Bash
The house doesn’t hit me in the chest when I walk in this year.
It used to. The front door would open, and I’d look at the same family photo wall, the same closet still full of her jackets no one touches, the same smell of a home that reminded me of her, and my whole body would brace for impact, brace for the anxiety.
Now it finally feels like the walls aren’t caving in; the panic attack didn’t pack itself into my bag.
I can breathe without any of the old anger under it.
I can actually look at the framed pictures of Isabel on the wall—the cheerleading competitions, basketball pictures, volleyball, track, our baby pictures together, pictures from that overnight camp we went to one summer and tried to recreate the scene from Parent Trap in the cabin which got us banned from ever coming back, her prom photo, a picture of her on my back at the front of our high school near the huge painted rock…
all memories I used to avoid looking at every time I walked up those stairs.
They don’t feel as haunting anymore. They feel…
like memories that should be celebrated and…
remembered. She should be remembered in the happy ways.
“Sebastian,” my mom calls. “Baby, I need your help setting the table before everyone gets here.”
I walk into the kitchen and sidestep her, and she barrels past me, trying to make everything perfect like she always does on Thanksgiving.
“At your service, Ma. What do you need me to do?”
We move like machines, setting the table and finishing up some of the last food dishes while also stopping to yell at the football game on the TV every five minutes.
The aunts arrive like a small chaotic parade; all my cousins come in older and louder than last year, and the uncles start claiming chairs so they have the best view of the game. We’re hosting my mom’s side of the family this morning and then going to visit my dad’s side later today.
These kinds of gatherings used to be a minefield for me.
The drinking, the loudness, and the attempt to not talk about Isabel, which would inevitably always turn into talking about her, making everyone tense up.
We’ve gotten a lot better with it, or maybe we’ve just been more open now about how messy the topic is, but the fact that we can’t run from it.
We don’t avoid talking about her like it’ll ruin the night or break the room; now we talk about her like it’ll bring a light to the room and bring some happiness into it… bring her back into it.
When Dad prays over the food, I close my eyes and thank God for the little things I didn’t believe I would ever experience again, like sitting at that table like this without the feeling of needing to run from it.
As soon as we’ve eaten a few bites, Aunt Jazz leans forward toward me, her eyes lighting up like she’s been dying to talk to her favorite nephew.
“So, Sebastian,” she elongates. “When are you going to bring a girl around here? Your mother and I have started a running bet at this point.”
Mom presses her lips together in an attempt to hide her smile, knowing her sister loves to be in everyone else’s business.
I laugh it off, taking a bite of green bean casserole. “When the time is right, Auntie, you’ll be the first to know.”
“You can’t stay single forever, boy,” she says, pointing her fork at me. “Are you dating at least? Tell your Auntie. I won’t tell anyone.”
My instinct is to give the standard ‘nope’, the easy out that doesn’t open it all up to be dissected. But I can’t help but want to talk about her to anyone who will listen.
“Not really,” I say, then tip my head side to side. “I mean…there is a girl.”
Mom straightens like someone hit her on-switch. “There’s a girl?” Her eyes go wide with offense. “And I’m just now hearing about this? Sebastian Anthony Ramos.”
“I mean, there’s nothing to really talk about yet, Ma. It’s still new, and…complicated.”
“Complicated how?” Aunt Jazz asks. “You don’t want to settle down? You got commitment issues or something? Are you still being a player?”
“No,” I say, smiling because I can’t help it.
“Nothing like that. The opposite, actually. There’s no one else.
Just her. But it’s…delicate. She’s been through a lot.
We’re taking things slow. We don’t even have a title or anything.
Just…getting to know each other.” I pick at a corner of cornbread. “But she’s…pretty amazing.”
Dad stands to take his plate in the kitchen, and on his way past, he pats my shoulder. “You should just do what I did to get your mom.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think dancing in the middle of a bakery is her thing,” I say. “Or mine.”
Everyone groans and laughs around the table, knowing my parents’ story like the back of their hands.
Mom leans in, softening her tone. “What’s her name?”
“Lydia.”
“That’s a beautiful name,” she says. “Hmm, well, if my son is talking about any girl…she must be pretty special.”
I nod, not being able to hide my smile. It’s the kind I only get when I’m thinking about her. “She is.”
