49. CHLOE
49
CHLOE
The four words that have haunted me are no longer only mine.
Callum saw my ghosts yesterday. Now he’s meeting them.
With the waffle dangling out of my mouth, I open the door . . .
His mouth falls open. I know for certain that’s not what he was expecting.
My mouth opens to speak, but no words come out. The waffle breaks the fresh coat of snow on the ground.
“Not Miller,” I joke. I joke? Why am I joking? “Aaron, our older brother.”
Cal shakes his head. “Chloe. . . that’s. . .”
“I did. It’s my fault.”
I spy Aaron’s car immediately at the four-way stop. My college duplex is on the corner, something I’ve always loved.More sunshine. More yard for flowers. Mom’s coming soon to help me plant a garden.
His car is stopped, waiting for the right away. He’ll drive up front and I’ll hop in.
Late to practice, who?
His dark green Toyota starts moving. I blink once and it happens. There’s a reason no one enjoys the front-row seat at the movies.
Cal doesn’t respond. He’s quiet, and instantly, when his feet pivot, I think he’s going to run. He turns toward the concrete path in the direction of home. When he takes a step, my heart shatters, the feeling too similar to that day.
Tucker tries to go after him. His harness restraining him, my arm locking out .
He pauses, looking over his shoulder at me. “I’m listening.” And he reaches a hand out to me.
The sound of crunching metal being bent in on itself. Glass shattering. Tires screeching, trying to stop, but it’s too late.
It’s. Too. Late.
My breath is staccato through my nose. It smells like burned popcorn and plastic.
An airbag fills what’s remaining of his windshield.
Aaron . . .
I try to move to him, but my feet are frozen. I tumble forward. My momentum has me rolling down the sloped front yard. Snow coats my body, flakes caught in my hair.
I follow Callum.
We walk next to each other. My focus doesn’t leave one inch in front of me. Cal maneuvers us, a hand on my lower back or in mine.
He doesn’t speak the entire time.
Shoving my hands under me, I stand up, rushing to where a small crowd is forming. The other car—that blew through the stop sign without stopping—reverses. Being the larger car—a truck or . . . or . . . I don’t know cars. Aaron and Miller did—their only damage is a dented front bender. They swerve, trying to drive away.
People are yelling. I see their mouths opening and closing, but I can’t hear them—my ears are ringing. Do-do they hear it too?—waving their hands in front of the truck and it stops.
He . . . Aaron needs help. The cops. Someone. Mom. Dad.
I pat myself down for my phone. I can’t find it.
I start at the beginning. That Saturday morning nine years ago.
I try to move closer to his car. Pushing and shoving through my neighbors, other students.
When I break through to the front, someone tries to restrain me.
“Chloe, you can’t go to the car. Chloe, stop.” It’s an echo, though, muffled. Do they not know I can’t hear?
My arms burst through their hold on me. I rub my hands over my eyes, trying to clear the haze. Damn snowflakes.
When I lift my head, Aaron’s car comes back into my blurred vision.
Folded. The front fender is touching the back on the driver's side.
Sirens sound.
Police and fire trucks.
Ambulances.
People move, but I don’t. I stand there.
“Aaron,” I keep screaming (I think). Over and over.
Someone in uniform picks me up. They must have been trying to get my attention. I kick and flail, trying to get back to my brother.
There’s a small ice rink along the Chicago River. I can’t help but stare at it. At the kids skating in a circle, a few with hockey sticks learning from their dad’s.
Would that be Aaron now? Would he have a kid he’d be teaching to skate like he did me? Be a hockey hero to his son or daughter?
My heart squeezes. Not that it isn’t already constricted. The collar—like the spiky metal ones for dogs—that shame and guilt have on it, on me, presses in.
I close my eyes, biting my lip hard enough that I accidentally draw blood.
Cal runs his thumb over my lip to clear the blood, wiping it on his pants. He holds my chin, drawing my gaze to his. “It wasn’t your fault, Chloe.”
“It was. If I hadn’t been late, if I had been more responsible, if I wasn’t drinking the night before, then I wouldn’t have needed a ride. Aaron wouldn’t have been in that car or on my side of campus. It’s. My. Fault.”
“I’m not letting you believe that. People drive under the influence. . .”
“And that makes it any better? I served my brother up to the drunk driver on a silver platter.” It comes out sharp. Gutted .
“It doesn’t make it any better. It makes it worse. Aaron was innocent. You are innocent.” Cal’s hands are firm on my cheeks. “You can’t control what other people decide to do. You could have never known that they would stupidly fucking decide to pick up their keys and get behind the wheel of a car that morning. You didn’t give him the keys.”
Firefighters begin to remove car parts. Working to get to Aaron.
He has to be alive. He has to stay. He can’t leave me.
Police and medics are checking on the other driver.
They are yelling and hurrying. A stretcher is being sprinted to my brother’s car. A body is being removed from the wreckage.
“But—”
“No. Not buts. No, nothing, Chloe. You did not kill your brother.”
“I—” I shake my head painfully side to side.
“Do your parents, does Miller, tell you it’s your fault?”
