Consciousness slowly pulled Skylar awake, his head rolling on the pillow as he blinked his eyes open. For a second, he didn’t remember where he was, or what had happened. But when he saw the drab white walls of the hospital, it all came rushing back. Quickly, he pushed himself into a seated position, eyes scanning the room before they finally landed on Jessie. “Jessie,” he breathed, feeling tears spring behind his eyes. “What happened?”
As soon as Jessie realized that Skylar was awake, she took his hand. “I’m here, baby,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to the back of his hand. “We were in an accident,” she explained, biting into her bottom lip as she scooted closer. “How are you feeling? Do you need me to get a nurse in here?”
The car accident – that’s right. Skylar could see the bandage on Jessie’s head where they must have stitched her up. And he was sure that under her T-shirt, there was more than likely some sort of ACE bandage helping to stabilize her cracked ribs. “No, I’m fine,” he assured her, giving his head a small shake. He needed to get out of this room. “Where’s Tyler?” he asked, pushing himself further into his seated position to make it easier for him to stand. “I need to find him. I need to make sure he’s okay.”
When he tried to stand, Jessie stopped him, tears forming behind her eyes. “Skylar, baby, stop,” she coaxed, getting him situated back in the bed. “Skylar, your parents are going to be coming back in here any minute. They just needed to go talk to the doctors really fast. They’ll explain everything when they see you’re awake.”
Anger bubbled up inside Skylar when Jessie told him to stop. “No,” he argued, shaking his head. “Explain it to me now.” He felt dread seeping into every part of his body, but he tried his best to keep it at bay. Jessie tried to object, but Skylar quickly cut her off. “Jessie, where is my brother?!”
“He didn’t make it,” Jessie finally explained, tears sliding down her cheeks. “When the cars collided, he hit the back of your seat and his sternum was crushed. He-He died of internal bleeding. Th-There was nothing the doctors could do for him. Skylar, I’m so sorry.” She tried to pull him into a hug, but he pushed her away.
No. No, this wasn’t happening. “No,” he breathed, shoving at Jessie when she tried to hug him. “No, you’re lying!” Angrily, he pushed her hands away when she tried to hold him again. He tried to struggle past her out of the bed, but he was still so weak from the sedation, and he didn’t want to hurt her. “You’re a liar! Where’s Tyler?!” With his good hand, Skylar gripped the railing of the hospital bed, trying to push himself out of the bed. “Where’s my brother?! Where’s my brother?!”
The whole time Skylar was struggling against her, Jessie held onto his as best she could. Being an only child, she couldn’t possibly imagine what he was going through, but she was going to be here for him every step of the way.
Having heard the commotion, one of the nurses came running into the room, frowning at Jessie. “What happened?” she demanded, moving to the machines that were hooked up to Skylar so she could check all of his vitals. From what she could tell, Skylar was medically fine, so there was really nothing that needed her attention here.
Before Jessie could answer, Skylar blurted out, “I want to see my brother. You can’t keep me away from him!” He was going to see Tyler one way or the other. Either this nurse could take him to where they were keeping his brother, or he would leave the room, and find out on his own. If Jessie wasn’t lying, and Tyler was truly dead, Skylar needed to see it for himself. “His name is Tyler Briggs. Take me to him.”
The nurse hesitated before her emotions got the best of her. “Only for a moment,” she agreed before she led Skylar to another part of the hospital. Jessie had been ordered by Skylar to stay behind in case his parents came looking for him. Skylar followed behind her silently, watching as they passed through different double doors, and different wings. His breath caught in his chest when he saw that the nurse was leading him into the morgue. The nurse pulled open one of the drawers, throwing the blanket back to reveal Tyler’s body.
This wasn’t right. He could see his brother there on the table, lifeless, the color drained from his body, but he couldn’t process it. His ice blue eyes were closed and his usually upturned lips were flat and dull. But there was one thing that bothered him more than anything, Skylar quickly shaking his head as his eyes darted around the room. “His glasses,” Skylar mumbled, searching around him in a panic. “Where are his glasses? He needs his glasses.” He moved toward the tray where Tyler’s personal effects were bundled up, his hands tearing through everything. “Where are Tyler’s glasses? He can’t see without his glasses!”
