Sparkling Hope (The Eastburgh Devils Series Book 1)

So much can happen quickly, but I never thought I’d be standing before Weston, not knowing what would happen next between us.

A big part of me didn’t want to get out of bed and disappear from reality under the covers. I wanted to finally stop thinking and put my head on mute, but I couldn’t because this little part of me that reminded me of Weston every day was permanently there.

Sometimes lay in bed and thought about how everything could be okay again one day, but all the bad things come back in the blink of an eye.

My soul was empty, and my body was just an emotionless shell.

Ethan was ripped out of my life, and everyone else’s, just like that, without any warning.

When can you even prepare for someone’s death?

‘You and I just wouldn’t make sense right now. Please just let it go,’ I drowned out the feeling that I missed him with those words.

Maybe it was wrong to push him away from me, but when I looked at him, I saw nothing now except this one night.

‘Tell me now that you don’t want me anymore. Tell me to leave you alone, and I’ll leave you alone. We won’t know each other anymore.’

I hesitated.

‘It’s better for both of us if you leave me alone, Wes. Please,’ I mumbled the last word.

Not only was I hurting him right now, but I was hurting myself.

I needed to think about my Mom first right now, and all that was still coming, and I’d instead break from all this shit before my Mom did. I needed a break from all of this.

‘That’s it for us.’ Weston’s sentence sounded more like a question than a clear statement.

‘I guess so, yeah,’ I hesitated again.

‘See, you don’t want this to be over between us yourself. Am I right?’

This conversation needed to end right now.

I held my hands in front of my face. ‘Just let it go. What don’t you understand about this, Weston? When I see you, I feel nothing but hate right now. I hate you,’ I forced myself to say the last words because otherwise, he won’t let up.

‘You don’t hate me, Luna.’

‘Yes, I do. Because every time I try to sleep, I wake up thinking I need to relive that night, and I get reminded why you asked me not to hate you until I understood why you said it.’

I will never be able to hate him, but I told myself I would.

Weston was too deep in my soul and has occupied my heart for eternity.

It hurt so fucking much to tell him something like that and to look into his eyes.

‘Do you think I can sleep peacefully? Every goddamn night I fall asleep and wake up in this nightmare. Don’t you think I wish it was me? That I would be the one lying dead under the ground right now like Ethan?’ his look was full of panic, and you could see in his expression as he realized what he was saying.

‘Fuck you, Weston. We’re done,’ I said in a firm tone, scurried past him, and opened the heavy hall door to my class because I couldn’t afford to skip classes because even though I would love to do nothing but lie under my covers in a dark room, I had to force myself to have a daily routine.

Maybe someday I will manage to live again, to really live.

Until then, I had to fight through the long days and learn to deal with Ethan’s loss because I knew he wouldn’t have wanted that if I had continued.

After class ended, I stormed home and left campus with tunnel vision because I knew Weston was still around here somewhere, and I didn’t want to see him again.

Not after everything he and I said to each other.

That was it with us, and it broke my heart even more, and I actually thought I would feel a liberating feeling when it was over between him and me.

The opposite happened, and that was absolutely my fault.

I shouldn’t have let myself get caught up in those negative thoughts.

‘Mom?’ I called her name as I entered the house, hung up my winter jacket, hat, and scarf, and put my winter boots on the small wooden shelf. I didn’t expect any reaction from her. It was merely a remark to her that I was home.

In the living room, she sat at the round dining table, still in her clothes from the day before.

She sat there, wrapped in her gray cardigan, in front of her breakfast. The fried egg and bacon looked anything but appetizing. The bagel with avocado looked soggy, the avocado slices already had brown spots, and the tea I made her this morning had also already cooled down.

‘You haven’t eaten anything,’ I spoke softly, taking the tray in my hands and setting it down in the kitchen next to the full sink of dishes.

‘What time is it?’ she said dreamily, glancing at me.

