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Time is a river, I’ve learned. Always moving forward. But for people like me, people who have loved and lost, the river is something we fight. We swim against the current, trying to get back to the way we once were, trying to hold onto anything to keep us from getting swept away. It’s exhausting and eventually we tire. Still we push on. I can’t let him go into the river and be swept away.
We were quiet, each lost in our own thoughts. It got like that every now and then, when no words were necessary, more a hindrance than a help. Mom said she’d never known any other people who could just be content to sit next to each other and not say a word. It would drive her nuts, she said, all that quiet.
Some small, secret part of me wants this to be real, to have him standing above me and be real because it would mean I am not alone anymore, that even though I’m pretty sure he’s going to kill me, I wouldn’t be alone.
“You can sleep now, finally. We’re going to stay here as long as you need us. Sometimes it’s harder to ask for help the more you need it. So there is no need to ask us. We know what you need. You sleep and let us carry you for a while.”
“Promises are made to be broken,” she says, her voice breaking. My heart stutters in my chest. “Promises aren’t always kept, even if they’re meant to be.” “Not mine,” he says, reaching up to his face to place his hand on top of hers. “Not to you. Never to him.”
“There is a point to grief,” she whispers fiercely. “But there is also a point to opening your eyes and living.”
“Perfection is a flaw in itself,”
He bows his head, the sun dancing off his hair. I feel him shudder next to me, and when I look over, a single tear slides from his eye and catches the sunlight, refracting it until it’s almost too bright to look at. It takes forever to fall and there’s a sharp pain in my head like a cold explosion, but then, like all things, the moment passes. I want to take my words back but I don’t know how. No one has cared about my words in a long time. I’ve forgotten how to use them correctly.
“I will help you carry this burden,” he whispers in my ear. “I will carry you.”
He— could be on the roof again —was nothing more than a figment of my attention-starved imagination, something my lonely mind created, someone big and solid who said he came here because I called him, because I drew him here. Things like that don’t happen, not in real life.
“Do you know what I did, Benji? Do you want to know what I did when I could not find you?” “What?” He finally turns to look at me. Much is said in that look, but I can’t decipher any of it. “I prayed,” he says. “I prayed for the first time since I’ve been here. And you know what response I received?” “No.” “None. I didn’t receive a response. It was like no one heard me. It was like my Father wasn’t listening. I prayed as hard as I could, asking for help to find you. And no one answered my prayer. It feels like I’m being tested. Or being punished, but I don’t know why.
I’m about to ask, but then I catch the worried spark in his eyes, the way he starts to frown. He’s got too much on him already, I realize, probably something more significant than I could ever understand. To him, my problems would be nothing because, in the reality of the cosmos from which he comes, I am nothing.
I knew what to expect from the world, at least my little corner of it. I knew it had teeth and could bite off my outstretched hand when I wasn’t looking. I knew it was easier to run and hide and bury myself in sorrow. At least there, I could let my soul bleed as much as it needed to. I knew I was drowning, but I was okay with that.
It’s good he’s gone. He doesn’t belong here. He’s an angel. I am a little speck of dust that means nothing. This won’t be any more than that. He is big and bright and strong and powerful. And I am nothing.
looks. I think how the small voice that wants him to leave is undoubtedly right, but I will ignore it for as long as I can, because I don’t think I can go back to the way things were. Being alone, being haunted. I allow myself to think these things for just a moment, because any longer will be too much for me to handle.
He’s a guardian angel, for God’s sake. He can’t belong to just one person. He has to belong to everyone, even if they don’t know it. And besides, even if he could just belong to one person, it wouldn’t be me.
I am alone, and I try to ignore the ache that causes. I’m not too successful.
I don’t reach out to people, not anymore. I don’t even let most people come to me. I push them away so I can remain buried in myself, in my own pity.
I don’t know how deep their own pain goes, but I know it’s nothing compared to my own. Selfish, yes. I know. I know that through and through. But pain is selfish. Grief is selfish. It demands attention, and the more you focus on it, the more it wants from you.
“Because if I untangle it, I’ll see what really happened. I’ll see why I couldn’t save Big Eddie. I’ll see what I did wrong and why I didn’t do more to try and stop it. I’ll see the truth, and you’ll hate me for it. Out of everything I can remember, it is you I see the most, Benji. The day Big Eddie left is gone. It’s in the black. But after? Oh, the day after and every day that follows, there are pieces I can touch, things I remember and it’s all you. I hurt because you hurt. All I wanted to do was make it all better, to make it all go away, to wrap you up so you wouldn’t hurt anymore. You
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“I was selfish, you know. A long time after she died. Years. I was angry at her for being the first one to die, leaving me behind all alone. I always figured I would go first. I was older. She was in better shape than I was.
Grief is like that, Benji. It masks the anger until anger is all you know. Until you’re buried in it.
