Chapter 32
SUNRISES
NATE
The lake house always comes back to me in pieces. Sun on the water and the dock creaking under bare feet. It’s the closest thing I ever had to feeling safe, I guess.
Or whatever passed for safe in our house.
I’m a kid again—maybe eleven—knees scraped, shirt stained from whatever we’d been climbing.
Jake’s seven, all innocent and wide eyes.
Nora’s somewhere behind us calling, “Ready or not, here I come!” in that sing-song voice she had when we were small enough to believe everything good could last.
I’m hiding behind the old canoe, heart thudding like I might actually burst into flames if she finds me. I can see Jake through the slats, standing in the open like he’s forgotten the point of the game.
Hands shoved in his pockets, staring at the tree line like it’s calling his name.
“Jake,” I hiss. “Get down. She’s gonna see you.”
He doesn’t move.
Doesn’t even blink.
Somehow he looks older than seven.
He’s too serious and too weighed down like he’s carrying something he doesn’t know how to set down.
When he turns his head toward me, I swear there’s something in his eyes I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to understand.
“Nate,” he says quietly. “Come on.”
“What? We’re playing—”
“Come on.”
He starts walking toward the trees without waiting for me and something about the way he moves—the tension in his shoulders, the urgency in his steps—hits me in the gut.
So I leave my hiding spot, leave the game, leave Nora’s voice drifting over the water.
Because Jake needs me.
We cut into the woods, deeper than we’d ever be allowed to go. The air gets cooler, shadows get heavier.
Branches snap under our feet like warning signs.
I keep calling for him to slow down, but he doesn’t.
He just keeps moving like there’s something he has to show me before the world stops spinning.
By the time we break into sunlight again, we’re on a hill I’ve never seen let alone been to.
The sky is wide open and burning gold.
A sunrise that looks like the whole world’s on fire but too beautiful for anyone to care.
Jake finally stops and I almost slam into him.
“Why’d you bring me out here?” I pant.
He’s breathing hard, but he’s smiling—this small, rare smile that always felt like a prize he didn’t give freely.
“Because you love sunrises,” he says.
He’s right, I do.
But this isn’t a sunrise—it’s an ending.
A closing, a soft kind of goodbye dripping in oranges and purples. And something about that sits wrong in my chest.
“C’mon,” I nudge him with my shoulder, trying to keep it light. “We’re gonna get in trouble. Nora’s probably losing her mind.”
He doesn’t laugh.
Doesn’t turn, doesn’t even flinch.
He just stands there—too still.
“I can’t.” He whispers
“What do you mean you can’t? We just have to walk back throu—”
“No, Nate.” He swallows, and something inside him seems to break on the way down. “I can’t go back.”
The joke on my tongue dies because suddenly the air feels wrong.
Then I see it.
The dark smear beneath his nose. The sluggish, wet shine of red trailing down his upper lip. The bloom spreading across his shirt, right over his heart.
And everything inside me drops like my ribs cave inward.
Like my organs forget what they’re supposed to do.
My mouth fills with the metallic taste of panic—copper, sharp and choking.
“Jake,” I choke out. “You’re—”
He shakes his head, eyes glassy.
“I can’t go back, Nate.”
“No. Don’t say that. Don’t—Jake, come on, we just run back the way we came. It’s easy.”
But he’s already stepping backward.
Already fading at the edges in that way memories do when you try to hold onto them too tight. His face goes pale and his smile softens into something that breaks me even now.
“Please,” I hear myself whisper, even though I don’t know who I’m begging.
Him.
The universe.
Anyone.
Because this can’t be happening—not to him, not like this.
Not my brother.
“Jake, wait—stop—”
I reach for him but my hand goes right through.
The sunrise swallows him, then the hill and the sky.
Suddenly I’m on my knees in the grass, screaming his name like I can drag him back by force of will alone.
The world blurs.
All I can feel is smoke in my throat and the sting chemicals in my arms.
That’s when the crushing, unbearable realization hits me: He’s not a memory.
He’s dying and I can’t get to him.
And somewhere in the distance, I can hear machines beeping.