28
Brooks
Then
“There must be some mistake.” Fear distorts my mom’s voice, strangled by panic as she and my dad tear into each other in the hallway. “He’s young. He’s a healthy kid,” she insists, her desperation bleeding into every word. “We can get a third opinion. A fourth, a fifth! Whatever it takes!”
She doesn’t realize the doctor and I can hear everything—the crack in her voice, the way she claws at denial like she can rip it open to find a different answer inside. My dad’s voice is lower now, smothered, like he’s trying to force the world back into something manageable. I can’t catch the words, but they steady something in her—just barely. When they return, they move like paper dolls caught in a slow motion collapse, one breath away from breaking.
I can tell they’re trying to hide it, but I know them too well. The way they move, the way they avoid looking directly at each other, it’s all too obvious. They’re not okay, and neither am I. A crushing pressure coils around my ribs, the cruel paradox of wanting to be unshakeable yet yearning to be someone else’s responsibility, just for a moment.
My mom’s fingers latch onto mine, ice cold and trembling. She squeezes, but it’s desperate, grasping at straws hoping to trick ourselves into believing this is enough. Her hand is smaller than I remember—thin, breakable—like porcelain that’s already been cracked once. And maybe I should be the one holding her up, telling her it’s okay. But I can’t. Not right now.
Someone’s talking, but their words don’t reach me. It’s all just noise, like a TV turned up too loud in the background while my brain is stuck on repeat.
Cancer.
The word hits like shrapnel. It doesn’t belong in my life, doesn’t belong in this moment. It wedges itself into the cracks of my mind, refusing to make sense. Just weeks ago, I had direction—I was supposed to be there for Dylan, the boyfriend who held her up after losing her twin. But now? Now, I’m the one slipping, drowning in something I can’t even fathom, let alone survive.
The day after the accident, my legs just gave out. I told myself it was exhaustion, that my body was just catching up to the grief. My parents chalked it up to shock, but deep down, I knew better. Dr. Abrams had brushed it off previously as severe anemia. I wanted to believe him. I wanted it to be simple—just a bag of iron dripping into my veins, a few pills, and I’d be fine. Patch me up, send me on my way, no questions asked. But bodies don’t work like that. Mine doesn’t, anyway.
This time…they ran more tests, and found it . Cancer. I swear I felt the axis of my world tilt. The idea that my own body had betrayed me, that something was rotting inside me—I couldn’t make it make sense. I’d been ripped out of my own life and shoved into someone else’s nightmare.
And even now, with it staring me in the face, I can’t make it real. It doesn’t belong. How the hell is this my life? How is this the next chapter? I cling to who I was before, but it’s already slipping, leaving me staring at a version of myself I don’t recognize—one I never thought I’d be.
Here we are again—another sterile room, another stranger with a clipboard, ready to carve my world into something unrecognizable. The whole goddamn room feels like it’s closing in, the ground beneath me itching to drop out and send me into whatever hell this is meant to be.
Dr. Hawkins’ eyes are too damn knowing, like he’s rehearsed this exact conversation a hundred times before. It pisses me off. My hands twitch, restless for something to hit. His words take a second to land, like they have to beat their way through the fog in my brain before they mean anything at all. Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. I think I’m supposed to understand what it means, but it feels like a misfired bullet—meant for someone older, someone else. Not me.
“It’s rare in someone your age, but the tests unfortunately confirm it. I know this is a lot to process, but we need to discuss next steps.”
I vaguely hear him explaining the disease, how it progresses, the treatment options available, but it’s all blending together. It’s like his voice is muffled behind the pounding in my ears. I try to focus, but I can’t. My mind keeps drifting, trying to catch up with the fact that my body is betraying me in ways I didn’t even know were possible.
There’s a part of me that just wants to jump out of my own skin, to escape all of this. But I know I can’t. I know I have to listen, to prepare for what’s coming. But right now, the only thing I’m certain of is that nothing feels like it’s mine anymore.
The other part is still clinging to the idea that any second now, I’ll wake up, and this whole thing will turn out to be some kind of fevered nightmare. But with every passing second, it starts to feel more and more like this is my reality, and there’s nothing I can do to change it. It’s shackled to my body, and apparently I can’t fucking cut it out.
I keep thinking about Dylan. About how I fucked it all up. I told myself I was doing the right thing, that shoving her away was some noble sacrifice instead of straight up cowardice. But the second I saw the betrayal in her eyes? Every bullshit excuse I clung to turned to dust. I couldn’t even give her the truth after what she’s been through. Her twin is dead, the other half of her soul, and I decided for her that she didn’t need to grieve me too—like I had the fucking right. Like I wasn’t just taking the easy way out.
