The Truth About That Summer

eighty-four

And that is what I clung to for years: the memories of my brother, and the knowledge that, for the rest of my life, I would never have any more.

But now, everything I thought I knew has changed. Everything is different and I can't make sense of any of it.

Because none of it makes sense. Why would Casey do something so stupid? How could he? He wouldn't. The brother I knew didn't pull stupid stunts like that.

And the family I thought I knew, Grams included, the Luke I thought I knew... They wouldn't have kept this from me. They wouldn't have let me mourn for years - fucking years - without giving me the full truth.

All this talk about me getting over "it" and I never even knew the truth of what I had to get over to begin with.

So now I'm here, Casey's gone, and everyone else might as well be, too.

Throat tight, shame and hurt choking the life from my lungs, I lift my fist and hesitate before knocking loudly on the old door in front of me, my duffel tucked on the stairs behind me, at the tip-top of the multiple staircases to the third floor.

It's loud in the apartment so I know people are home. What I don't know, is if anyone inside can hear me over the music playing so loud that it's coming through the cracks in the doorframe. With that in mind, I knock another time - harder and longer than before. I give it another second before slamming my flat hand against the surface several more times.

Not being let inside feels like the final straw. The longer I wait, the tighter my throat gets, the more my eyes burn. I keep pounding at the wood, determined to be let in. Determined to not have literally not a single place left to go.

"Alright, alright, shit, hang on a fuckin' minute, would you?" His voice brings a fresh sting to my eyes. I can't believe that after the last several weeks, this is where I am.

The door swings open wide, Hunter's annoyed face poking around it. "We'll turn the music down, ok-" He stops short, arms falling to his sides. Cocking his head at me, his lips pull into a small smile that makes me want to cry even more. "Dylan, holy shit. Is that you?"

Yeah, holy shit. And of course it's me, who else would it be?

Meeting his eyes but not even attempting a smile, I shrug limply. "I'm back."

After some back and forth at the door, I finally convinced Hunter to let me into his off-campus apartment. The music is even louder inside, almost too loud to think. He walks me straight through the living room, where his three roommates sit around the coffee table, a beer can in the center with a stack of cards on top of it. They hoot and holler and even seated on Hunter's bed, where I used to sleep almost nightly, I can hear their laughter and stupid jokes through the wall while Hunter lets them know he's turning in for the evening.

I overhear some mild protest, but within minutes, he is back in the room with me, holding out a beer can and a bag of pretzels. "Hungry?"

He opens the bag as he sits beside me but I shake my head, shrinking away from his body, closer to the opposite edge of the mattress. I used to only be able to sleep when I was in this bed, after Hunter thoroughly fucked me enough to make me too tired to have time to think before falling asleep.

Now, being in a bed with a man that is not Luke just feels wrong. All I want is to curl into his side and feel his fingers in my hair and his kisses against my skin, and know that no matter what, he will hold me together, he'll make it okay.

But none of that is possible now. I blink a few times to reorient myself to Hunter's room. The hockey paraphernalia instead of surfing stuff, the dirty laundry and beer cans all over the floor, the drunken photos on his cork board above the bed. Beside me, he is completely oblivious to my discomfort.