Best Friend's Brother (3 page)

“My cousin Ian?”
I guess I needed to call my family more often.

“Yeah, your cousin.
Is your Mom or Dad there?”
Cammie
was only fourteen.
There was no way I was telling her.

“Yeah, Dad’s here.
Just a sec.”
Good, talking to Uncle Brian would be a lot easier than telling Aunt Karen. I
waited and a few seconds later, Uncle Brian came on the line and said, “Ian?”

“Yeah Uncle Brian, it’s me.”

“Hey buddy! How the hell are you? I heard you’ve
been winning fights like a champ!”

Shit! “Um…Uncle Brian, Emma was in a car accident.”

“Oh hell.
Damn, I’m sorry. Is she okay?”

“Um…no, she died.”

He was quiet for a long time. I felt bad for him. I
know it had to suck being on that end of the line too. Finally he said, “Damn
it, Ian…I don’t even know what to say.”

“I know,” I said. “Me neither.”

“Your Aunt Karen will be home soon. I’ll have her
call your mom…”

“Yeah…you might want to have her wait until
tomorrow. Mom’s not really up for talking today.”

“Shit! Yeah, I imagine she’s not. Thanks for calling
buddy. I’m so sorry.”

The last call was to my dad’s brother. He was kind
of a strange guy…actually, he was a lot like me as far as he kept to himself
mostly and he loved his family. But he was a lot more emotional than I was and
I knew he wasn’t going to take this well. I was dreading telling him most of
all I think.

“Hello?”

“Hi Uncle Mike.”

“Is this Ian Michael?
My name
sake?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“What’s wrong son? You don’t sound so good.”

I told him and then I just held the phone for a
while and listened to him cry. God I hate this! When he could finally talk
again he said, “I’m sorry, Ian. I’m so sorry. Tell your folks I’ll be there as
soon as tomorrow, okay?”

“I will.”

“Ian?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“Yeah…me too.”

I had my back to the refrigerator when I ended the
call. I just let my body slide down until I was sitting in the floor. God this
sucks worse than
anything
in the world.

 
At least I
thought that was the case until the next day when I had to start helping my dad
make arrangements to bury my little sister. “Sucks” didn’t even come close to
that one.

CHAPTER
THREE

ALEXA

I tried on three different outfits before I was
finally too tired to take the last one
off
. I feel
like I haven’t slept in days. Falling asleep wasn’t bad. I was emotionally
exhausted and in most of my dreams, Emma was still alive. It was waking up that
was so horrible…because every time I woke up I had to remind myself that she
was gone and it was like losing her all over again. I’d spend the better part
of my morning crying. The rest of the day I would be numb sometimes and then
other times the grief would sneak back up on me and take me over, body and
soul. Who knew that grief was physically painful?

“Alexa?”
My dad was knocking on my door. I didn’t want to answer it. If I did, that
meant I had to go out there and then I would have to go to the funeral…I didn’t
know how to watch them put my beautiful friend in a hole in the ground. I just
stood there, staring at the door until he finally opened it and poked his head
around the corner. “Baby…
are
you okay?”

I nodded, but even that was a lie. I was a wreck.
When I was at school and I first heard about Emma, I thought I’d never feel
anything so terrible. But being
back
home, in this
room where Emma and I spent so much time laughing and talking and plotting out
our futures…It was indescribable.

“You ready to go?”

My inner voice was yelling: No, I don’t want to go!
I tamped it down and said, “Yeah, I’m ready.” My dad took hold of my arm and
together we walked out to the car. He was great. He didn’t try to make me talk
about it. He understood that there was just really nothing to say. When we
drove up in front of the chapel next to the funeral home where the services
were being held, he reached over and squeezed my hand. He still didn’t say
anything, it was just a sign of support and I appreciated it. He waited for me
to reach for the door before he got out. I think he thought there was a
possibility that I would change my mind and not go in after all. If there was
any way I could live with skipping this, I would.

The little chapel was just filling up when we got
there. We found a seat about three rows from the front and while we sat there
and waited for the services to begin, I took in the crazy scene around me. It
was crazy because it made absolutely no sense at all. There was a white casket
in the front of the chapel…it was closed, thank God. I know that I couldn’t
have taken seeing her like that. I wanted to remember he
like
she was when she was alive. I knew if I saw her dead…I wouldn’t be able to get
that image out of my brain.

The casket was covered with yellow and white
flowers. Emma loved the color yellow. Next to the casket was a huge picture of
her. It was one that had been taken outside somewhere and her pretty dark hair
shone in the sun. She had beautiful skin…I was always a little jealous of it.
It was flawless…it made her look like a china doll. Her teeth were perfect too,
and she had really deep dimples when she smiled. Her dark blue eyes topped it
all off. She was gorgeous. Emma could have easily been a model if she had
wanted to. What she wanted to be, was a nurse. It always amazed me that someone
who looked like her could also have such a kind heart. It was my experience
that the pretty girls were usually the mean ones too…except Emma.

I could see the back of her parent’s heads and the
rest of her family, I presumed. They sat close together in the front row. Her
poor mother was leaning against her father on one side and gripping onto her
brother on the other. It was
like
she was afraid they
were going to disappear as well. I tried for a second to imagine what she must
be going through, but I had to stop because I felt like I was going to throw
up.

The pastor came out and began to talk. I listened
quietly, feeling like I was breathing in the sadness all around me. It was
suffocating and once it got inside me, I felt like I wasn’t in control of my
own emotions. My whole body was shaking. My dad was gripping my hand tightly
and I leaned into him and just lost it halfway through the service. I finally
had to get up and go outside. I really felt like I couldn’t breathe. Dad
followed me out and watched me like he was afraid I’d come unraveled. Maybe I
had…hell, I didn’t know. We didn’t go back inside. I could hear her uncle
talking about her and then he dissolved into tears too. It was all just too
awful.