Maybe if we could just escape—take that trip to Paris she always dreamed of—I could tell her the truth. Why I ended things the way I did, why I couldn’t face her. We could spend the time I have left just being together, no doctors, no treatments. Just us, for however long we have. Why would I waste that precious time on something that might not even work, when I could be with her, even if it’s just for a little while?
The doctor’s words slip past me like water down a drain, gone before I can grab onto them. By the time I snap back, it’s too late. I’ve lost too much.
“Do you have any questions?”
It takes a second to find my way back to the moment, to remember where the hell we are and why. “How long would I have if I don’t do the treatments?”
My parent’s eyes burn into me, my mom’s protest practically vibrating before she even speaks. “Honey, no, you’re doing the treatments. It’s your best chance—.”
I barely acknowledge her, keeping my eyes on Dr. Hawkins. “What are the odds? Fifty percent? Thirty?”
Dr. Hawkins clears his throat, the sound splintering through the room like a bone snapping out of place.
“Given how aggressive your case is, treatment is strongly recommended. Without it…” His pause says everything. “Your prognosis would be grim.”
I hear the words, but they don’t really feel like they’re meant for me. They’re just facts. Nothing more. The kind of cold, indifferent truth a doctor has to give, no emotion behind it.
“There’s still a chance I’d die anyway, right?”
My dad’s voice lashes out, like he’s gripping onto the last of his hope with bloody firsts. “Brooks, don’t talk like that. You will be fine. You have to believe that. We all do.”
I meet his gaze, and see it—that irrefutable conviction, the kind of belief that makes everything seem like it might just work out. But it’s suffocating, tightening every time I try to pull away. Now…I let it pull me under, I’m too drained to fight, and too broken to reach for the surface.
A resigned exhale slips past my lips as I sag into the chair, my voice fading as my words wither into nothing.
“No more questions.”
“She’s not here.”
Dylan’s mother, Denise, stands in the doorway, stitched together by exhaustion, barely holding her shape. Her fingers worry at the raw skin around her nails, tearing at herself in slow absentminded destruction. She doesn’t look like the woman I remember—she looks caved in, someone gutted by the absence of her children. The house reflects it, scrubbed clean, too neat in a way that feels unnatural for her. Like someone tried to bleach the grief out of it but only succeeded in making the emptiness louder.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Rivers,” I force out, the words stiff. I shove the guilt aside, let it fester in the background, and force my words to come out smooth.
“Do you have any idea where she might’ve gone?”
She sighs, and it’s not just a sigh—it’s something breaking. Her eyes glimmer, swollen with tears that haven’t yet fallen. “She left in the middle of the night a few days ago. Didn’t leave a note. Nothing.” Her voice splinters, and her hands tremble, continuing to pick the skin around her nails. “I’ve called everyone I can think of back in Wyoming. Nobody knows anything.”
I just stand there, throat thick, lungs tight, but she keeps going—because stopping would mean sitting in silence, and I think it might crush her.
“I know I was hard on her—too damn hard. Especially after Beckett. She didn’t deserve it.” Her voice cracks like she’s holding herself together with nothing but spit and regret. “I needed somewhere to put it. All that anger. And she was right there.”
She won’t look at me. Just stares past, like eye contact might shatter whatever fragile grip she has left.
The remorse isn’t just on her face—it’s in the slump of her shoulders, the way her hands twitch like they want to turn back time.
“I made her my scapegoat, let my grief chew her up because I was too much of a coward to face it myself. She was already drowning, and instead of pulling her out, I left her there. She never stood a chance.”
I clamp my lips shut and give a single nod. What the hell else is there to do? She’s right. And we both know it.
“I see too much of myself in her. That fire. That sharp, stubborn edge. And it fucking terrified me. I didn’t know how to love her without trying to snuff it out first.” She swipes at a tear like it’s an inconvenience, but they just keep coming. “She needed more from me. She deserved more. How was I ever supposed to give her something I never even got a taste of? Love isn’t instinct when you’ve spent your whole life starving for it.”
She takes a breath, but it doesn’t help her. The words keep spilling. “And the drinking, God. I thought it was numbing me, thought it was helping. But it just turned me into something uglier. Bitter. It poisoned every inch of me until there was nothing left to give her but the worst parts of myself.”
Her throat bobs as she swallows hard, and for the first time, she looks small. Hollowed out. Like she’s been burned down to nothing but embers. “I’ve quit…drinking. Since she left. I dragged myself out of that hell, fought like a rabid dog to stay sober these past few weeks—so if she ever comes back, if she ever lets me in again, I can finally be the mom she should’ve had all along.”
None of this erases what Dylan’s been through, but it’s not my place to say that.
“Do you think she’ll come back?” I ask instead, the question feels useless, but it’s all I have.
Denise looks at me, eyes bloodshot. “God, I hope so. I beg for it. Every damn day. But if she doesn’t…” Her breath shudders, and she grips her shaking hands like they might hold her together. “I wouldn’t blame her.”
