After

Marcus

Today is a bad day. One where I feel her absence more strongly.

I don't know what triggers it, this longing that is intensified, magnified by a hundred from what it usually is. I just know that it is here, and it exists, and it hurts. But I try not to show the pain. Mum and dad worry enough, and Olivia isn't faring well.

I'd like to say I'm a good brother, but I haven't been, lately. She hasn't been eating, or sleeping well, or doing much of her homework. She is thin and tired and stressed and, though we're less than a year apart in birth, we couldn't have been further apart at the moment.

I think I've forgotten that there was more than me and Sylva in this. That Olivia was a part of our little group, and that she loved Syl just as much as I did.

My grief made me forget everything and everyone but myself. She would have been disappointed in me. In the fact that my sister was falling apart, and it took being told off by Tom for me to realise it. Because he is always so calm, so easy with everything; he can always tell what people are feeling. And he knew, somehow, what I was feeling. But Olivia matters more to him. I'll have to thank him for looking out for her, one day.

She's been sleeping at his house, most nights. Tom's parents are pretty obliging; mostly, I think, because they hear Olivia's tears through the walls every night.

She slept at home last night; I couldn't sleep, because the sound of her pain was worse than listening to my own thoughts. She sounded as if she was being ripped apart from the inside. So I went to her room, and slipped into her bed, like I used to when we were kids, and I was scared of thunder storms. And she crawled into my arms, and fell asleep.

I like to think we're ok, now, though I know that's not really the case. When she smiles at me, it is full of pain and grief, a shadow of a shadow of what it used to be. But still, she is trying. She's going to school. That's more than I'm doing.

My phone rings, and I answer it and put it on speakerphone, staring up at the ceiling. It's her. "Marc?" It is Olivia's phone, but a boy's voice.

"Tom," I say, wearily.

"Hey. I know you're not doing well, but it's Lance."

I sigh heavily and sit up, swing my legs over the side of the bed to the ground, lean down and slip on my shoes.

"The usual?" I ask. I begin to do up my laces.

"Yeah," Tom says. He sounds tired. Tom has been an invaluable help to me, juggling the three of us; Lance, Olivia, Marcus; Lance, Olivia, Marcus. He's like an extra parent, but he is easier to bear. "I have no idea where he is, though," he says.

"I have a few ideas," I say, and then I hang up, take off my jacket, and walk out the door. I start off at a slow jog towards the lookout point at the border of our little society, as close as we can get to nature. Because, the truth is, I know where Lance will be. I know where he goes when he gets into his moods, because I know that he does not like most people, and where else is there to go but away? To the edges of the little world we all live in? It is the only place where no one goes. No one but Lance, and me, when I go to get him back.

By the time I reach the ridge, the small rise of the cliff, I am sweating, but the strong wind blows in my face, cooling me down. Lance stands at the edge, leaning against the wind, relying on it to hold him up. If the wind stops, just for a second, he will fall. It is a stupid thing to do. But then, it is a very windy day. And the wind never stops blowing on this ridge.

I walk closer and stand by his side, a step away from the edge. I am quiet for a moment. The wind whips my hair into my eyes, but Lance does not have the same problem: Sylva made him get it cut. Now the mark beneath his eye only makes him look angrier, bruised and malevolent, like the rocks far below. He glares at the sky, at the sea, at the world, as if that will bring her back. But anger will do nothing, and no one comes back from where she went.

"Do you want to step back?" I ask him, because he is making me nervous, but I try not to show it.

"Not particularly," he says, staring straight ahead, the only sign that he heard me his reply, almost swept away by the roaring wind.

"Do you know what's funny? It would be so easy. I could just fall. One step, and I'm gone."

"That's not funny, Lance," I say, struggling to be heard over the wind.

"No one would miss me," he continues, as if he hasn't heard me, when I know he has.

"I would. Olivia would. Tom would."

He smiles at Tom's name, but it is not a happy smile; it is false, and empty. "He told you where I was, then?" he asks.

I shake my head. "Guessed," I say, shortly.

"Good guess," he murmurs, and I almost don't catch his words.

I let him look out at the world for a moment before I speak again. "We should go," I say.

He shakes his head. Shuffles a half step closer, so he's standing on the very, very edge of the cliff. It is a small cliff, as far as they go, but that doesn't mean he can't die from the fall.

