Sparkling Hope (The Eastburgh Devils Series Book 1)

I hold on to the pain I felt when I read the engraved letters and numbers on the headstone because that feeling was the only thing I had left of Ethan.

I continued to stare at the gray headstone Mom and I picked out a week ago, with a tall mound of fresh dirt and lots of flowers in front of it.

Ethan had been dead for two weeks now.

It had been two weeks since the car accident and since my brother died.

My heart ached, and my throat constricted as I thought about what that night had brought crashing down. My eyes filled with tears, and I began to see everything blurry until I blinked, and the tears rolled down my cheeks.

That night I lost everything. Even myself.

Since then, I haven’t slept through the night.

Either I woke up in a panic and felt like the night was repeating itself, or my mother’s wailing and crying in the bedroom pulled me from my sleep.

I haven’t seen Weston since the accident, and today at the funeral, I tried to avoid him as much as possible.

I couldn’t and wouldn’t because when I saw him, I saw in my mind the moment I understood that my brother was dead.

Ethan had gone to the Sigma Devils with Charles that night after the game against the Chicago Polar Bears. Charles had met a girl and went with her, after which Weston offered to take him home. A thousand questions filled my head, tightening the knot in my heart.

What if Weston hadn’t offered to take him?

What if Charles hadn’t gone with the girl?

What if I had been there?

One moment would have been different, and Ethan might still be alive.

‘Luna?’ Charles came out from behind me, and I felt his presence next to me without looking away from Ethan’s grave.

‘We’re leaving. Your Mom told me to come get you,’ he said quietly.

Almost the wind, which blew through the dense pines, was louder than his voice. ‘You guys go ahead. I’ll catch up. I don’t want to leave yet,’ I replied, shaking all over.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Charles take off his black jacket and felt him put it over my shoulders. Without saying anything else, he kissed me on the top of my head and left me alone at my brother’s grave.

I felt nothing but emptiness inside me.

As if the moment the officer spoke Ethan’s name into his walkie-talkie, something inside me broke away.

Something broke off like a porcelain cup that fell, and what was broken off shattered into such small crumbled pieces that you couldn’t glue it back together.

I heard footsteps approaching and guessed that Charles was returning to say something about my mother, who was hardly talking. Since the night, I no longer looked into the joyful face of my mother.

‘I really loved him, you know? Ethan was the first person to really show me what love was,’ a dainty, delicate voice spoke.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw fox-red, long wavy hair lying over a black, knee-length coat.

I turned to her and looked into a strange face.

Even though I knew her name and felt so close to her without exchanging words, she was still so foreign to me.

The planned dinner that day was supposed to be Ethan introducing her to us while I introduced Weston to my brother, and then everything changed. The dining table we should have eaten at had still been rearranged and boxed up until yesterday when Charles came over and set it up before silently leaving the house again.

The evening after the accident became one of grief and loss.

Family and friends of my Mom, Ethan, and me came by and offered their help. Mom yelled at everyone and kicked them out again, retreating to her bedroom in the same outfit she was still wearing from the night.

‘Jude, his girlfriend, right?’ I huffed to ensure I wasn’t wrong about who she was.

‘Mhm,’ she mumbled, ‘can we sit down somewhere and talk for a minute?’

Without saying anything in response, we walked over to one of the benches scattered around the cemetery along the sidewalks.

She was so pretty.

Jude Collins was in Ethan’s year and was one of the best and fastest runners in the whole college in the relay.

I stared at her, which she probably found more than creepy, but I imagined what Friday would have looked like if the truck hadn’t careened through the intersection into the passenger side despite a red light.

How Ethan and Jude would have entered the house, and he would have introduced them to us. I didn’t want my brother’s death to unite Jude and me. I wanted him to introduce them to Mom and me.

My brother was supposed to introduce us to the person who had him grinning the whole time like a little kid who got a scoop of ice cream.

‘I was hoping to send the invitation to the right frat house,’ I said dreamily.

Mom wasn’t ready to prepare the funeral, so I did it alone, getting help from Charles, who hadn’t left Mom’s and my side since Ethan died.

Charles, however, only knew Jude in passing and didn’t know which fraternity house she lived in, and the college director wasn’t allowed to give me her private information.

Jude’s hands shook, and I saw tears rolling down her pink cheeks. I felt so bad because she didn’t hear about Ethan’s death from me but from the news. It quickly made the rounds at the college that there was an accident, and Ethan and Weston were involved.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she breathed out, picking at the cuticles on her thumb.

My body showed no reaction. No emotion came rushing forward.

Jude’s words popped into my head like an Eco.

No tear left my eyes, no smile, nothing.

‘Did Ethan know about this?’ I brought forth.

My head hurt, my heart felt heavy, and everything was thudding. I felt the sensation and pressure in my head of standing too long, too close to a loud jukebox, and hearing the beeping in my ears in bed at night.

‘Yeah, he knew about it.’ She tucked a curly strand behind her ear.

‘We were going to tell you that Friday. Ethan and I didn’t quite know how to handle it at first. I took a test about a month ago because I was so sick and overdue for my period,’ she explained calmly.