Her gaze drops, shoulders curling inward like she’s trying to disappear. “I just— I want her to know I love her. That I’m sorry. That I never meant to make her feel like she was a burden, even though I know I did. I said things I can’t take back. Made her feel like she had to earn a love that should’ve been hers without question.” She shakes her head, letting out a choked sob. “If she can’t forgive me, I’ll understand. But she’s my baby. My only baby now.”
She looks like a structure caving in, one cracked beam away from collapse. Like if she moves too fast, breathes too deep, she’ll scatter into pieces too small to put back together.
It does something ugly to my stomach—sits there like rusted metal, heavy enough to sink me. “I’ll find her,” I say, and I mean it. I mean it with everything in me.
She nods, but it’s absent, like she’s here but only because her body hasn’t figured out how to quit yet. I start to turn away, but something drags me back.
“I never said it,” I start, voice rough. “But I’m sorry about Beckett. He was solid. Loyal. A better friend than most people deserved. He shouldn’t have—” My throat locks up, and I force myself to finish. “None of it should’ve happened.”
Denise blinks like she wasn’t expecting it, like she forgot how to hear kindness. Tears spill over, running unchecked down her face. And for the first time, she really looks at me—like I’m not just a reminder of what she lost, but someone real.
“Thank you,” she whispers. And then she’s gone, retreating into the ruin of her grief. And I? I walk out into the night, carrying a piece of it with me.
I hunch forward in the front pew, elbows digging into my knees, eyes fixed on the emptiness of the old church. Light filters through the shattered windows, catching dust in its grasp, twisting it into something ethereal before letting it fall. The floorboards are tired, worn thin from time and ghosts of footsteps long gone. It’s so quiet that the sound of my breathing feels louder than it should, uneven, like I’ve been holding it in too long.
This place is nothing special, but it mattered to Dylan. Maybe it still does. That’s why I’m here, gripping this envelope like it’s the only thing still connecting me to her. Her name is desperately sprawled across the front in my own uneven handwriting like it might bridge the distance between us.
I flip the envelope over in my hands again, running my thumb along the edge, worn soft from all the times I’ve held it. Months have passed, and she’s still nowhere. No social media posts. No updates. Just silence. Like she’s been swallowed by the earth itself. I keep dialing the number etched into my memory, knowing it won’t ring, knowing no one’s on the other end—but I do it anyway, like repetition might rewrite reality.
Graduation came and went, and I stood there like an idiot, cap in hand, scanning the crowd for a face I knew wouldn’t be there. But she was gone, and I was just another name on a list, another body in a sea of futures that didn’t include her. Still, I waited, long after the last speech, after the chairs emptied, and the sun dipped low. Like maybe, somehow, she’d change her mind and I hadn’t given her every reason to disappear.
I drag a hand down my face, the chemo buzzing under my skin, a restless, electric sickness that won’t settle no matter how still I sit. The doctors say it’s working—great, good, whatever—but all I can think about is how I destroyed the one thing that mattered. How I let fear worm its way into my head and take the wheel. I didn’t want Dylan to see me like this, didn’t want her looking at me like I was already one foot in the grave. So, I shoved her away, convinced myself I was saving her from loss. But let’s be real—I wasn’t some noble martyr. I was a goddamn coward.
Mr. Lyons said if I got him a new letter in time, he’d sneak it in with the rest from our class. It’s a long shot, a desperate swing in the dark, but I have to try. One last attempt to tell her the truth, to let Dylan see the things I was too much of a fool to say when it mattered.
I let my gaze drift to the mural on the far wall, a riot of color sealed in time. She poured herself into it, brushstroke by brushstroke. The walls may be cracked and the wood faded, but her colors refuse to dull, defying time. It’s a relic of her, a pulse of life she left behind, preserved by the elements, untouched by loss. Somehow, that’s enough to trick my brain into thinking she’s still with me—beyond the paint.
I stare at the envelope like it might burn a hole through my fingers. Then, with a sharp exhale, I fold it and tuck it into my back pocket. I tell myself it’s just paper, but it feels like a confession, a reckoning, a hopeless attempt to reach her across the distance I built between us. If she ever reads it, I hope she understands. If I don’t make it another ten years—hell, another month—at least she’ll have this. At least she’ll know.
My fingers press into the worn edge of the pew, splinters biting into my skin. I close my eyes and breathe through the nausea curling low in my stomach. I don’t pray. Never have. But I do now. Not for me—for her. That wherever she is, she’s not curled up on some lumpy motel mattress, staring at a ceiling stained with water damage, counting cracks like they hold all the answers. That she’s not drifting from place to place, running on fumes, feeling like she has nowhere to land. That she’s not out there believing—even for a second—that she was too much or not enough. That she knows—God, please, let her know—that she was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I was the dumbass who let her slip through my shaking, unworthy hands.