Terrible Love (With Love, From Philly #1)

Prologue

Brandon

“Hey, Mom,” I greet breathlessly into the phone as I gather my things. “I’m about to head out to a meeting. What’s up?” I ask as I stand at my desk, my iPad displaying the slides for my update.

Chatter from the bullpen floats into my office like the sounds of an old record.

But the silence on the other end of the phone has me putting my things back on my desk and closing my office door.

The chatter isn’t too loud, but I have a weird sense that it’s something bad.

My mom would never call me if it wasn’t important.

The sound of a shaky inhale sends my blood running cold.

“Mom?” I ask tentatively, afraid to break the moment.

A sniffle followed by a muffled sob sends a cold chill through my body. In my thirty years, I’ve never heard or even seen my mom cry. So this sends all the alarms into DEFCON 1 mode.

“It’s James,” is what I make out through a sound no child should ever hear their parents make. The wailing and inability to take in a breath as it’s cut off from emotion. It’s a sound that, as a viewer and listener, stays with you no matter how hard you try to shake it off.

I swallow roughly, sure that my ears are playing tricks on me and I’m not hearing her correctly. “What do you mean ‘James’? Mom, my mind is taking me somewhere it shouldn’t. Please. Is James okay?”

“Oh, honey. He was in a car accident. He didn’t make it,” my mom brokenly speaks through her cries.

I scratch my head and clench my jaw. “I ha–I have to go,” I quickly tell her and hang up, tossing the phone on the desk and backing away like it’s a bomb about to detonate.

No. No way is my brother dead. I pace the small confines of my office, feeling the space shrink as the seconds tick by.

Determination hits me as I move back to my desk and unlock my phone again to dial his number.

It rings five times before going to voicemail.

Nothing to worry about as he’s probably cooking with Emily, his fiancée.

I call him again. When he’s with her, none of us can reach him. But, again, nothing.

And again.

And again.

And again.

My hope dies out with each unanswered call.

James is usually good at answering my calls or, at the very least, texting me back to say he’s busy.

And I hate wanting to believe my mom’s broken plea.

I pull up our text thread to type a message when a swift knock and the whoosh of my office door opening without my response to come in halt my renewed pacing.

My boss pops in, followed by HR and my best friend, and somehow I know they know.

By the somber looks on their faces, they have to know. But how?

“No,” I say as I try my hardest to keep together my emotions.

“I’m just waiting for my brother to call me back.

I’ll be there in the meeting, I’m just waiting for my brother to call me back.

Give me five minutes. He’s going to call me back.

” I blink through an angry and undeniable haze as I fumble through another text.

“Brandon,” Jerry, my boss, starts as he moves to where I’m standing and shakes his head. “I’m so sorry. It just hit the news.”

I won’t cry, I say to myself as emotion clouds my eyes.

I can’t. I can’t cry at work. But the figures in front of me begin to blur as my back hits the wall and I slide down to the floor.

“No,” I repeat as the tears finally fall down my face.

My elbows rest on my knees as I run my hands through my hair.

Over and over as I try to bite down on my teeth to keep from sobbing.

Every moment. Every conversation. Every little thing has my brother’s stamp on it.

Jerry and HR talk around me but I hear none of it. And in the recesses of my mind, I note that conversation in the back has ceased to continue. I want that noise back. I need that noise back. It means everything is still the same as before I answered my phone.

I keep thinking of the last conversation he and I had. We had plans to have dinner tonight.

Plans.

Plans.

Plans.

So many plans.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe in a world without my brother.

Jerry comes and squats in front of me. I’ve always liked Jerry as a boss.

He doesn’t micromanage, he’s easy to talk to, he works with us supervisors on projects, and he never complains when any of us need to work from home.

Granted, we don’t have much need for it anymore, but he’s still an incredible boss to work for.

“Brandon, I can’t begin to know what you’re going through,” he tells me, even though I can’t hear anything through the roar of emotions rushing through my ears.