‘I took the test at Ethan and Charles’ home while Charles was out. When the pregnancy test was positive, he first hugged me,’ she smiled as she shared this memory with me.

She stared into nothing, and it seemed like those memories were being reflected in her mind’s eye.

‘Of course, the baby wasn’t planned, and when I saw the two strokes, I was shocked. Ethan said that everything will be fine and he would stay by my side no matter what I decide,’ Jude continued, ‘since then, I slept at their apartment, and he kissed my belly and talked to our little crumb every night.’ Jude wiped the tears from her face with her sleeves.

‘Little Crumb,’ I smiled.

‘Mhm, he insisted on calling the baby that until we knew the gender.’

‘Little Crumb was the name of the stuffed animal Mom gave him when he started college,’ I grinned as I thought back to that moment. Mom and I had accompanied him and helped him move into the apartment with Charles.

‘The penguin on his windowsill?’

‘He actually kept the penguin?’ I laughed because I could have sworn he had put the penguin away in some box.

‘Yup, he introduced them to each other every night and put the penguin on my belly,’ she told me, showing me a video on her phone.

On it was her bare belly and Ethan’s head with his brown curls, kissing the stomach and putting his penguin on Jude’s belly.

‘May I?’ I asked her, pointing to her phone and playing the video several times.

I barely recognized any video at one point until I blinked away my tears. Jude and I looked at each other and smiled until I pulled her to me, and we hugged tightly.

The pain didn’t have to be the only emotion I felt anymore when I thought about Ethan.

I wish I could tell my brother I would do everything I could to ensure Jude and the little growing crumb were okay.

‘I miss him so much, Luna. It hurts so much,’ she cried, and I tightened my hug some more because she was saying exactly what I was feeling too.

‘I know. I wish he was here,’ I murmured into her hair.

Jude grabbed her stomach as we broke away from the hug.

‘He’s here.’

I looked down at her stomach, where her hand rested over her black coat.

She was right. Ethan was here.

In her belly, in our hearts and minds.

He will be a part of little crumb.

I had asked Jude if she would like to join us at home, where we had some food for the guests who had come after the funeral.

It was not locked, and people were already coming to meet us both when we entered the hallway over the threshold.

The family was there, Ethan’s friends, Aria and Lucy.

Mom wrote the list of people to send an invitation to, and I accepted her choice of people.

I was so grateful to have Lucy and Aria for being here because, just like Charles, they never left my side.

It was kept small but seemed like so much in the tiny house.

Also, on the invitation list Aria and I finished together to take to the post office was Dad.

He didn’t show up.

No commitment, let alone a rejection. Nothing.

It was a depressing atmosphere. Everyone slumped their shoulders and looked glum. But could I blame them? I felt the same way.

It was all so dreary, everyone was dressed in black, and I was sure Ethan wouldn’t have wanted it that way. He would have wanted that everyone showed up in sports clothes, but when do you think about how you might imagine your own funeral?

This showed how quickly life can end, and you can just be torn away from your everyday life.

Some were standing around with plates spread out downstairs in the living room, eating.

My eyes slid over the people until I saw who was already looking at me.

I saw him, and Weston saw me.

The butterflies that used to flutter around in my stomach were now moths eating me up from the inside and leaving holes in my heart.

Weston stood on crutches beside his Dad, talking to Camilla and another lady. I didn’t want to look at him anymore and averted my eyes from him and felt his eyes still on me.

I greeted Ethan’s friends and thanked them for still coming home after the funeral.

‘Where’s my Mom?’ I hugged Charles, who was standing around by himself.

‘She went upstairs.’

‘I’ll go check on her.’

I ran to Jude, who stopped at the entrance and waved at Charles from a distance.

‘Come with me. I want you to meet Ethans and my Mom.’ I took Jude by the hand and ran up the stairs with her.

It was so important to me that Mom met Jude because what I was doing now Ethan would have actually done. I knocked on the bedroom door and opened it with a crack to give my head enough room. Mom was sitting on the edge of the bed. Next to her was a black scarf she wore to the funeral.

I entered the room, and Jude followed me with short, careful steps behind me.

‘Mom? I think there’s someone here you’d like to meet,’ I said quietly, walking around the bed to stand before her.

She sat there with her shoulders slumped, her face emotionless, her eyes all blank and glassy. Mom was staring out the window, and as I watched her sit there, I pulled myself together not to burst into tears.

Jude came around the bed and stood next to me

‘Mom, this is Jude. Ethan’s girlfriend,’ I introduced Jude to Mom.

Her eyes turned away from the window and found Jude’s.

She sat beside my Mom, and I decided to leave the bedroom.

Back downstairs, I entered the kitchen and saw that Aria and Lucy were already washing some plates and wine glasses because our dishwasher had yet to be delivered.

Lucy turned from the sink to me and dried the last wine glass. ‘How are you?’

‘I want everyone to leave. I can’t take it anymore, but how do you do something like that? Just throw them out? I’ve never organized anything like that before, let alone witnessed it,’ I babbled.

