Here for You (9 page)

Brendan wasn’t there. That room held a body.

“Cole.”

Ian slid into the chair beside him. He had more than a little stubble on his jaw, something Cole doubted Ian normally allowed since he was so neat and conservative all the time, and his mouth looked pinched. His eyes were sad.

Cole couldn’t imagine how wrecked he must look, his eyes red and puffy, snot dripping off his nose. No matter. It wouldn’t even begin to reflect his insides, where pain lanced through him and stomped his guts out. He trembled and then forced himself to try to stop.

“I met with Brendan’s parents. It will be happening soon, you know.”

Ian hesitated, unable to say more, and Cole nodded. He knew. The machines would be unhooked very soon, now that they’d all told Brendan good-bye.

Only Cole hadn’t—he couldn’t speak. Even Marc had finally gone in and said his piece, coming out red-eyed and sobbing. Cole still couldn’t find words. He was frozen. He’d clung to Brendan’s hand, quietly crying, unable to talk.

“I did change their minds on one thing. I convinced them to agree to organ donation before…. I think Brendan would have wanted that much, don’t you?”

Cole looked at him in amazement. “You got them to change their minds? Wow. I didn’t think that would be possible on anything.” He sniffed. “Yeah, I do. Absolutely, Brendan would have wanted that. God, I should have already thought about it.”

Ian smiled thinly. “His parents were less sure, but I agree with you. So I argued, well, I persuaded them to think it over. We looked at his driver’s license, and he’d checked it off. Obviously, Brendan was too young to worry about wills or what he wanted otherwise, but I asked them to consider donation, and they just now agreed.”

“Good, that’s… good.” Cole leaned closer to Ian. “Brendan loved helping everybody. He wanted to fight for justice and all of that. Right the wrongs out there. I’m sure all those people waiting on those lists, needing help, would be so happy, and that would have made Brendan happy too. And this way, you know, a piece of him—” Cole shuddered. His throat closed over again. He didn’t want Ian to feel sorry for him, but he was unable to hide it.

“Yeah. I know.” Ian wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

They sat there.

E
VIE
,
THEIR
landlord, who was crazy about Brendan, arrived, her pretty face looking careworn as if it had been on a dry cycle a few times, dragging her two tween girls in tow. She could not enter the ICU but sat in the waiting room anyhow. Evie wore her standard outfit of oversized sweatpants and a stained T-shirt. She gave Brendan’s parents a hateful look. She too had witnessed all those holidays when Brendan was so devastated. But then she sighed, fumbled for her cigarettes, and stopped, remembering it was a hospital.

“Poor people. They never deserved a sweetie like Brendan for a son, but hell, I wouldn’t wish this on any parent.”

Evie crossed herself and then hugged her sullen thirteen-year-old daughter, Rachel, to her, ignoring the girl’s squirming protests.

Tomas tried to call River, while Marc stewed. Cole still could not talk. He got up and paced the hallways.

“Cole,” Tomas called. “Come here.”

But Cole continued pacing.

Ian had gone to make certain Brendan’s folks wouldn’t change their minds. Then the nurses wheeled Brendan somewhere to do the organ harvest. His heart. His lungs. His kidneys. Maybe more, but Cole couldn’t think beyond that. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to lie down.

He wanted it to be yesterday.

Cole felt as if he would splinter into a thousand pieces with the slightest word, the slightest knock.

I
T
DIDN
’
T
take long for the end.

Ian stood next to him, tight jawed, as the doctors talked to Brendan’s parents for the final time. None of them cried then, although they’d all cried earlier, on and off.

They were too stunned. It was somehow, again, a total shock.

Dead.

Brendan was dead.

T
HE
DAY
before the funeral, River packed up all his shit and disappeared. They came home and found him gone. The three of them stood in River’s tiny room, staring in disbelief at the stripped bed. All that remained were wire hangers on the empty closet’s rail.

“How could he do this?” Marc demanded.

“He’s hurting,” Tomas said.

“Fuck him! We’re all hurting.” Marc kicked at the wall.

“We’re his family,” Cole said, but in a small voice. “He’ll come back.”