“We’re gonna take you to your family’s house, because none of us feel comfortable leaving you alone.

And then you are going to take as long as you need to grieve. ”

Silently, with tears running down my face, I nod. My colleagues work to get me home. The office is quiet, I believe, as we walk toward the elevators. And when I get to my parents’ house, it’s like living a nightmare that’s now our reality.

My brother’s dead.

And I have no idea how to move forward.

Angie

I push back into the bustling kitchen as the lunch rush slowly comes to an end. “Guys, can I get a rush on table nine, please?” I shout to the line cooks.

“Sure thing, Ms. Angie,” they call back, flirting a little.

I shake my head with a laugh and head back out to the floor.

The late summer always brings a massive crowd into the city.

One of the perks of living so close is I can either work at the TapHouse in the city or at a small, less-busy restaurant closer to home.

I don’t mind the longer drive if it means my tips are huge at the end of the day.

I walk by my tables, top off their drinks, and idly chat with those who have questions about the best places to hit up in Philadelphia.

I give them my top favorites and make my way back to the kitchen to see if my table's food is ready.

“You all are angels,” I call to them when I see my table’s food waiting for me and hurriedly walk the food out. “I’m so sorry about that,” I tell my table.

“No worries.”

I’m walking away when the music is suddenly cut off, and the TV takes over, making it the only thing to be heard. Weird, I think to myself, but ignore it on my way to the bar.

“What’s going on?” I finally ask one of the bartenders when no one has made an attempt to move and take a sip of water.

I hold onto the cold glass of water because I always get way too overheated during the afternoon rush.

Everyone else’s focus is still up toward what’s on the TV, but I’m not one to pay attention to the news. It’s too depressing.

“Angie,” someone calls behind me and I hear another gasp.

I look toward the voice when a face on the TV catches my attention.

No. I think as the glass of water I’m holding falls to the floor and shatters.

The ice-cold water drenches my shoes as I see my greatest nightmare come to life.

I recognize that stupid black pickup truck my brother loved as much as his girlfriend, Kamryn, mangled beyond repair, as that stupid bumper sticker I stuck on the back as a joke sticks out like a sore thumb.

I can’t look away from the news of the car crash and someone pulls me into their arms, catching me before I even know I’m falling. No.

“Angie,” someone calls again, but words don’t register.

I just keep watching the headline news, reports of the accident, and how my brother was driving recklessly before heading straight on into the back of a semi truck.

No, no, no, I think to myself as my eyes well with tears after seeing the headline of no survivors.

Soon, I’m moving. Being dragged out of the main restaurant and through the now silent kitchen to the smoker’s alley. As soon as the air hits me, I pull myself out of the person’s arms and throw up the contents in my stomach before I curl over as the sobs wrack my body.

“Let it out, Ang,” my manager, Hannah, says as she holds me.

“I can’t—” I try to get out through my sobs. “He—” How? is the only word that flashes behind my eyelids. How?

“I’m so sorry.” My body hums with Hannah’s voice as she holds me, but my brain registers nothing.

My brother, the only one to handle our parents' constant hovering, is dead. It’s like feeling an invisible string being snapped.

You no longer feel the tension. It’s only you.

Wandering around without someone to guide you.

That’s who Liam was for me. We may not have been as close as we once were, but he was my guide.

And now I have to make it in a world without my brother.

A world I have never had to navigate alone.

Brandon

I stare at the black suit with the black tie and white dress shirt laying out on the bed in my childhood bedroom.

When my grandpa got sick, my parents rushed us all to the closest department store to get us suits for a “just in case”.

I didn’t know what that meant until a few weeks after the purchase of my first “funeral suit”, when he passed away.

That was three years ago. And after that day, I placed the suit in the back of my closet and prayed I wouldn’t have to wear it again for at least another decade.

It was also a sign that when I moved out of my parents’ house, I left the suit behind. Because why would I need it?

A soft knock on my door startles me out of the disdained look I’m giving to the aforementioned suit.

“Yeah,” I call out.