“They don’t know. . .” It comes out as a whisper. No one in my family knows the ten, maybe twenty minutes leading up to Aaron’s wreck. I deleted our phone call. Couldn’t delete from my mind, though.
They thought I was sick. That the crash woke me up.
They think he was driving to the rink for morning skate.
They don’t know it’s because of me he was on that side of campus.
His body is limp. Red. Dark red everywhere.
They have him on the ground, trying to perform—I stand on my toes for a better view—CPR.
He’s not breathing. My breath isn’t breathing.
Does CPR mean he has a pulse?
I move closer. More hands grab at me to pull me back—my jacket rips. “Get off me! That’s my best friend. My brother.”
I fall to the ground. Holes open in my leggings, the frozen ground seeping in and I can feel the gashes I just caused .
You also caused the crash, Chloe. A new voice speaks. I whip my head around, trying to find what asshole said that to me, but I realize I said that to myself.
If you’d learn how to be responsible with your calendar, then this wouldn’t have happened. There it is again.
Guilt.
“Chloe,” Cal sighs. His demeanor falls, and his blue eyes are midnight. They’re dark but soft, not pitiful, but pained for me. “Have you tried to tell them?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“They’d hate me. Aaron already left me. I couldn’t lose them too,” I admit my biggest fear. “I moved. Ran away to Chicago. Putting distance between us physically and emotionally.” I swallow down more guilt. “It didn’t work. I still feel just as guilty and to blame.” I pause, inhaling before saying the other four words I’ve never spoken out loud. “It should’ve been me.”
There’s a gash on his temple. His arm is unrecognizable, mangled.
The medics stop CPR. Mouths are moving, but I can’t hear anything at all now.
They move his body onto the gurney, covering it with a white sheet. Slowly wheeling it to the back of an ambulance, doors open, they transport him into the back.
My throat hurts. It constricting, my breathing stopping.
Am I dying too?
My heart is thundering . . . Thud . . . Thud . . . Thud . . .
“Ma’am,” someone says in front of my face, picking me up from the ground and wrapping me in an aluminum blanket. “I was told you are his sister. Do you have the number of your parents?”
Thud . . . Thud . . . Thud . . .
“We need to let them know where we are transporting him to. You can come with us if you’d like. However, we would like to check your vitals first.”
Thud . . . Thud . . . Thud . . .
They aren’t telling me if he’s alive, but I saw the sheet. That means he’s dead.
He’s dead.
Aaron is dead.
I-I killed my brother.
Cal envelops me in a hug. “Never say those words again.” He kisses the top of my head. “Never say you should have died instead.” I think he’s crying. Something wet hits my forehead.
“Aaron was the best. Signed contract to NHL. Top of his class. Didn’t party. Never knocked up a one-night stand. The biggest and kindest heart. Why him?” The dam holding back my tears burst, I sob against Cal’s chest. “Why him, Cal?”
“I don’t know, Dais. We may never know.”
“Yesterday was the anniversary. Each year is tough, but yesterday. . . I don’t know. I couldn’t do it. The voices were too loud. The darkness felt too comfortable. I didn’t want to come back from it.”
“But you did. You’re here. You’re breathing. You’re standing in daylight. And it’s not your fault.”
“I think you might be my daylight, Callum,” I say into his chest.
A weight is lifted by someone knowing this part of the story. I’m lighter, freer.
Then there’s knowing that Cal knows and didn’t run. My past didn’t scare him, instead he wants to hold my hand and trudge through it with me.
With Cal, I realize that none of what I’ve been feeling is permanent. What I’ve been through, what happened, what I saw isn’t my fault. His words paint over me, whispers on my skin. There’s comfort in knowing that the darkness I’ve allowed to loom over me doesn’t have to stay.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
I don’t have to be this way.
With Cal, the sun comes out. That’s what loving him is like—dancing, bathing, basking in the sun.
And for once, the first time in all these years, I’m not scared of burning.
“I couldn’t protect him and it hurts. He was my big brother, my protector. Aaron fought off bullies when I walked around third grade telling everyone I was a tomboy. He always met my boyfr— flings before dates, never letting me go home with an idiot. He was my protector, and I couldn’t save him.”
“That’s why you are protective over those you love now.”
I nod into his warm, firm chest.
“But you don’t protect yourself, or let anyone else.”
“Who would want to?”
“Me. I’ve got you now, Dais. I’ll look after you.” Cal takes a step back, pinning me with his Caribbean blue eyes. “I need you to repeat after me.”
I semi-laugh. “What?” Moisture coating my eyelids with each blink.
“Now you’re not going to believe the words that'll come with time—healing isn’t linear, especially grief—but I want you to give it your best effort of meaning them.”
“Okay. . .”
“I.”
I repeat each word till he forms a complete sentence.
“I didn’t kill my brother.”
“I. . . I. . . I didn’t kill my brother. ”
“Good girl, Dais.” Cal wipes another tear from my cheek. “We’ll keep working through this till you believe it.”
Who is this man, and what did I do to deserve him?
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Better.”
“I’ll take it. Come on, let’s go home and make snacks and watch Survivor .” Cal takes Tucker’s leash in one hand, mine in the other, leading us home . “And you are going to tell me about being a figure skater.”