Epilogue
F or the first time in my whole life, my soul doesn’t hurt. I blink. Blink. I was asking a waiter if he had any weed. Blink. He was telling me to meet him out back. Blink. He was showing me that it’s a new strain that he’s never tried before. Blink. I’m telling him that I don’t care what kind it is, that I just need to numb out the pain I’m in. That I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin every second of every day. Blink. He hands me a lighter. Blink. I think of Jessa. Beautiful, vibrant, sunny Jessa. J. My savior. My sister. She’ll be so disappointed. I love her so much; I never want to hurt her, but the agony I’m in sometimes outweighs my desire to be good enough to be her brother. The devil of my addiction claws at my insides until I give in to its evil demands. Blink. I light the blunt. Blink. I inhale. Blink. My eyes stay closed until I open them to this bright space that I’m in now.
“Fuck, I died, didn’t I?” I say it out loud, although the room looks empty.
“You did,” another voice says next to me. I look over. It’s me, but it’s not. It’s an older version of me. I have some gray hair and a bit of a belly. I feel confused.
“Is this heaven?” I ask.
“No,” someone to my right says. I look over. It’s me as a teenager. The year I met Jessa. My hair is messy, long, and curling over my neck. I’m wearing that dumb chain. I stopped wearing it when my dad almost strangled me with it. I wait for the fire of pain to light up inside of me when I think about him trying to kill me, but it doesn’t. That’s weird, I think. The only way I could ever stop the pain was to be high. I never had relief from it otherwise.
“Heaven isn’t real,” my fifteen-year-old self tells me.
“So what is this?” Do I smell lilac? That was my favorite flowering tree growing up. I could swear I hear a loon yodel off in the distance, and a warm breeze plays on my face.
“This is a good day.” My seventeen-year-old self walks up. The age I was when I started heavily using.
“A good day?” I repeat. He nods.
“A good day. Where everything you love is. Everything you enjoy exists, and all of your pain has turned into peace.”
I see my nine-year-old self run by, and I feel the urge to go run with him. Blow out dandelions that fluff into wishes. Roll down a freshly mowed hill. Catch fireflies. Make smores and stay up late.
“You can,” my twenty-one-year-old self tells me with a grin. “You can do anything you want on a good day.” We take off together. I hear a lawnmower, and I smell the grass.
“What was the point then?” I ask as we run.
“The point of what?” my older self asks me. My self who never got a chance to see the world.
“Of life,” I tell him.
“Life is music. Our existence is a song,” he tells me. “Sometimes life is about the solo. Sometimes it’s playful, like fingers over a piano. Sometimes it’s sad like the strings on a violin. Sometimes it’s hard like composing an entire orchestra. Sometimes it makes no sense, and it hurts like a song with too many verses that never seems to end. And sometimes it’s about the crashing chords of love's crescendo leading to the grand finale. The point is not to get to the end. No one goes to a concert just for the last note of the last song. No, people go to be in the moment. To enjoy the tune they’re hearing right now.Music is the most in-the-moment moment of all the moments.”
I laugh. I can feel my smile all over my whole body.
“What he’s saying”—my eighteen-year-old self has joined the chat—“is that music is for right now. And with that comparison, he means that life is meant to be lived today. To enjoy. To be right here. No one knows what happens when the music stops playing, so just choose to dance. Twirl. Skip. You have nowhere to be but right here. Right now.”
I hum. Speaking of music, I can hear a song.
“You are my sunshine…” I hear her. J. In my head.
She sounds so close.
“Jessa?” I call. I turn, but I don’t see her. All of my selves are watching me.
I begin to sing with her, belting out the lyrics about love and not taking my sunshine away. I hear another voice join her in singing our song. Oh, it feels like pure adoration. Kian. I can taste his voice. It’s goodness and strength wrapped in one. She is okay. She still has her song, even though mine is coming to an end. I’m crying. Why am I crying on my good day?
“Good doesn’t always mean happy, Myles.” My old-man self tells me. I’m wrinkled, I’m using a cane, and I’ve definitely shrunk. I’m glad J didn’t meet this version of me; she would have made so much fun of me for getting shorter.
“Good means peace. Acceptance. Understanding. Even if it hurts,” he tells me.
I nod. I get it now.
“You have somewhere to be.” My sixteen-year-old self rushes me.
“I thought you said I have nowhere to be.” I’m confused.
“Right now, you have somewhere to be.” I’m pushed forward. Blink. Tears. Blink. A kiss. Blink. The piano keys in my blood slow. Blink. The strumming of the guitar in my lungs halts. Blink. The beating of the drum in my heart stops. Blink. All that is left is the howl of the violin from my soul, which is love. Because love can never die. I smile and give Jessa’s hand a squeeze.
“I will see you later, Jessamine Bardot. I love you,” I whisper. I breathe out the last bits of music notes from within me and still.
My song is over.
THE END