Unable to hold back the tears, Skylar broke down. The nurse came over to help him find Tyler’s glasses, Skylar clutching them like they were his lifeline once he finally had them. Carefully, Skylar slid the glasses onto Tyler’s face.
There. Now he could see.
The nurse had thankfully left the room to give him some privacy. With shaking hands, Skylar reached out to touch his brother’s face. He was so cold. “Oh God, Tyler,” he sobbed. “I am so sorry! This is all my fault! I should have just left you alone tonight! You didn’t want to go out, and I made you!” Stroking his fingers through Tyler’s blood-caked hair, Skylar repeated, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” It was like a mantra, just on repeat for what seemed like hours, though mere minutes had passed.
Grief hit him like a truck, Skylar falling to his knees as he clutched his abdomen. It hurt – this was an emotion he had never felt before. Sure, he’d lost people in his life – grandparents and the like – but this was so much worse. This was his brother. His twin. They’d been together since the womb, and now Tyler was just gone. Tyler was dead.
He wasn’t sure how long he stayed in the room. His sobs had turned into more hiccuping breaths by the time he felt hands on his arms, forcing him to focus on their face rather than the spot on the floor he’d been staring at. “Mommy,” he cried, throwing himself into his mother’s arms as he let the older woman comfort him.
Gently, his mother’s fingers carded through Skylar’s hair as she just held her son. They’d both lost a piece of themselves with Tyler. And now more than ever, it was going to be important for their family to stick together.
**~~**
Skylar watched as the coffin with his brother’s body was lowered into the ground. The priest was rattling off some last rites, or whatever was said during a funeral, but he wasn’t listening. All he could focus on was his baby brother getting lowered into that grave. His brother was going to be six feet under – Skylar would never see him again. How was he supposed to live with that?
The day seemed like it was dragging on. People Skylar didn’t even know were coming out of the woodwork to bring them food and offer them their condolences. But Skylar wasn’t interested. He just wanted to be away from all of this madness. He needed to be alone. He needed to think. Skylar wanted to be with Tyler right now. But that wasn’t going to happen. And he knew it. Still, there was that part inside him that thought maybe his brother was going to walk through that door and wake him up from this nightmare.
For the last few days, it had been nothing but funerals. Dustin and Brian hadn’t survived their surgeries. And Becky had been pronounced dead on the scene. And then Tyler had died. That night, seven young adults had met by the lake to have a few drinks and take a load off, and only three of them had walked away with their lives. Skylar wished he could take it all back – he’d give anything to go back to that night and just stay in with Tyler. Hell, knowing what he knew now, he would have gladly let his eyes cross from those judicial text books.
“Skylar?” the voice pulled him from his thoughts. “Hey, how are you?” Henry looked awful. He had a few bumps and bruises from the accident, but nothing major. But there were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked like he’d spent the last week crying. Not that Skylar could blame him. They’d both lost people.
Slowly, Skylar turned so that he was facing Henry, his arms wrapping around him as the wind blew, sending chills up his spine. “Hey Henry,” he greeted, wiping the tears off his face. “How are you doing?”
A tear slid down Henry’s cheek when Skylar asked how he was doing. “Honestly?” he asked, biting into his bottom lip. “I’m not doing too well. I mean, this…what happened…it’s my fault. The car accident. I was driving when it happened. I ran that stop sign, and now look what’s happened.” Another tear slid down his cheek as he hung his head, sniffling. “Skylar, I am so sorry. I wish I could take it all back, but I can’t. And I know nothing I say or do will bring your brother back, but I just…I wanted to apologize.”
Apologize? What would an apology do? Absolutely nothing. Like Henry said, it wouldn’t bring Tyler back. And while he couldn’t necessarily blame Henry for what happened, he couldn’t help but be a little angry with the other man. He had been driving the car. Henry had been so drunk that he missed the stop sign and hit them head on. He was the reason Tyler was dead.
