college now because, as humble as I try to be, I am a Lacross prodigy- it’s the only thing I’ve ever had going for me. I’d had an awful game- the experience wasn’t out of the ordinary, there was a ground ball I’d been running for but a larger guy on the other team made me hesitate. I didn’t sprint, I found myself at a slow jog in this paralysis that led to a fast break. We were outmatched with an odd number play; my not sprinting to the ground ball gave my opponent a head start running towards the goal. It was a six on five since I was out of position, causing me to run back. My not being there when I needed because of my lack of aggression meant that one of my team mates had to slide to a dodge too early, leaving the back of the crease open. The attackman on the crease caught the ball from a skip pass after the slide and scored- and when I turned back around, Darren had been shaking his head in disappointment. Now I’m a midfielder on a division one team, but only because when we got home, he’d told me “Erik, all you need is twenty seconds of courage to push the fucker aside and shoot.” He only cursed when he was disappointed- which always got the point across. I make it a point to only curse when I’m disappointed. 

The second time he told me that was as a freshman in college when I didn’t have the balls to ask my now girlfriend out- Cherrie. Cherrie was an art major I met in a boring statistics class. I hated stats; any sort of fleeting distraction sufficed. For Cherrie, it was doodling; for me, it was watching her. Cherrie is daring and bold with her lines, it reflects how she is in person. I’ve never been like that- Darren has described me as a pushover. I thought that cupid would laugh in my face for being so infatuated with Cherrie, when I met her love kept me awake and diligent and it was so blinding it felt tangible. For Cherrie love really is tangible- it came in the form of cherries. I’d call Darren and tell him about how every Christmas, her and her mom would get each other something cherry themed. She had these cherry earrings, a cherry purse charm, and a cherry printed pencil case. While I could listen to her talk all day, Darren usually wanted the conversation to move along- he was always more focused on how being a midfielder was going. He asked me one day if I was sure that Cherrie and I weren’t dating, and it came as a surprise to me that I didn’t need twenty seconds of courage to ask her out- Cherrie thought we’d been dating for a pretty long time.  

Nicole has been out of the picture for a while at this point- probably still motel jumping. Darren said she’d kept him around so that she could keep me around. I’d like to think we were merchants, but maybe we were more like circus animals when it came to Nicole; only around for entertainment, only around when it was useful to her. On the days she would come home from God knows where, her bandaged arms loosely held a hollow shell of what a mother should be together. Darren learned to cook us real food, and would distract me from our mother when we needed it. The world seemed to only recognize me when I stood in the cloak of my brother’s shadow, a slave to his reputation of shit grades and an aloof demeanor in the presence of adults. But to know Darren is to know they were all wrong. He sacrificed his whole future to raise me, and I’m only able to follow such a strict regimen for lacrosse because of the discipline that came with walking next to him as an equal, not behind him as his shadow.  

As children we’d cling to Nicole like branches wrapping around a wired fence- while I learned to make it work for me, Darren drifted. By the time he made it to his junior year in high school- which was impressive enough, even I was surprised he made it that far- he’d dropped out with a GED and left Nicole and I. He’d had enough of everyone around him telling him he’d never be just that- enough. It never bothered me when he left since I’d live between the small apartment he’d saved up for and Nicole’s car- she certainly never cared, and he felt released. For Nicole, Darren leaving meant less mouths to feed. But suddenly the seed I was planted beside was uprooted. Taken from me- instantly. 

The word “instant” changed from the many instant mashed potatoes Darren and I would eat, Nicole’s instant-made morning coffee, and the instant shove of an opponent, when I got a call two weeks ago.  

For the first and last time, I wish it had been Nicole calling me.  

In all honesty, it was a reflex of mine to ignore phone calls from out of state- especially knowing I was constantly getting them as Nicole’s emergency contact. They had resorted to calling Cherrie, who called me, who got me to call them back. It was a bit of a process before the hospital finally got through to me- 

“Your brother died instantly.”  

The third and most recent time Darren told me “all you need is twenty seconds of courage” was when I was distant. I sat alone in my room for twelve days, making it a point not to look at my roommate’s sleeping pills; not even letting Cherrie in. My depression had breathed through me, and because of that it felt like I should have stopped breathing altogether. I couldn’t bring myself to shower or brush my teeth; I distinctively remember my blanket wrapping around me like dirt over a corpse. Even when I had been taking my medication, the hollowness was there; just buried under Zoloft and Adderall. The only person I’d pick up the phone for was Darren- his words were baptismal, ritualistic. When I was a flower refusing to grow, he was water and warmth. He’d told me how “nothing changes when you’re in your room,” that if you want to see the good you have to “open your eyes first.” 

