Chapter 22: : Part 2 – Chapter 22

Brant, age 24

People make such a big deal about firsts.

First steps, first words, first kiss, first love. They’re often celebrated and recognized. Revered. There’s applause, fireworks, toasts, and smiles.

But here’s the thing about firsts—

There’s always a last.

Nobody likes to think about that. There’s no joy in taking your last breath, saying your last goodbye, or whispering your last words.

And when I met Theodore Bailey for the first time in my driveway while my father arranged stones around our mailbox, I sure as hell wasn’t thinking about the last time I’d ever hear his voice.

“Hey.”

I glanced up from my chalk design on the driveway. I was trying to draw an elephant, just like Bubbles, but it looked more like the weird mole on my dad’s leg. “Hey.”

“I’m Theo.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“How do you know? I just moved here last week.”

My tongue poked out as I tried to make the elephant’s nose longer, but now it was too long. I ruined it. I sighed as I fell back on my heels. “Your mom is my mom’s new best friend. They were drinking lemonade together and talking about stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Mom stuff. You know… like, recipes and the weather and cute babies.”

Theo scratched at his mop of light brown hair. The color reminded me of the shoreline at the beach when the sand got wet. “Want to be friends?”

“Yeah.”

“Want to be best friends like our moms?”

“Definitely.”

We smiled at each other as Theo sat beside me on the driveway, looking down at my drawing.

But when I went to stretch my legs out, he stopped me.

“Hey, wait!”

Leaning across my legs, Theo tipped his finger to a crack in the driveway with a wondrous, crooked grin lighting up his face.

“What? What is it?” I asked.

Then I saw it.

A squiggly caterpillar crawled onto the tip of Theo’s finger, causing him to giggle. “He tickles.”

Awestruck, I stared at the strange creature as it wiggled and wormed its way up his hand and onto his knuckles.

“You almost squished him,” Theo said, glancing up at me. His smile brightened as he returned his attention to the caterpillar. He grazed a finger along its fuzzy body and whispered, “Don’t worry, little guy… I saved you.”

No, I wasn’t thinking about our lasts.

I wasn’t thinking about how he’d look dying in front of me, smashed between two vehicles as blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.

This can’t be happening.

Hands are holding me back as I try to claw my way through the human barrier, looking on helplessly.

“Theo… Theo, stop. You’re okay. Do you hear me?” I shove at the two police officers keeping me from diving into the scene, but they maintain their hold. “You’re going to be fine.”

He smiles a little.

I swear he smiles as his cheek rests against the hood of the red sedan, his eyes glossed over, fixed somewhere just beyond me.

He’s limp. Helpless.

Paramedics surround him, but he doesn’t notice.

Tears are crawling down my face, tunneling through the dried blood left by Theo only thirty minutes ago. He was full of life and hating me only thirty minutes ago, and now… now, he’s giving me his blessing.

He’s telling me goodbye.

“Take care of Peach because… no one…” He’s fading. He’s dying. He’s fucking leaving me. “No one will ever love her… like we do.”

“Theo…” A painful growl of penitence shreds me from the inside out, forcing me to my knees as the two officers loosen their grip. It’s a wretched sound that tears through the night, echoing off the wall of sadness hanging heavy in the air, and thundering back into me like a wrecking ball of regret. “Don’t do this. Please, don’t do this,” I cry. “It’s you and me. It’s always been you and me.”

“Promise me…” I can hardly hear him. His eyes are glazed, looking at nothing, as he whispers his final words. “You’ll tell him, right?”

Fuck.

Fuck!

I nod my head, despite the fact that I don’t want to answer him. I don’t want to give him any reason to fucking go. But I do because I have to, because it’s important, and because he needs to know on his dying breath that I will always take care of June. “I promise.”

My eyes burn with hot tears.

My whole body tremors with sickening disbelief.

“Theo… please… fucking please don’t do this…” I practically moan from my perch in the middle of the street.

I don’t think he can hear me anymore.

I don’t think he ever knew I was even here.

“There’s no Luigi without Mario,” I croak out, my voice shaking.

I think he’s gone.

I think he’s fucking gone.

“No…” My growl escalates into a desperate roar. ““Don’t you dare fucking leave me!”

He’s not moving.

He’s not moving.

A woman in uniform with purple earrings appears in my line of sight, her hands extending toward me like she’s trying to calm me down. Trying to keep me down. Trying to prevent me from breaking down.

Her mouth moves, but I can’t hear her.

All I hear is a faraway voice slicing through my fog:

“I’m calling it. 9:03 P.M.”

A time.

A time of death.

The officer in front of me tries to ease my pain as I release a strangled cry, but all I can see are her purple earrings. It’s all I can focus on.

Purple.

The color of death.

I lurch forward onto my hands and vomit all over the cement.

A sob follows, pouring out of me, my body burrowing into the roadway, gravel biting into my skin.

The jaws of life work to remove Theo from the wreckage—Theo’s body—and that’s when I fall back on my heels, bile still stinging my throat, and I zone out. That’s when everything turns into a foggy, slow motion cloud of numbness. I can’t watch this. I can’t watch the boy I grew up with, the man who called me a brother, peeled off of a smoking piece of metal, reduced to nothing more than a hollow shell, while a woman with purple earrings tries to soothe my broken heart.

This can’t be happening.

This.

Can’t.

Be.

Happening.

I’ve lost my best friend—the Mario to my Luigi.

I’ve lost one of the only people in my life who’s been by my side from the beginning, who accepted me, who offered me friendship in my loneliest hours and laughter in my saddest.

Who knew my deepest, darkest secrets and loved me anyway.

Who used his last moments on Earth to forgive me for breaking a childhood promise.

Who told me it was okay.

But it’s not okay… he’s gone.

Theo is gone.

And now I have to go tell June that her brother is dead.