So when he tried to apologize, Skylar just couldn’t sit there and listen. “I-I’m sorry,” he apologized, shaking his head as he made his way out of the house. “I can’t be here. I-I have to go. I’m sorry.” With that, Skylar ran towards the street, getting away from everything around him. He had no idea where he was going, but he just knew that he couldn’t stay there.
By the time he was done running, Skylar was back at the cemetery. It was like he wasn’t even in control of his body as he made his way to Tyler’s grave, falling to his knees on the freshly dug dirt. His breaths were panting out of him from the three mile run he’d made, but he didn’t care. Tears were blurring his vision as he reached for the grave marker, gripping it like it was the only thing keeping him sane.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there sobbing before the words finally started to spill out of his mouth. “Tyler,” he breathed, more tears spilling down his cheeks. “Please, Tyler.” As he continued to sob, Skylar began rocking back and forth, ice blue eyes going to the sky. “I can’t do this. I don’t know how to live here. I-I don’t know how to live in a world without you in it.”
His hands slid from the grave marker to the ground, fingers burying themselves in the dirt. “Please?” he begged once more, fingers flexing against the ground. “Please come back to me? Always and forever, Tyler, that’s what we said.” More tears tracked down Skylar’s cheeks as he turned his attention to the sky once more. “Please don’t leave me? Please?”
Sobs wracked his body once more as he realized just how crazy this was. He was talking to a grave site. Tyler wasn’t here – he wasn’t in the ground. Sure, his body was there, but his soul was gone. Tyler died. And Skylar was left here to live his life without his brother. Slowly, he lowered himself onto the ground, head resting next to the grave marker as he rolled onto his right side. His left arm wrapped around his abdomen as best as possible with the splint as his right reached over to lay on top of the grave.
**~~**
Skylar didn’t know how long he had been lying on the grave, but he knew that the sun was down now. His parents were probably worried sick about where he had gone. Sighing, Skylar pushed himself to his feet, arms wrapping around himself as he suddenly became very aware of how much the temperature had dropped since he’d gotten here.
The walk back home was a lot longer than the run to the cemetery. When he got to the house, all of their guests were gone. He could see that his parents’ cars were still in the driveway, so they were still home. And Jessie’s car was here, which meant she’d stuck around too. He hadn’t even told anyone he was leaving. He’d just taken off. Now, he felt a little bad about it. People were probably concerned.
As soon as he walked into the house, Jessie pulled him into a desperate hug. Her hands cupped his cheeks when she pulled back, eyes roving over Skylar’s body to make sure he wasn’t hurt. “I was so worried about you, baby,” she admitted, pulling him back into a hug once she was satisfied that he was okay. “Where did you go?”
When Jessie broke the hug again, Skylar put a couple steps between them, not wanting her to try to hug him again. “I went to the cemetery,” he answered, biting into his bottom lip as he glanced around the kitchen. “I just…needed to get away for a while. Um…where are my parents?” He figured they would have been waiting up for him.
“They went to bed about thirty minutes ago,” Jessie answered, a small frown on her lips. “I told them that I would wait up for you. I…figured that you went to the cemetery. I was…giving you your space.” She could see the hurt behind her boyfriend’s eyes – written all over his face – and more than anything, she wanted to make it go away. But she couldn’t help him if he wouldn’t let her. “Babe,” she breathed, moving closer to Skylar slowly, as if he was a wounded animal. “What can I do?”
His eyes snapped to meet Jessie’s when she asked what she could do. “Nothing,” he answered, feeling the tears threatening to fall once more. “There’s nothing anyone can do, Jessie.”
A deep frown came to Jessie’s lips when Skylar answered her. She hadn’t meant for it to come out like that. “I know,” she breathed, taking another step closer to Skylar. Again, she frowned when he stepped back, putting distance between them once more. “I know there’s nothing anyone can do to make the hurt go away. But…I just want to help.”
Anger started to stir inside him unbidden. He knew that Jessie was just trying to be there for him, but he didn’t understand why. Obviously, there was nothing anyone could do, so why bother trying. All it did was make him angry. “How?” he scoffed, shaking his head as the tears he was trying so hard to keep at bay sprang to the surface, sliding down his cheeks. “My brother is dead! He’s gone! How are you going to help me?!”
