“He was so drunk that night, asking questions about who I left him for, who I was with now. I just put him into bed in the guest room so he could sleep it off. I planned to call you in the morning so that we could sit down with him together before the two of you went surfing that day…” I turn to August. “But he woke up earlier than I expected him to, and he said he noticed I was wearing your shirt, and smelled like your cologne.”
My mind flashes to the look on Zach’s face that morning as he stood helplessly in the center of my kitchen. As the realization flashed across his face. The anger and betrayal so potent that I could taste it in the air around us. I can taste it again now.
“I couldn’t lie to him anymore.” The words come out of my mouth crumbled and broken, an outward portrayal of the destruction happening inside my body. I know I’m hardly understandable, heaving between wretched sobs. “I thought it was better to confirm the truth, but now…if I had just lied. If I had placated him long enough for you to get there, maybe…”
“Don’t do that,” Leo rasps, moving so quickly I don’t even realize he’s leaped from the swing until he’s folding me into his arms. A rock of comfort. “Don’t plague yourself with what-ifs. It’s not your fault.”
Watching over Leo’s shoulder, I see Everett’s eyes fall shut as tears begin to drip down his cheeks, his jaw quivering as he drops his face into his hands. August’s palm rests at the back of my neck, warm and reassuring.
“It got really bad after that…” I choke. “I told him that I wished he’d…” I can’t finish the sentence, thinking back to the foreshadowing I’d spoken into existence, the one thing I wish more than all the rest that I could take back.
For good this time?
Shivers rack my entire body at the memory of that last moment.
“We don’t need to know them,” Leo whispers. “You don’t need to remember them. The last words don’t negate the years of love that came before.” He kisses the top of my head before pulling away. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
Before any of us can respond, he darts inside the house.
August kisses my temple softly as I look to Everett and whisper, “I’m sorry.”
His eyes flash to mine, like liquid amber as the setting sunlight casts over them, withdrawn and red-rimmed. He shakes his head, patting the cushion of the seat beside him that Leo just vacated. I glance at August, and he gives me a reassuring nod, urging me to sit beside my brother.
When I do, Everett pulls me into his arms, and it’s a different comfort than Leo. It’s something innate and biological. The first place I ever existed was right beside him, and it’s that sense of belonging that rises in me when I’m held by my twin.
“Don’t be sorry.” I feel his chest rumble with his words as I bury my head against it. Though I’m not looking at him, I know his next words are directed at August. “I wish I wasn’t in the dark for so long. I wish I could’ve done more for both of you. But I can’t say I would’ve done anything differently, either. It’s an impossible fucking situation. I see that now.”
He rubs a hand over my hair, and there is a mutual rattle of broken breathing as the three of us silently fight through our tears while we wait for Leo to return.
“August,” Everett whispers a moment later. “Have you ever talked to anyone about it?” His voice cracks. “About what you…saw?”
I lift my head from Everett’s chest, catching August’s face just in time to watch it fall. His eyes glaze over with a haunting emptiness, and the expression slices directly through me, gutting me so thoroughly I’m surprised my insides don’t splatter to the ground at my feet.
“No,” he whispers, hollow and choked. “I’ll never subject anyone else to that image, even inside their own mind. That’s mine to harbor alone.”
“It doesn’t have to be. We can carry it with you,” my brother says.
August wipes a hand down his face, morphing his features from composed numbness to devastated realization, his eyes fluttering closed as the tears finally begin to free fall.
Leo reappears from the back door, now wearing a burnt yellow Heathen’s hoodie, with his hands in both pockets. Nodding toward the back of his property, he says, “Do you guys want to go watch the sunset on the beach?”
Everett and I turn to August, leaving the decision up to him. He blinks rapidly, wiping his eyes before nodding and pushing off the porch railing. “Yeah, why not.”
Everett helps me off the porch swing before following Leo down the steps and onto the pebbled pathway that leads through his backyard and toward the lavender-lined cliffside. I’m not sure who originally forged the trail that takes us down to the beach, but it’s been there since Darby’s grandmother owned the house when we were children. We used to sneak down here often to take advantage of the private cove at the base of the cliff, and though I’m now positive that Diane Andrews was aware of our shenanigans, she never ratted us out for trespassing.
Leo has had some work done to make the trail more navigable and less steep, so it’s much easier to follow now than it was back then. He’s also having a second, wider path put in on the other side of his property so it’ll be easier to carry surfboards and beach supplies down to the bottom. That path will lead directly to the guesthouse he’s having built behind the detached garage.
Everett and Leo walk ahead of me, and I reach back to grab August’s arm, ensuring he’s right behind every step I take downthe narrow trail. Once we reach the bottom, the trail broadens as the rocky cliffside meets the sand.
Pulling him beside me, I say softly to August, “You could talk about it with us. Clearly, we all have unresolved feelings when it comes to our last moments with him, and if we finally stopped keeping them to ourselves, maybe we could understand them a little better. Maybe we’d stop feeling so alone.”
He only blinks at me, green eyes shimmering with unshed tears behind his glasses. He doesn’t offer a response but lifts my hand to his lips and presses them to my knuckles.
Everett and Leo sit down next to a large piece of driftwood, drawing their knees to their chests. I sit beside Everett, and August plops down next to me. The sun is fading faster now, and not much daylight remains, but the rays beam upward in the sky, and it appears as if the clouds are dancing under reflective glass, clashing together in a bright display of color.
Light skips across the whitecaps as they crest and crash against the shore, giving the whole world a soft, blurred glow that makes you question whether you’ve been momentarily transported to a more rose-colored reality.
“We had made plans earlier in the week to go surfing that morning. I normally check the weather app the night before to make sure conditions are good, but I’d forgotten,” August says quietly, breaking me out of that golden blur and snapping me back to the only reality I’ve ever known. “It was windy, and the sky was dark. I knew it was bad, and I tried calling him a few times before I left, but he wasn’t answering, so I figured I’d just show up anyway.” I look at him, but his gaze is planted firmly on the horizon. “It was Cyprus State Park. You know the one off the highway, a few miles north of town?”
