“Tell me what you need, whatever you need right now and it’s yours. If you want alone time, I’ll give you some space. If you want to spend the rest of the night crying on the couch, I’ll cry with you. If you want to raid the fridge for snacks and get wasted while we watch trash TV, we’ll do it.”
Josh raised his head, his eyes vacant and unfocused.
“Need…” Josh trailed off, as if he was trying to remember the meaning of the word. “Take me to see them.MamaandBàba. I need to see them.”
————————
It didn’t take long to get Josh from their living room to hisMamaandBàba’sgraves, despite himmoving like a zombie.
Riley had never seen Josh so… out of it. It was like he was in a trance as he walked to the marked burial plots.
Despite the cold, winter day, Josh dropped to the ground and laid on his back between the Wus’ graves. Riley stood and watched, letting Josh lead him, not wanting to interfere with however he processed this life-altering information.
Riley’s heart broke for him. For their whole lives, Josh had kept his guilt a secret, ashamed at being at fault for his parents’ deaths. Guilt like that could make a person bitter and closed off from the world, but somehow Josh used it to make the world a better place.
He really was the strongest person.
The anger that surged through Riley as he thought about the accident made him want to do something. It sounded like Garrett was going to continue investigating what happened, and they were sworn to secrecy, but no one said anything about Riley doing his own investigation. It would be his own little secret for now.
After a moment, Josh reached his arm out and made a grabby motion, so Riley stepped forward to take his hand. He wasn’t sure if he wanted Riley’s help getting up or not, so he simply stood at Josh’s feet, careful not to step on his parents’ graves, without further direction.
“Come here,” Josh finally whispered, and Riley joined him on the cold ground, lying next to him so theywere shoulder to shoulder.
Thank goodness Riley had made them bundle up in warm outerwear before they left the house, but he could still feel the cold of the ground seeping into his skin. He looked at Josh to see his chest rising and falling steadily, his eyes closed, his face turned to the cloudy sky.
Whatever he needed, Riley would be there.
27
EVERYTHING IN JOSH WAS numb, and it had nothing to do with the freezing ground.
He felt nothing, he thought nothing, hewasnothing.
At that moment, he simply floated through space, willing everything around him to a grinding halt.
It was his version of meditating that he started as a kid after Eddie and Leigh Anne put him in therapy following the accident.
The therapist had helped him enter this calming state of mind where nothing could touch him and nothing could hurt him. It was one of his safe spaces that he used when he couldn’t make sense of the world around him.
Since that day, he’d developed a few different safe spaces so that he’d always have options. One of them was this state of unfeeling; another was his happy place, where he imagined he was a five-year-old again, sittingonBàba’sshoulders and watching the Fourth of July fireworks overhead, hisMamaat their side gazing at him with so much love. The third place where he felt safest was in Riley’s arms.
Riley.
He’d almost forgotten Riley was here with him.
With his eyes still closed, he reached out in front of him, trying to grab for Riley’s hand but only catching air, until Riley’s gloved hand grabbed his own.
He didn’t have the strength to pull Riley to the ground with him, but he needed him close.
Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he called out to him, “Come here.”
Riley immediately settled on the ground next to Josh. They lay shoulder to shoulder atop hisMamaandBàba’sgraves, Josh squeezing Riley’s hand to ground him in the present.
Something in Josh calmed with Riley so close, like a roller coaster grinding to a lurching halt at the end of a ride.
This was what he needed, Riley by his side to keep him from dropping in free fall.
“When I lostMamaandBàba,” he said, his voice cracking as if he hadn’t used it in years, “I was lost, and the only time I felt better was when I was with you. I still feel that way sometimes.”