I wanted everyone to leave, and I would have preferred to hide in the pantry to avoid any questions until the last guest had left the house.

‘We’ll take care of it, okay?’Aria put her hands on my shoulders before hugging me towards her.

Lucy had already gone ahead, and I saw her walk over to each guest and talk to them out of the corner of my eye.

At that moment, I couldn’t think of better best friends than Aria and Lucy.

One by one, new dishes and glasses accumulated in the kitchen as the guests put them there, said goodbye to me and left the house.

Jude came down the stairs and said goodbye to me.

‘I told your mother and left her my number. Maybe you might get in touch too,’ she smiled sympathetically before doing the same to the guests and leaving the house through the front door.

Lucy and Aria were the last guests I had to say goodbye to, and as I closed the front door, I held my hand over my mouth to stifle my crying and sobbing.

This didn’t work out so well, but I did my best to stifle the sobbing sounds because if Mom saw or heard me crying, she would immediately join in, and I was pretty glad she wasn’t crying at that moment.

Suddenly I heard the crunch of the wooden stairs, and when I turned around, I saw Charles undoing his tie.

I thought everyone was gone, and I wished they were because I just wanted to be alone and try to sort out my thoughts.

‘Your Mom’s asleep now,’ he said quietly, leaning his shoulder against the white door frame.

I was uncomfortable with him helping us because I wanted to do this alone.

Ethan was able to do it all when Dad and I were in the car accident, and he and Mom were home all alone.

I got to make it work. For Ethan. For Mom.

Now it was just the two of us.

Ethan was gone, and Dad didn’t even bother attending his Son’s funeral.

‘Thank you for helping me,’ I smiled briefly at him.

I’d never seen Charles so beat up. Red under-swollen eyes followed every move I made as I put the plates away in the closet.

‘Did you talk to Weston?’

Charles entered the kitchen and handed me the wine glasses rinsed and dried by Lucy and Aria.

‘No,’ I said curtly, hoping he would understand from my answer that I didn’t want to talk about him, let alone think about him.

I felt the tears on the skin of my face slowly drying away.

I was glad when Weston and his family left the house and put distance between us. I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss him because he was the first person who made me feel so much and on many good levels.

I never thought I would associate so much bad, so many negative thoughts and feelings with him. I did not intend to have these thoughts, but I just couldn’t anymore. I had to use the power that was left for my Mom and me, so I just let everything that I was thinking and feeling, and so it was best in the beginning if I stayed away from him.

When I looked at him, I saw the moment when I realized that Ethan was dead.

Like a short movie, the sequences of that night flickered by at top speed before my naked eye.

Everything will eventually be okay again, but until then, I will do everything I can to ensure Mom, and I won’t break from losing Ethan.

‘Don’t be so hard on Weston. He’s suffering just as much as you and I are. I’ve never seen a person have so much love for someone.’

Charles’s words ricocheted against me, and it hurt to hear them because I already felt like I had broken that with Weston and lost him.

We found love in a hopeless place, and maybe that love was strong enough for a short time but not forever.

‘Please, Luna, please don’t drop him like that,’ he continued as we finished and put away the clean dishes.

‘You think all this shit is easy for me? As stupid as it sounds but when I see Weston or just think about him, which I do almost twenty-four-seven, I think about the moment I realized why Weston begged me not to hate him until Ethan was shoved past me and my Mom in a fucking body bag,’ I started yelling at him, getting louder with each word.

‘Ethan was the only thing I had left with my Mom. I feel like I’m losing everything right now. My Mom is breaking from his death, and I’m scared to break from it too,’ I continued to yell at him without paying attention to how loud I was or if my Mom could hear me because I didn’t care about anything at that moment.

I felt the heat in my body, my heart was racing, and I had the feeling I had drawn my blood from my veins with my words. I was almost more shocked inside when I realized my eyes were dry.

No tears were rolling down my face.

Charles looked down at his shiny black shoes, and neither of us said anything.

It almost felt like my yelled words were still in the room, sticking to the walls like wallpaper.

‘Everything just sucks right now, but I promise I won’t let it break you and your Mom,’ he mumbled softly, running his fingers through his brown hair.

Without saying anything, I took two steps towards him, stifling the distance between us and hugging him as tightly as possible.

I felt closer to Ethan when I hugged Charles and talked to him.

He wrapped his arms around my body, and we stayed just like that in the kitchen for a few minutes.

‘I don’t want to sleep alone in this apartment,’ he whispered, and I felt his jaw move on my head.

‘If you want, I’ll make up the sofa for you. You can have a comforter from my two blankets in my bed, and I’m sure something is lying here that might fit you.’

‘I’ll just sleep in these clothes. It’s okay.’

Without further ado, he ran to the sofa, put the pillows on the floor, and I got the comforter, which I didn’t sleep under anyway because it didn’t smell like Weston.

‘Good night, Charles.’ I walked to the light switch and turned to him again, ‘And thank you for being there for us. I really appreciate it,’ I continued.

‘Good night, Luna.’