“I don’t want him back! Rat bastard. Leaving us hanging, missing Brendan’s funeral tomorrow. Fuck him!” Marc turned his anger on Cole. “When will you give up this fantasy that we can be some happy little family? It’s bullshit! Open your eyes and see what’s really here for once, Cole. It’s always been bullshit.” Marc stomped out of the room.

“Maybe he’s right.” Cole sank heavily onto River’s bed. “Maybe I was deluding myself all this time and it’s all bullshit.”

“No, don’t say that.” Tomas fumbled for words. “It’s hard for Marc to have your kind of faith. All his life, Marc never got to be safe. But here in this house? Even watching our pennies, scraping it together from our dirt wages, even bickering with each other or getting on each other’s nerves, Marc was slowly starting to believe. This is…. Marc can’t…. I don’t know what Brendan’s accident will do to him.” Tomas ran a hand through his dark hair. “Or to me. I hope River will come back. But we can’t focus on that now. Right? We need to figure out a way to be here for each other, those of us left.”

Tomas came to him and hugged him. Then he went to search out Marc.

“I’m sorry.” Marc found Cole later. “I’ll try.”

“Me too.”

Marc wasn’t much of a toucher, so they merely exchanged weary smiles.

E
VERYTHING
WAS
changing without Brendan, and he had only just died. What would the future bring? Cole sucked in a breath. He stared at his reflection in the mirror as he changed into a suit for the funeral, yanking on his tie.

In the mirror, his face didn’t even look like his.

“I hate this suit,” Tomas said, coming into the bathroom. “It’s too short on my wrists. I look crappy. I wish I had money for a new one.”

Cole glanced at Tomas. “You look fine.”

“Thanks. You always keep us all on track.”

“Me? No. I lose everything, remember?”

Tomas came over and adjusted Cole’s crooked tie. “Only the unimportant stuff.”

T
HEY
RODE
to the funeral in Marc’s car in silence. They didn’t even play the radio. Usually Marc loved the Miami stations and would blast them.

The service was in Fort Pierce, at Brendan’s family’s church. He was going to be buried in the family plot. Cole kept his eyes on the window, watching the highway, the cars zooming past them, people on their way to work, heading out for a normal day. Didn’t they know the world was spinning too fast? That nothing was normal?

Cole missed Brendan so much already. He should have gotten to him sooner. Somehow.

He glanced at Tomas, who was staring up at the car’s ceiling. Then at Marc, who was taking a long drag of a cigarette, something Marc rarely did anymore. He inhaled the smoke and then exhaled loudly. Marc’s hand shook. Neighbors had sent food to them, offered their condolences. Only Evie, however, was going to be at the funeral today, and Andrew, from the café. That was it. Some had to work, and others didn’t want to do the long drive to Fort Pierce. Thinking of all the parties they’d thrown, where the neighbors had no trouble eating their food and drinking their beer and acting like they cared about Brendan, made Cole furious. They should all go, every single one of them, to honor Brendan.

Cole thought of River, unable to handle it and deserting them, but was unable to feel the same rage at River as he did with all of Brendan’s careless so-called friends. Because he knew that River had run from the pain, and that his pain was real and true.

“You’re driving too fast,” Tomas said.

“I’m fine.”

“And put out the cigarette.”

Marc took a long drag of it. “No.”

Tomas shook his head. “You’re such a two-year-old.”

“Maybe if you stopped treating me like you’re my mother.”

“Guys, c’mon.” Cole rubbed his eyes. He’d go nuts if he had to listen to their normal bickering right now.

“Sorry.” Tomas looked out the window again.

Marc made a sound in his throat. “Yeah, me too.”

“Can we rewind this whole silly fight, then?” Tomas asked.

“What fight?” Marc drawled.

The tension in the car dissolved.

The heaviness, however, could not be resolved.

“This sucks so much,” Marc said simply, in his usual blunt way, after a moment of silence. Cole couldn’t deny, though, that it was as good as any other way to express it.

As soon as Marc pulled into the parking lot, Cole scrambled out. Marc’s cigarette smoke had irritated his sinuses, and he needed air. He took long gulps of it, feeling dizzy.

“We should go in,” Tomas said.

“You go. I’ll be there in a second.”