But it didn’t change the fact that when I got the phone call, I missed my brother- 

Instantly. 

Now his words ring in my mind as a broken bell that toils within me like the beat of a second heart. I wish I could watch our lives play back unedited, highlighting his imperfections and triumphs as he lived from instant to instant. As I sit on this empty bus, I’ve come to know how a piano feels watching as its sheet music is thrown away. His words bite me as I wish they’d bit him- all he needed was twenty seconds of courage to reach out to me. Twenty seconds of courage to put the gun down instead of shoot it. That’s finding a page in a book, that’s putting on a sweatshirt, that’s going down stairs and stepping outside, that’s half a dial tone on a phone call- 

My brother made the decision to take his own life in less time than it’d take for me to pick up his phone call. 

I play the recording again. 

“All you need is twenty seconds of courage.” 

I play the recording again, and again, and again. I play it again expecting more out of it; I play it again getting nothing in return. No new voice line, no new hidden meaning in the words, no secret message that’ll lead me back to Darren. I can’t help but wonder if he’d been thinking about needing twenty seconds of courage to go through with it. It made me think what looking down the barrel of a gun felt like. 

I don’t think you can really die instantly– Darren wasn’t the kind of person to be like that. The word instant wasn’t in his vocabulary; to use it for him meant the inevibility of being unable to appreciate every experience in the present moment.  

The first night it felt like I was going to die from the gutted anguish my brother left with me. I half expected to wake up the next morning in the pools we’d swam in together- but we weren’t there. His absence feels like a scream only I can hear, when only my name is said I feel a physical part of me is gone. I pray my eyes will open and he’ll be there- that all the color and beauty he brought to me will be boundless; infinite. I keep thinking Darren will come back in a shadow, a song, an idea, a dream, in a bite of ripe fruit or a principle; a concept. There are no words I can say that will bring him back- if there were, my prayers would have been answered by now.  

There’s a kind of love that only the ocean brings in its promise to return to shore. When Darren died, it was like the ocean disappeared altogether. There is no more pool. No more riches. No more youth.    

A text message disrupts my thoughts- Cherrie, I think to myself. A sense of relief washes over me as I read her message: Just got to the bus stop so I can walk home with you 🙂 

Cherrie is another beacon of distraction in my life. She often asks if I’m okay, and to pass the time between now and when I’ll see Darren in the next life, I say “yes.” I say “yes, everything is fine.” It’s not like I was planning for there to be a last time I’d tell him I loved him. Nothing prepared me for that. Nothing prepares anyone for that. It feels like I’ll be waiting my whole life to see my brother again.  

For these past two weeks, I feel I won’t move. It makes me wonder how birds can go through clouds and fog and all the natural things that the world has set them up against and still know in their heart where they’re going; is it worth it? I hope it is. In this long tunnel I’ve trudged through in search for light, the one thing that’s been certain to me is that Darren has been beside me; but now the only thing I’m walking beside is his betrayal. I’ve touched the light that tunnels bring- to know Cherrie is to know light exists. She believes in God; I believe that one day I feel I’ll be able to stop trudging all together. Darren believed that, supposedly, there’s a great big light at the end, but if I choose to believe that, I’m scared that Darren’s silhouette won’t be at the end waiting for me.  

However, my anguish for him has given me reason enough to keep going; when you live in a bell all you know are the ringings of chaos, when you live in a tunnel all you know is the continuous trudge. Living like we have, to know and recognize what Darren went through like the back of my hand, it makes you that much more appreciative when there’s a crack, when there’s stillness, when there’s light- even if you have to get up and create that yourself sometimes.  

My bus rolls to a stop as I look out the window to look for Cherrie- my crack in my bell, my music in my ears, my light in my tunnel. As much as I wish it wasn’t, my conscious is a disease I’ve caried. I won’t be selfish like Darren and take myself from Cherrie. I know now that even Nicole must be suffering- but not even this would make me reach out to her.  

I don’t even think as my legs automatically take me to her- but I’m stopped. A flurry of children smelling of chlorine that drips off their bathing suits and down, down onto the black floor of the public transportation, feet and hands naked and wrinkled without care; only the bliss a pool offers. They rush past me, and a part of me wants them to stop. Wants me to beg them to never grow up, wants me to hold their tiny, wrinkled hands and guide them back to the chlorinated paradise they’re coming from- maybe Darren will be there.. 

But I don’t.  

I can’t.  

There are many doors death may come through, but as my arms wrap around Cherrie, her cherry perfume filling my nose, I’ve come to know that I’m also able to bring light to other people’s tunnels- even if my own has felt fogged; because even in a tunnel, a flower will seek light.  

I will choose to create it myself, if I have to.