As I peer down at my three-year-old brother lying in the superhero-painted casket, guilt consumes me like a festering wound, slowly poisoning my body. I don’t cry. I don’t know how to. He looks as if he’s sleeping, like at any moment he’ll open his bright clear green eyes, and ask me to play with him. His black eyelashes lay against his pale skin. I can barely glance in the mirror anymore without seeing Cole staring back at me. We have the same black hair, eye color, and facial features—courtesy of our father. He was so full of life and curiosity, but now he’s an empty shell. It takes everything in me not to grip his shoulders, to shake him, to demand he wake up. All of his favorite action figures and other toys lay in the casket with him. Large photographs of him smiling, playing, and doing various activities surround the casket. I would give anything to have the ability to manipulate time.
This isn’t real. It can’t be real. It’s a nightmare. Wake up—please wake up.
I will it to be true. I squeeze my eyes shut then slowly open them again, confirming my worst fears: this is reality.
Fuck reality.
The day I found Cole floating in the water, my life was shattered. I searched the huge mansion for thirty minutes before deciding to head to the backyard. I didn’t think he would be there, since he knows not to go near the pool alone. He was just learning to swim and needed a lot more practice before swimming without any assistance. I immediately dived into the water to retrieve Cole. His small body was ice cold. I screamed for one of my friends to dial nine-one-one. I worked on trying to revive him until paramedics arrived. Later, I would find out that nothing I did would’ve saved him. Cole had been in the pool for eighteen hours. He was pronounced dead at two o’clock. I might as well have been in the pool beside him, lifeless. I haven’t been eating, sleeping, or showering. I know I resemble the walking dead. I may look calm on the outside, but that’s merely a persona. If one more person says “I’m sorry for your loss” they’re going to get a broken nose. Inside I feel like a volcano ready to erupt, and everyone around me will be burned alive by the lava.
I failed him when he needed me the most. I was supposed to watch over him, protect him. If it wasn’t for me, he’d still be alive, but I’m a selfish motherfucker—a fifteen-year-old drug addict, my narcotic of choice:cocaine. I had spent the night before I found Cole fucking, drinking, snorting coke, and partying. It was a Saturday night, the nanny had a family emergency, my mother was out fucking only God-knows-who, and my father was at his office, attempting to hide from his fucked-up life, scheming wife, and controlling father. Giving them the label of mother and father is a stretch. More times than not, my mother acted as if my brother and I didn’t exist. She doesn’t have the maternal gene. I was raised by my nanny until I became old enough to look after myself. For the most part, I have zero adult supervision.
My father is a weak man, controlled by his father like a puppet and used as a doormat by his manipulating wife. He was completely infatuated with her, acting the besotted fool, I’ve been told. She was nineteen when they met and he was forty, thinking with his dick instead of his brain. He didn’t stand a chance against her alluring hazel eyes and strawberry-blond locks. His sin was lust—hers, greed. A match made in a fucked-up paradise. A year later, they were married. The following year, I was born. My father had a severe stroke the night after learning of Cole’s death. He’s in a comatose state with little hope of recovery. My mother lavishes unwanted attention on me now—no doubt she’s just as guilt ridden as me.
I was once a rising football star until I started skipping school and hanging out with a crowd much older than me.
God, please take me instead.
My plea goes unanswered. I can’t live with this—it’s tearing me apart. The church is filled to the brim with mourners here to say their final farewell to my little brother. When I arrived, I walked straight to his casket and haven’t moved. Someone grasps my shoulder, but I don’t turn to see who it is.
“Art, the service is about start,” Uncle Ricky says.
He pulls me to the first pew where I sit down.
Sometime later, I’m in the limousine with my uncle and his son Josh, grandfather, and mother, heading to the cemetery. No one says a word. The tension is thick. I can count on my hand the number of times I’ve seen my uncle and cousin over the years. Josh and I bumped heads the first time we met, and since that day we’ve had an unspoken rivalry between us. My uncle is lucky. He got away from this fucked-up family and never looked back. When my grandfather failed to control my uncle, he sunk his talons into my father. The old man is a self-made millionaire who dominates the real estate industry, leading him to open five-star hotels along the East Coast called The Falcon with plans to expand globally. Now that my father had a stroke with little hope of recovery, he wants to bring Ricky back into the fold, but he’s not interested. Neither am I. My grandfather can kiss my ass. The entire service was a haze. I don’t recall any of it.
I walk to the gravesite, feeling like a death-row inmate.
As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…
The reverend reads a few verses from the Bible. Once the service is concluded, family and friends walk to their vehicles. Most will be driving to my home for the repast. I never understood the point of a repast. I don’t want to eat or sit around and talk with people. I want to be left the fuck alone.
“Art, are you ready to go?” Ricky squeezes my shoulder.
“I’m not leaving. Not until the casket is covered.”
“Okay, I’ll stay with you.”
He walks over and talks to my mother before coming back to stand beside me. The sound of the dirt hitting the casket is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
Ricky and I arrive at the mansion a little later.
“I’m going to my bedroom.”
“I’ll be up in a few minutes to check on you.”
I feel sick to my stomach as I race up the staircase. Once I reach the privacy of my bedroom I shut and lock the door before stripping out of my suit. I walk over to the dresser to retrieve my pocket knife from the top drawer then sit on my bed. There is one universal fact that can’t be ignored.
I don’t deserve to be alive.
I slit one wrist and then the other. The knife falls to the floor from my numb fingers. I lie back on the soft mattress. There’s a knock on my bedroom door.
“Art?” Ricky calls.
I feel drowsy, like I’ve been drugged.
The knock comes again. I’m slipping away into oblivion, where I want to be. After a few loud bangs, the door swings open.
“My God! Art, what have you done?”