I closed my eyes and filled my lungs with air as I stood at the sink, and she asked me that question.

She asked me that question every time I came home from college.

Since Ethan’s death, she had no sense of time and stared at nothing all day.

‘Mom, it’s already evening. Do you want to get some fresh air?’ I scraped the food off the plate I set out for her this morning.

Behind me, I heard her slippers scuffing across the wooden floor, and she ran like a ghost to the stairs. ‘It’s okay. I’m tired.’

‘Mom, you need to eat something,’ I reminded her.

‘You don’t get to tell me what to do. Just leave me alone. Do you understand?’

Without waiting for my response, she went up the stairs, and I winced when I heard her bedroom door slam. I wanted to drop everything, crawl into my bed, and hope my alarm clock wouldn’t go off the following day.

I filled the dishwasher, which was delivered last week, with all the dishes and washed the rest by hand.

I also shook out the pillows from the sofa and neatly put the blankets back together. There was no trace of them where Charles slept the last few weeks, even on holidays.

I looked through the large stack full of mail.

Funeral cards, bills, and then two envelopes immediately caught my eye.

A black envelope with the college’s address as the return address and the stamp from our college’s coat of arms.

I tore open the envelope, which was addressed to my Mom personally, and held an invitation to a memorial service for Ethan that his track team will be hosting on the athletic field later this week. With a handwritten note from his Coach, he asked me to contact him when I felt up to giving a speech.

Give a speech?

To have to remind myself why this memorial service was even happening?

How absurd.

The next envelope was a little heavier and taped shut with tape.

Inside the envelope was the front door key, taped to a small piece of paper where a note was written in the corner with a blue ballpoint pen.

THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME SLEEP ON YOUR SOFA

                                                                                 -Charles

The front door key and the note to it reminded me today of what happened in the locker room, and I felt terrible forcing Charles to sleep there in the apartment alone.

I also remembered that I continued to ignore the letters from the college. They requested to vacate Ethan’s room because it would be sublet. This thought of someone living there, in the room where Ethan lived, hurt so much.

Knowing that Charles and Ethan’s dream of studying at the same university and sharing an apartment had been dashed felt so unreal.

I remembered the two of them making plans in high school and always working little jobs during summer vacation to earn money for their dream. They delivered newspapers, walked the neighbor’s dogs, rang doorbells, and asked if they could mow the front yard or clean the windows.

I always wanted to be present in such actions of the two, and they never allowed it.

This is why I always stole a dollar from the jar where they stored the money inside, so I could get ice cream from it.

Now their dream was shattered.

Ethan was gone forever, and I felt like the last asshole for pushing everything and everyone away from me.

Quickly deciding, I threw on my jacket and some winter boots and ran to campus.

I felt my lungs were about to freeze like ice blocks.

Little snowflakes fell from the dark sky to the ground, some getting caught in my hair before melting away again.

I was fortunate enough to have someone leaving the apartment block of Ethan and Charles’ apartment, and I could scurry through the door.

Their apartment was at the top. I sprinted up the stairs, skipping a staircase with each step to get to the top faster.

Once atop the floor, I saw Charles sitting at their front door.

His eyes were red underneath and so bright blue from the howling.

He had a bottle of vodka in one hand and his cell phone in the other

‘I didn’t know who to call,’ he sniffled, wiping away the snot running from his nose with the arm he held the half-empty bottle.

‘Charles, I’m so sorry,’ I sat with him on the cold concrete floor and leaned against his shoulder.

I could feel his body shaking and sniffling with every breath he took in and out.

‘I miss him so incredibly much. It hurts so bad.’

I knew, but I didn’t know if this would ever stop. If this constant, burning pain in my heart will ever stop and cool down.

‘I miss Ethan too. I’m afraid of ruining everything. What if I didn’t go with that girl?’

I leaned against his shoulder, listening to his breathing, slowly becoming more regular and calm again.