When the service was over, we followed the
procession to the graveyard. The same picture sat on a tripod next to the
casket…which sat next to a six foot deep hole in the ground. It was almost an
obscene sight. The only thing that made the graveside services any better than
the ones in the chapel was that I could at least breathe. The air was crisp…it
was late winter, soon to be spring. Emma loved the spring; it was her favorite
time of year. Spring didn’t come soon enough this time for my poor Emma.

When they lowered her into the ground…as if the day
hadn’t been heart-wrenching enough, her mother’s legs buckled and her knees
sank into the sodden earth. She wouldn’t let Ian and her husband help her
up
. She just sat there like that and watched her baby girl
be lowered to her final resting place, sobbing silently and making my heart
feel like someone was reaching into my chest and squeezing it with
their
fist. It got worse when Ian and her father got on
their knees next to her. Ian’s shoulders were straight…he wasn’t shaking and
didn’t look like he was crying like his parents, but he was right there with
them. God, I hated this whole thing. It felt almost voyeuristic to be standing
here and witnessing their heartache. My dad stood next to me the whole time and
gripped onto my arm. At the point when Emma’s mom collapsed, he was the only
thing holding me up.

When it was finally all over…we were told by the
pastor that there would be a “reception” at Emma’s parent’s house. We got into
the car and Dad said, “Would you rather skip the reception and see her parents
later? You look so tired, honey.”

 
“I am tired,
and I’d rather not go. But…I have to, Dad. She was my best friend. I have to be
there.”

He nodded and drove me over there. When we got
there, Emma’s Aunt Karen and Uncle Brian were greeting people at the door. Dad
and I had brought a cake. When I looked around at all of the tables of food, I
wondered how they would ever eat it all. Some of the “guests” seemed to be
eating, but not many. Dad was talking to a friend of his and I said hello to a
few people from school, but it was all just so damned surreal that I could
hardly stand it. I felt like I was crawling out of my own skin. I saw Emma’s
parents and Ian finally without a crowd around them and I figured I would go
over and talk to them and then I would probably tell Dad I was ready to go. I
walked over and as I got close I could see Ian’s eyes on me. He had the same
eyes as Emma, they were dark blue and they looked so good with their dark hair
and pretty skin. I’d never noticed before that Ian had the same flawless skin
as his sister. I actually hadn’t seen him more than a handful of times over the
years. He did his own thing…unless someone in the family needed him, and then
he was there,
like
he was now.

“Alexa!”
Her mom saw me and suddenly I was wrapped up in her arms and then her dads, and
then Ian hugged me too. I broke down as soon as her mom touched me. I once
again tried to imagine what she was going through and couldn’t. Emma and her
mom had been close…it was another thing I envied her. Her dad was crying too.
It was harder to watch a grown man fall apart, I think. He looked so broken.
Ian was stoic. His eyes looked lost and sad…but he wasn’t crying. I didn’t see
him cry at the service at all. I wondered if he cried in private, or if he was
just that damned tough.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. My eyes were burning with
tears and I felt like I was going to throw up again. I didn’t know what to say.
What the hell was I supposed to say?

“We’re sorry for you too,” her mom said. “She loved
you like a sister.”

I sobbed out that I loved her like one too and her
mom hugged me again. The whole time I could feel Ian’s sad eyes on me and I
found myself wondering what he was thinking about as all of this went on.

“We should probably go start talking to some of our
guests…” her dad said.

Her mom looked at me and said, “If I don’t see you
before you go, Alexa…thank you so much for being here and for being such a good
friend to our girl. I hope that we’ll still see you…you’re a part of this
family too.”

“Of course you will,” I told her. “If you need
anything…” she nodded and gave me a tight little smile. I bet she couldn’t
count the times she had heard that sentence in the past few days. I watched
them go, forgetting that Ian was next to me still for a minute until he said,
“Emma would have loved all of this attention.”

I looked at him, shocked at first that he would say
something sarcastic about his little sister at a time like this. When I saw his
face though, I could tell that he’d said that with love. I could see it in his
eyes, and the truth was he was right. Emma would have loved it. “She was quite
the attention hound,” I said with a little smile.

“Hmm, tell me! I got my parents attention for
exactly three years. Once Emma came along, Ian was old news. I got a job when I
was five, just to get out of their hair.”

I laughed, “You did not.”

“Okay, I was seven, but still…”

“That’s not the way Emma tells it. She’s always
said, “Ian can get away with anything because he’s their favorite. If I tried
to pull the things he did, I’d be grounded for life.”

He smiled, “It was just because they saw more
potential in her.” He had been kidding before, but he said that seriously. It
was obvious how much he thought of his sister and it made my heart hurt for
him.

“I remember one time when we were thirteen that your
dad did tell her she was grounded for life.”

He raised an eyebrow and said, “Really? Dad hardly
ever grounded her. He always made Mom be the bad guy. She was his little
princess.” He didn’t say that with any kind of malice. It was just a statement
and again, it was true.

“Yeah I know. This time though…let’s just say when
he found out we took his new car out for a spin, and we got pulled over by the
cops…and Emma tried to lie her way out of it…he was a little bit upset.”

He laughed again and said, “That was the Camaro!”

“Yeah.
The blue Camaro that had a yellow scratch down the side of it from the pole she
scraped when we went through the drive-thru at
Mickie
D’s.”