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 andinability 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 myemotions. “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’sgoingto 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. Ineedthat 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 nevercomplains 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.