Without another word, Jessie closed the gap between herself and Skylar, pulling him into a tight embrace. She didn’t care that he was struggling against her, trying to get her away from him. She held on tightly, fingers carding through her boyfriend’s hair. “Shhh…babe, it’s okay,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “It’s okay. Just let it all out. I’m here for you. I’m not going anywhere, Skylar, I promise.”
She wasn’t going anywhere? Skylar knew that. But right now, that was the problem. He didn’t want her here. He didn’t want anyone here. Especially not the people who had been involved in the accident. He put a little more power behind the push this time – not enough to hurt her, but getting Jessie away from him. “I don’t want you here!” he yelled. “I can’t…be around you right now! When I look at you, all I see is Tyler! I was looking at you when the car crashed! I took my eyes off the road for one second and it killed my brother!”
Skylar regretted the words as soon as they left his lips, his face falling once more. “Jessie…I…” he started, shaking his head. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, wiping away another tear that slipped down his cheek. “I just…I need some time alone. Please?” He leaned in and brushed his lips against Jessie’s, foreheads pressing together when the kiss broke. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? I just wanna be alone tonight.”
Although she didn’t want to leave him, Jessie knew that when Skylar made up his mind about something, he was dead set. “Okay,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his cheek before she grabbed her jacket and headed out to her car. “Call me in the morning,” she called out before she folded herself into the driver’s seat and pulled out of the driveway.
Once he was alone, Skylar made his way up the stairs, stopping outside of Tyler’s room. Without thinking, he pushed the door open, closing it behind him once he was inside. Nothing had changed in the last few months since they’d been here since starting college – everything was the same inside this room. The only thing missing was Tyler. He sighed as he made his way to the desk, pulling out an old photo album.
He made his way to the bed with the album, opening it once he had taken a seat. Inside, there were photos of him and Tyler. It was their sixteenth birthday party. They had been so happy. Tyler documented everything from the cake to the picture of the two of them holding the keys to their brand new car. A sad smile came to Skylar’s face at the memory. That car was in some garage parking lot ready to be totaled, now.
Turning the page, Skylar was now looking at the photos from their twenty first birthday. Honestly, Skylar didn’t remember much from the night. He’d gotten hammered, and Tyler had gotten him home. Hell, he’d even tucked him in and left the garbage can by his bed in case he puked in the middle of the night.
More tears tracked down his cheeks as he continued to look through the photo album. Eventually, he fell asleep, head resting on the photo album as his mind took him to dark places. He dreamed about Tyler – about how he was responsible for his brother’s death. And how because of his stupidity, he was never going to see Tyler again.
**~~**
Skylar’s eyes snapped open, his mind taking a moment to remember where he was. Tyler’s room at their parents’ house was a lot different than their shared dorm room at Ebonridge University. His eyes ticked to the clock on the nightstand, realizing that it was almost time for him to drive back to the dorm. But he didn’t want to. Everything in him was screaming to just stay in this bed. Don’t get out of bed today. Just stay here and allow himself to grieve.
But he wouldn’t. If he was going to grieve anywhere, it was going to be where he felt close to Tyler. Sighing, he pushed himself out of bed, moving to his own room where he quickly pulled on jeans and a Henley before yanking his leather jacket on. He checked to make sure his parents weren’t awake before he quietly exited the house.
It didn’t take long before he was at the cemetery again, Skylar taking a seat beside Tyler’s grave. “Hey, Tyler,” he greeted, biting into his bottom lip as he ran his hand over the grave marker. The headstone was going to be here soon. But until then, there was just this cement block with his name on it. But it would do for now.
Pulling the photo album out of his leather jacket pocket, Skylar smiled. “Look what I brought,” he chuckled, moving to lay on his stomach beside the still fresh dirt. “I figured we could take a little trip down memory lane. Seemed like a better idea than going to class today.” Without another word, Skylar opened the album, smiling as he relived each memory with his brother.