“We’ll save you a seat.”

Cole nodded. But he couldn’t go in and walked around the church instead, to the back side, where the grass was a bit overgrown and browning in the hot sun. He was so tired. The day had only started, and he wanted to lie down and sleep. And when he woke up, he wanted all this to be some sick, twisted joke that Brendan had pulled. Somehow a joke and not what it was. Cole heard other cars pulling up, some voices. He should go.

He stayed. He was as lost as River, wanting to flee. He felt locked inside himself.

Brendan needed him to get his shit together. He’d expect Cole to be there. Straightening up, Cole slowly rounded the church, his heart pounding.

That was when he saw Ian. He got out of his car, clicking the key to lock it, and started heading to the church entrance. He was alone, dressed in an immaculate, expensive-looking dark gray suit. His hair looked combed back.

Ian stopped where he was and looked at Cole.

“Hi,” Ian mouthed the word, since he was some distance away. “Come here.”

Cole shook his head. He stared at Ian, though, at every one of his features. His handsome face. His stern mouth. His eyes, kinder than Cole had imagined they’d ever look.

Cole wanted to say something to Ian, but his voice refused to work. He wanted to go to him, but his feet refused to move. Ian held his gaze a moment. A confused, slightly hurt expression marred his face before he continued walking and disappeared into the church.

Cole knew he’d fallen apart in Ian’s arms more than once at the hospital, but he simply couldn’t go to Ian now.
Not now.
Cole rubbed his hands along his arms and walked toward the building’s front entrance to join his friends.

Inside the church, the first sight that greeted him was a wooden box. It was front and center near the altar. Cole couldn’t take his eyes off it until Tomas came and got him.

Brendan’s parents, greeting other people, mostly ignored them, although a few relatives made some remarks about how this was intended for “family,” and Brendan’s mother regarded them with a continuous frown. Nobody wanted trouble on this day, though, so the friends accepted the dismissive looks and cold comments. They didn’t care. It was for Brendan they’d come there, not his folks.

Cole fiddled with the edge of the small journal he’d brought. He had the idea of reading something he’d jotted down, a story about Brendan that would make people smile, but they’d had to pry an invitation to the funeral, and nobody would want him to speak. Cole would have marched up to the pulpit and talked anyhow if he thought Brendan would have wanted it. But Brendan wouldn’t have wanted added stress for his parents, so Cole didn’t share his thoughts. He flipped through the pages silently instead, his mouth curving slightly upward as he read some of the highlights of his past years with Brendan.

Cole might be the most disorganized person on the planet, but he was a good journal keeper. It helped that he rarely took the journal out of his bedroom. He kept it in his drawer, and before bed often wrote about his day. Now he was fervently glad he’d kept a diary of sorts, because he had so many small moments jotted down involving Brendan.

The new guy, Brendan, was cheerfully cleaning out the bathroom when I arrived home today. He greeted me with a giant smile, which normally makes me suspicious of a person. A lot of folks use their smiles as manipulation. But there was something so genuine about him, it made me comfortable right away, as if I’d always known him. He continued cleaning the bathroom in quick efficient movements, saw me watching, and paused to hand me a bag with some aftershave in it. I must have looked wary, because he explained in a bright easy voice how he’d bought extra and wanted me to take one. He is pretty young, his skin smooth. I doubt he even has to shave daily. I ran a hand over my scruffy chin and took the aftershave. I’ve been using the brand ever since.

Cole turned a few pages.

Brendan got his first big paycheck from that law firm today. He’s practically giddy over it. He took me shopping in Boca, at the mall that has valet parking and stores so expensive I’m normally afraid to touch the labels. Not Brendan. He reached right for a fancy shirt and fingered the soft material. I could see the ambition in his gaze. That’s the thing about Brendan. He wants to be somebody. As we shopped, Brendan babbled about his boss and how great he is. Brendan tried on a shirt in the dressing room for fun, some type of silky fabric. He pulled it on a bit awkwardly, but I have no doubt he’ll get those fancy shirts one day and a whole lot more. I glanced at the price and let loose a wolf whistle. Brendan grinned back sheepishly, but there was also satisfaction in his expression.