‘What if I went with you to Sigma Devils?’ I asked back, reminding him that I had the same questions that rent free in my mind. Questions where we will never get answers.

‘I can’t go in there and sleep, Luna. I can’t anymore. I am so fucking tired,’ he mumbled, and as I turned to face him, I smelled the vodka plume from his mouth.

‘You don’t have to. Give me the key, and I’ll get your stuff.’

I owed him this.

He’d been there for me and my Mom the last weeks, and now I would be there for him. I overcame myself going into the apartment because I knew everything would remind me of Ethan.

Charles lifted his pelvis and pulled the front door key out of his pants pocket before placing it in my hand and sliding a little to the side on the floor so I could insert the key into the keyhole.

I heard the lock click and took a deep breath before opening the front door.

The same smell immediately hit my nose as I entered the hallway.

It was cold in this apartment.

My eyes lingered on Ethan’s bedroom door as I exited Charles’ room with a backpack. In Charles’s chaos, finding everything he needed took a lot of work.

As if out of reflex, I ran toward the door, holding the cold doorknob so tightly that my white knuckles could be seen.

I only needed one thing from this room.

Just one thing, and then I would immediately turn my back on Ethan’s room and go home with Charles.

I entered the room, which was warm because Ethan was freezing just as much as I always was, so the heater was permanently on. I was overcome with a sting that went through my whole body and squeezed my lungs momentarily, knowing that he hadn’t been here for a month and the heater was still on.

Ethan’s bed wasn’t made. He never did.

But the worst part was that you could see the imprint of his head on the pillow and the indentation on his mattress.

Like he was here, so close and so far away at the same time.

I found the little penguin sitting on his windowsill above his bed. I grabbed the stuffed animal called little crumbs and left the bedroom quickly.

I locked the front door again after flipping off the light switch in the apartment hallway and buried the key in the bag I packed for Charles.

‘Come on, let’s go home,’ I helped him get on his feet, and as we left the apartment building, I tossed the vodka bottle into one of the large trash cans.

It wasn’t easy to help a guy walk who was two heads taller and made of more muscle than anything else. Plus, the vodka he had drunk was clearly noticeable as he lost his balance together more often than I tried to prop him up.

I was hoping that supporting him like that would make the walk home easier, but we almost fell into a bush on the side of the road.

We staggered into the house, and I tried not to trip over the shoes in the entryway, and when I saw the sofa already, a feeling of relief came over me.

I dropped Charles onto the white sofa and felt the muscles in my shoulders and spine relax again.

‘I’ll bring you a blanket and pillow,’ I quietly ran up the stairs, and before I could get the pillow and comforter that Charles had been sleeping with for the past few weeks, I also put my ear to Mom’s bedroom door.

Not a sound or sob was heard, and I felt relief the second time because it was the first night she didn’t cry herself to sleep. Never before had I seen my Mom like that, and on those nights, I was so glad Charles was sleeping downstairs in the living room.

I couldn’t get Mom to calm down no matter what I tried to say or do. She showed me the cold shoulder and acted like I wasn’t in the room when Charles came into the bedroom all sleepy-eyed to hug her.

I kept the thought to myself, but I often felt that Mom was looking for comfort in him because he was so close to Ethan.

With the comforter and pillow in my arms, I arrived downstairs in the living room and saw a sleeping Charles.

He looked so much more peaceful when he was asleep.

I carefully lifted his head to put the pillow underneath and covered him with the comforter. I put his shoes and jacket on the side next to the bag I had packed in the apartment.

I was hoping that, just like my Mom, he would get more sleep because I already knew what my night would look like.

I was just going to lie there, staring holes in the ceiling, and think about how to teach Mom in the morning that Ethan’s track team would have a memorial service on the athletic field.

Maybe my eyes will be so dry from not blinking the whole time that I won’t be able to stop them from shutting.

How was I supposed to sleep when my heart was broken and my soul tired of everything?