I shouldn’t be like this. I went twenty-one years without knowing he existed. I’ve spent the last five focusing on one day at a time. I’ve relied on no one but myself. Yes, there is this little family that stands before me, watching, obviously waiting for me to say something, anything to explain away the bags under my eyes, the hangdog look on my face. But even with them, I’ve been alone. Granted, the lonely island I have become is by choice. So why am I acting like such a goddamn pussy? Why do I care so goddamn much?
I’m haunted. I’m haunted by memory.
No. No. I don’t need. I don’t want to need. Fuck this.
Promises were made.” “Not to me,” I remind her. “Not out loud,” she counters. She moves to stand in front of me. I try to look away, but she doesn’t let me. “Not here,” she says, touching my lips. “But here.” She touches my head. “And here.” She touches my chest. “Sometimes it’s the promises we don’t say that are the ones that are the loudest.”
Everyone grieves differently. No one handles the loss of a loved one the same. Some put on a brave face for others, keeping everything internal. Others let it all out at once and shatter, only to pick up the pieces just as quickly as they came apart. Still others don’t grieve at all, implying they are incapable of emotion. Then there are the ones like me, where grief is a badge we wear, where it’s hard to let go because we don’t want to. We probably wouldn’t know how even if we wanted to. There’s unanswered questions, unresolved feelings. There is anger that this person could even conceive of
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How would it feel to live a full life and have no one remember it, to have no one remember the extraordinary things you accomplished, even if it was just waking up every day and finding the courage to get out of bed?
The world didn’t work in mysterious ways. It was only black. It was only white.
My thoughts are selfish, even if I don’t want them to be. What about me? What about us? Why did you leave? What did I do? You. Me. I. Us.
“She told me I have to protect you. That you’ve been alone for so long you may not remember how to live. She wants me to show you how.” “And you promised her that?” I ask, heart sore. “Yes. Always.”
I let them try their consoling ways on me, only because I knew it made them feel better.
it’s so easy to drown and you could become a danger to yourself.
The wounds scabbed over but never healed, just waiting to be torn open again. That’s the thing about grief: the longer it festers, the harder it is to cleanse.
I’d do anything if I could just see you smile at me. I understand anger, yes. I’m angry at what I’ve seen in the shapes. That damn pattern. That bastard design. But most of all, I am angry with my Father for hurting you. I don’t want you to hurt anymore. I don’t want you to hurt ever again. I would take all of it from you if I could. You are mine, and I would take it all.”
Memories like knives. Memories like ghosts.
It’s easier to ignore what’s in your heart if you pretend it won’t hurt you in the end. But even I knew that was a lie I used to placate myself.
He held me as if I was something precious, something extraordinary, as if I was his guardian angel instead of him being mine.
The intent of his words isn’t lost on me.
The touch is not meant to be about sex. It is touch, feelings conveyed through a simple action that mean more to me than any words. He slides his fingers between my own, engulfing me as we blend together. I can feel him watching me out of the corner of my eye, and I think to turn, but realize I don’t have control of my emotions. It’s too much. It’s all too much, and I think about getting up and leaving the table. But he knows, like he always does, and squeezes my hand tightly, letting me know that he isn’t going to let go, no matter how hard I fight against it. Only he knows at that moment
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“I will demand an answer from Father, one way or another. These games of his are getting tiresome, no matter what he hopes to learn about the humans. We have other things to worry about, you know.
F***ing archangel Michael talking about god! Werq!
I almost allow myself to feel anger about their perceived callousness, how quickly they were able to toss him aside like he was nothing, but that’s not the case. I’m the one with the problem. I’m the one people are tiptoeing around like I’m made of so much glass that even a whisper could see me break.
But, of course, that’s not how life works. Life is not a series of hopes and dreams cobbled together to make the shapes fit into the pattern, into a design. No, it doesn’t work like that at all.
So you grieve. You grieve and let the poison out, and you remember him. But you cannot forget that memories are like ghosts, and they will drown you if you let them.
the smile on her face was one of such heartbreaking beauty I felt annihilated.
“The act of sacrifice is by its very nature a selfless act. One cannot sacrifice unless one is doing not for himself, but for the greater good. Your father knew this, Benji. He knew it more than most people.”
“I know you’re angry, and I know it hurts, but think carefully before you speak, child. You’re not a stupid boy, so don’t act like one.”
They’re all waiting for me to break. They’re all waiting for me to shatter into a billion pieces. How can I explain that I already have? How can I explain that there is nothing left to me but dust and shadows and memories that rise like ghosts? They can’t know. They couldn’t possibly.
Fuck God and his games.
The first step’s the hardest, as it always is. The first step is filled with doubt and trepidation. The first step makes you want to stop and reassess, to make sure you’re going about this the right way, doing the right thing. The first step is where choices are met with determination, because every step after will be easier.
