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It could be Brahms who promised to text me today but hadn’t so far. A flicker of hope rose in my chest, I was going to chat with him. Every time the band was on tour, we barely spoke or saw each other, and I missed him more than I missed my family. But it sank just as quickly when I saw Mom’s flash across the screen instead. She never called on weekdays.
“Hi, Mom, what’s up?” I said, trying to sound casual even as my pulse quickened and my stomach knotted with dread. The last time she called this late, Grandma Amanda had died. What if something happened to Dad or Zane?
“Oh God, Sera . . .” Her voice was thick, choked with tears.
My stomach dropped to my feet. “What is it?” I clutched the phone tighter, my knuckles turning white. A million worst-case scenarios flashed through my mind in an instant.
“There’s been an accident. The band’s plane, it—” she choked on a sob.
I gripped the phone tighter, my heart hammering against my ribs. What happened? Were they hurt? Or worse? A cold sweat broke out across my skin as my mind spiraled through horrifying possibilities.
“What happened?” My voice came out strained, barely above a whisper.
“The plane,” she repeated. “It crashed in the mountains. They don’t—they don’t think there are any survivors.”
Mom’s words hit me like a gut punch, knocking the air from my lungs. I sank to the floor, pinned in place by shock and denial. It can’t be real. My big brother can’t be . . . gone. I blinked hard, willing myself to wake up from this nightmare. But Mom’s ragged sobs on the other end of the line anchored me to the harsh edges of reality.
“Your dad—” She sobbed even harder. “He was with them.”
My throat tightened as I pictured Zane’s playful smile. His bandmates were like family, but . . . “Brahms,” I whispered his name and hugged my knees to my chest, making myself small. Wishing I could disappear from a reality I wasn’t ready to face. One where my brother would never again tease me or ruffle my hair. One where I wouldn’t hear Brahms’s voice again.
The phone trembled in my hand as the news settled over me like a crushing weight. I couldn’t accept what Mom said. She was wrong. They couldn’t be . . .
“Why was Dad with them?” I asked, clinging to a thin shred of hope that this was some nightmare or misunderstanding.
“I don’t know,” she said between ragged sobs. “He drove to meet them in New York a few days ago, and suddenly I got the call.”
I wanted to scream, to rage against the unfairness of it all. We were supposed to have so much more time together. Instead, I choked on sobs I couldn’t voice. The gaping hole my brother’s death had torn through my life felt too enormous and raw to comprehend.
“Did you call Iris?” I managed to ask.
“I tried, but she’s not answering her phone,” Mom replied, her voice breaking over the words. She let out a shuddering breath that I could almost feel through the phone. “She’s going to be devastated. I don’t think I can tell her. I don’t think I can go on, Sera.”
Her words pierced through my heart. I pressed my palm against my mouth to hold back the sob rising in my throat. Zane, Dad, Brahms . . . everyone was gone. Dead.
That word felt like a knife twisting viciously in my chest. I couldn’t breathe around the pain. They were my family, my world. And now they had been cruelly ripped away, leaving me alone and wandering in a torrent of unrelenting grief.
I couldn’t breathe. The room spun around me in a sickening swirl. Somewhere in the back of my mind, Mom was still talking, but I couldn’t make out her words over the roaring emptiness engulfing me.
My brother, my friend . . . They were my partners in crime from childhood—their lights snuffed out instantly. And I was here, helpless. Unable to wrap my mind around a world without them in it.
I squeezed my eyes shut, conjuring up their faces. Zane’s cocky grin, the mischievous glint in his eyes that meant trouble was coming. I would have given anything at that moment to see those carefree expressions just once more.
But all I could picture now was twisted metal. Scarred earth. Lifeless bodies.
A violent shudder wracked through me. I was in a fetal position making myself small. As if I could disappear from a reality I didn’t want to face.
Mom’s voice registered again, pitched high in panic. “Sera? Are you there?”
I forced myself to take a long, shaky breath, then another. Willing some tiny scrap of strength into my voice, I picked up the phone and answered, “Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.”
But inside, I was gone with them.
* * *
Once I stopped crying, I got a hold of Ellington. He confirmed the accident happened in the San Gabriel Mountains, and Dad was indeed flying along with my brother when it happened. I didn’t understand how they went from New York to California but didn’t ask either. He didn’t know much and couldn’t give me more details or confirm if there were any survivors, he sounded hopeful. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing his brother or the love of his life.
“It was bad, but we’re hoping for a miracle, Fifi,” he said, voice strained. “Zane wouldn’t leave us.”