My mouth goes dry. I force myself not to reach towards him, to startle him from the edge. The wind is all that is holding him, and he looks at me over his shoulder, and I see tears in his eyes that were hidden before. "It's a bad day," he says to me, yelling over the wind, his voice choked. He turns back to face the edge, and my voice is trapped in my throat as he stands. Still, still as a statue. Leaning slightly into the wind. I cannot breathe.

And then he leans back. Takes a step away. "It's a bad day," he repeats, not looking at me as he walks past. I stare after him for a moment, watching as he walks down to his car. And then I follow, and get into the driver's side, slamming the door behind me.

I avert my eyes as Lance draws back his leg and slams his foot into the side of his car. Over and over and over. He stopped using his fists when he almost broke a finger; now his shins are black and blue with bruises. Olivia winces when we see him swimming, and refuses to look.

The car shakes as Lance adds to the array of dints and scrapes already lined up along the side of the old car like grim soldiers, peppered with battle wounds and bullet holes. Then he gets into the car, slamming the door behind him. I start it soundlessly and put it in gear.

A few weeks ago, I didn't know how to drive manual. I don't have my license yet, but Lance taught me how when he hurt his hand, him controlling the pedals and me controlling the gear shift from the passenger seat. Eventually, when he started beating the shit out of his car with his feet, we swapped sides. Now I can drive, if somewhat jerkily. At least my feet are fully functioning, and I'm fairly sure I won't get us into an accident. Lance isn't so stable at the moment.

It is silent in the car except for the odd shudder as I change gears. Outside, on the cliff top, the wind was loud, but this silence is deafening.

"I wasn't going to kill myself," Lance says. I glance at him, and he is staring out the window, his profile sharp as the jagged rocks at the foot of the cliff we just stood on. "Would you have stopped me, if I was going to?" he asks.

I slow the car to a jerking stop and pull onto the side of the road, staring at the wheel. I want to ask him, what kind of a question is that? What does he want me to say? What should I say? Are they the same thing?

"You're not suicidal," I say, instead.

He laughs, bitterly; it's the only way he knows how to laugh, lately. "How do you know that?" he asks.

"You're an idiot," I say, "but you're not suicidal."

He tries to smile his fake smile, but it slips, falls away. He runs a hand over his face; his knuckles are blackened. He's been punching things again. Considering how the black looks an awful lot like dried blood, I'd say his latest target was a wall rather than a person.

He sighs. "I'm tired, Marc," he says.

I cross my arms on the steering wheel and rest my forehead against them, closing my eyes. "Me too," I say.

"It's hard," he says, his voice soft and strained. This is more than any teenager should have to bear.

I take a deep breath; it shudders in and out of me, a ghost of the air I used to breathe. It tastes like chlorine and pain. "I know," I tell him.

We sit in silence for a long time, and then I open my eyes and look at my watch, on my wrist: four o'clock.

I lean back and start the car. Lance looks at me questioningly from the corner of his eye. I hold up my watch in explanation. "You have obligations more important than this cliff," I remind him. "Tiana's waiting to be picked up at the hospital. And we're already late."

He straightens in his seat and reaches for the door handle, pulling at it til the door jars open. "At least let me drive, Marcus. Every time you change gears, I feel like I'm in a blender."

I get out of the car to let him drive, a small smile flickering around the edges of my mouth. Because, sometimes, he is capable of making me do that, when I have all but forgotten how. But then the moment is gone, and I stare out the window as my sub-par driving is compared to his: somewhat reckless, but smooth and comfortable. One day, I'll drive like him. Maybe he'll give me another lesson tomorrow. Maybe Hannah will take my invitation and come along, even though Lance scares her.

But right now, all that matters is Tiana. And the air around Lance, as always, is charged, though this time with anxiety and something resembling happiness. His sister is what he lives for now. And, today, she's coming home with him, to live with Evelyn and Michael.

I remember Sylva's parents; their anxious faces as they signed the papers, still filled with grief, but a small dash of happiness, as well.

Lance's signature beside theirs.

Joint guardians of a life, no matter how small.

I think of that moment, and I almost smile; it makes me believe that, even amidst the pain, there are still some things in this world that are beautiful.