Page 57 of Falling For Alaska

"We should sneak out again tomorrow," he challenges, his breath smoking in the air. “After dinner and steal beers from Dad’s stache, he won’t even notice." I didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t say it. Why would I ruin winter break? Two weeks of freedom before school trapped us again. No early alarms, no homework, no pretending to care about geometry and maths. Just late nights and cold air and Matthew dragging me into trouble like he always did.

I was watching a bird flying when I heard the crack. A sharp, splitting sound came to me, as though the world itself was breaking apart. I turned just in time to see Matthew’s arms flail, his mouth parting in a scream, his echo silenced by the immensity around us. One moment, he was there, and the next…the ice beneath him shattered, dragging him under. For a second, I didn’t move. I watch it all in slow motion, just like a car crash on TV. Time held its breath and I still didn’t move, my brain short-circuiting.

Matthew had always been so forceful, filling every space, every silence. My whole life, I had been orbiting him, pulled into his gravity, suffocating under the weight of his demands. “Wear this Alaska,” “don’t say that,” “go there,” “act nice,” “stay with me.” Sometimes I couldn't even differentiate his voice from my own. His hands dragging me where he wanted to go, his decisions always overtaking mine. “You and I are the same,” he would always say, even if I was never sure of it. Now, for the first time, there was silence.

I saw his hands slapping against the underside of the ice, his mouth moving in a scream that didn’t reach me, his body thrashing. Still, I stood there, frozen, my breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my throat. A terrible, unthinkable thought flickered through me. What if I let the ice take him? What if this is how I finally get to be free? The thought made me sick, but it was there. A fraction of a second, long enough to matter. White noise became crystal clear and reality smashed me in the face.

“Matthew!” I screamed, sprinting to him, my skates slipping against the slick surface. The name ripped from my throat as I dropped to my knees, the ice scraping against my palms. My breath hitched, the cold searing my lungs, but I hardly noticed. He was still there, only his movements were slowing, his lips progressing into a dark blue. The colors of his Christmas sweater blurred under the ice.

“I’m coming!” I gasped, flattening myself against the ice, plunging my arm into the small space of water between the slabs. The cold hit me like a punch to the chest, stealing the air from my lungs, but I kept reaching, clawing desperately toward him. "Grab my hand!" I choked out. "Please, Matthew, grab my hand!"

His fingers brushed mine, but he couldn’t hold on. The ice above him had shifted when he fell, and he wasn’t under the hole anymore. He was trapped, pounding weakly against the wrong side of the ice, his eyes wide, pleading.

A choked sob ripped from my throat. "No, no, no!" I yanked off one of my skates, my fingers trembling so badly I could barely hold onto it. I flipped it over, gripping the blade with both hands, and slammed it against the ice where he was trapped. The first hit barely made a scratch. The second bounced off uselessly. I gritted my teeth, lifted it higher, and struck again with everything I had.

Nothing.

The ice was mocking me, a careless little human that had trespassed onto its territory. A whimper clawed its way up my throat. I could feel Matthew's strength fading, his fists tapping weakly against the ice instead of pounding. I didn't think, tossing the skate aside, balling my bare fists, and slamming them down as hard as I could.

Pain exploded up my arms, but I didn’t stop.

Again.

And again.

Until my knuckles split open, blood smearing across the ice in frantic, desperate streaks. My desperation, in crimson liquid, pouring out of me.

"I won’t let you go!" I sobbed, screaming, my breath hitching, my fists numb now, barely registering the impact. But he was slipping further away. The water was pulling him, dragging him deeper, his face barely visible anymore, his hands pressing against the ice one last time before they disappeared into the blackness below. A primal sound tore from my throat. My body lurched forward, forehead pressing against the ice, my frozen fingers curling into fists.

No, no, no, no.

This isn’t happening.

This can’t be happening.

I rocked back and forth, my body trembling violently. My arms wrapped around my middle as if I could somehow prevent myself from fracturing apart like the ice beneath Matthew’s feet. A strangled, broken laugh crawled up my throat before it twisted into another sob. My nails dug into my palms, pain grounding me, keeping me here. It didn’t feel real. It's only a nightmare and soon I'll wake up.

"It didn’t happen," I whispered, my voice shaking. "It didn’t happen. I’m alright. I’m alright." I stayed there for an hour before someone found me and called the police. The rest was a blur: voices, flashing lights, hands pulling me away from the ice. None of it mattered compared to the magnitude of the loss I had suffered. I was the one responsible for my brother’s death.

When they started asking me questions, I just stopped talking. What was the point? What difference did it make? Matthew was still alive in my head, and I intended to keep him there. To make sure I never forgot that, in a way, in my second of weighing out helping him, I had signed my own death sentence. Because if we were one and the same, then I hadn’t just killed him.

I had killed us.

From that day, I made a promise to myself. I’d stay like this, barely alive, unworthy of love or perspectives. I’d be the architect of my mystery, paying each day the price of what I had done.

Chapter Twenty

JACK

She stopped crying, staring out the window in silence now that she told me her story. Not only has her brother been dead for six years, but Alaska still sees him and thinks she’s the one responsible for his death. My chest tightens in ways I’ve never known.

When I lost my father, I didn’t have the words to express my sorrow to my family. I shut them out until I tried to talk again, only to stumble on my words, like I still do now. Back then, when memories of my dad overtook me with pain, aiming arrows right at my gut, I’d imagine myself drowning, beating against the glass walls of an aquarium, trapped inside myself. Alaska’s been there all along with me; I just didn’t realize it until now. Only she’s been held there with rocks tied to her feet, dragging her down, making the escape impossible. She’s been trapped in this grief since the day it happened, frozen in time just like he was beneath that ice. My girl needs help. She’s been needing it for years, damaging her mind from the lack of care no one ever gave her. I turn my hand into a fist, resting it against my mouth, elbow on my thighs, zeroing in on her and the thousands of complex layers I’ll fight with every fiber of my being to unravel and free her from.

Is this what they call it in movies?

Unconditional love.

I used to doubt its existence, but listening to Alaska leaves no doubt in me; my heart is her home, and hers is mine. A voice tells me to run away from the darkness she could trap me in, too. I don’t listen. Grief doesn’t hit us all with the same force. Not the same blows. Some get up from the battlefield and carry on. Others remain half-alive, half-dead, shot down in the mud, fighting for their next breath, for someone to take their hand and carry them to safe ground. I’ll be the latter. Holding her until she gets the care she needs and the love she deserves.