The conversation rolls on after that, talking about football and whose team is winning, how good the food tastes, and which cousin got into which program or sport at school. I pull out my phone and text under the table like a teenager.
Bash: I think I know what I’m grateful for this year
Lydia: Hmm, and what’s that?
Bash: Nothing crazy, just this really special girl who bulldozed into my life recently. She’s kinda changed it
Lydia: In a good way or a bad way?
Bash: In the best way
Lydia: She must be pretty special then
Bash: Funny…my mom said the same thing
Lydia: You told your mom about this girl? Whoa, that’s…big?
Bash: Is it weird that I did?
Lydia: No…I think she’d probably have butterflies right now if she knew
The grin on my face hurts, and I swipe my tongue across my teeth, trying to hide it.
“Are you texting her right now?” my aunt asks way too loudly on purpose.
My head snaps back up, eyes narrowing on her for ratting me out. She just laughs, and I shake my head, smiling back at her.
* * *
I stare at my phone, lying in the now guest bed in a room that still holds my childhood. It’s quiet in the house; my parents have gone to bed, and I can’t stop thinking about the one voice I’ve wanted to hear all day.
I hit call before I can overthink it.
“Hey,” she says, and it’s amazing how one syllable from one girl can make everything feel lighter.
“Hey,” I say back.
“Hey,” she says again, and then laughs.
“How was it,” I ask carefully, “today?”
“Good,” she says, and I can hear the surprise realization in it, like she’s still checking her own answer.
“Hard the way holidays always are, but…less triggering than I expected. I ate too much, Huxley stole half the food off my plate, and Sarah cried after we took a family photo. So, you know…normal.”
“Normal is underrated,” I say, smiling into the dark.
“Oh, and Simone brought me some really bomb pecan pie her mom made because she knows how obsessed I am with her baking.”
“Are you bringing me back a slice?” I ask, teasing her.
“I apologize, but the pie was actually immediately inhaled as soon as it made it into my hands. There aren’t even any crumbs left to share…but if you want to take the stomach ache I currently have from eating all three slices, I’ll gladly give you that.”
“I would gladly take it for you.”
I hear her giggle, and it’s the cutest sound.
“So, what about you?” she asks. “How was today?”
“Good, actually. Loud and chaotic, the way a 2000-square-foot house is with twenty people in it. A lot of laughter and a lot of good food…not that much pain, which is new.”
“That’s good,” she says softly.
“It’s always there…but just, not as suffocating.”
“Same,” she says. “Not easy. Just…less impossible.”
“Progress,” I say.
She hums. “What were they like…holidays with your sister?”
I close my eyes and go there. Isabel stealing dessert off the table before dinner and pretending like she didn’t even when you could see the evidence.
The time we tried to deep-fry a turkey and Mom almost divorced Dad.
Flour fights in the kitchen, jumping on beds when we were little with our cousins, sneaking out to see the lights on the rich side of town, and sharing a hot chocolate on the curb.
“Fun,” I say, smiling into the memories. “And even more chaotic. We always ended up in trouble together. She’d start it, and I’d make it worse.” I pause for a second. “I can say all of that now without…it killing me.”
“I’m glad you can,” she says, voice soft. “I wish I could’ve met her. I feel like I kinda know her a little. Through you.”
I don’t know why that makes my heart feel so full and my eyes slightly sting. “I love that.”
We talk for a while, and I don’t mean to slide into the heavier thing, but it happens by accident when your guard is down.
“Sometimes it’s still a knife to the chest when I walk past her room and think about how the dark moments now overshadow the good ones that used to fill that room. I still don’t know how to hand off the guilt that sits on my chest some days.”
“Why do you feel guilty?” she asks quietly. I hear the genuine care in her voice.
I pause, trying to figure out if I can say out loud the hardest part I hold with her death.
“I had this best friend,” I start. “Growing up. He was like my brother. He was always with me. We did everything together. He was basically a part of my family. I found out after Isabel died that he…he had raped her.” I have to pause because the words still physically hurt when they come out.
“I didn’t know. I should have, right? I saw her changing.
More quiet, jumpier even. People at school would say things about her, and I’d fight them and tell myself they were just idiots.
And the whole time—” I stop and swallow.
“The whole time, it was actually all him, the person I brought home. He had access to hurt her that badly because of me. I feel responsible for not seeing what had to be so obvious.”