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My heart is swollen with sadness. Almost overfilling with grief. My brother… my twin… my literally other half is gone. It hits me harder to hear him talk about his own death than it did looking at his lifeless face at the funeral.
And it’s so him. So very him to worry about us, when he’s the one who’s gone.
“I wanna…” Kyle continues. “I don’t know. I want to talk forever right now. Tell you all sorts of shit. All the fun we had. Hey, you remember that fucking go-kart place out in the boondocks? God, I’ve been thinking of that place for like a week for some reason. Ever since I bought the Dead Notes app and started preparing my last call. We had so much fun there, didn’t we? Kali loved it too. When I go—” But he stops. Then starts again. “Not when, I guess. Because I’m gone. But do me a favor, OK? Take Kali there one more time. Ride the karts, and play the games, and maybe, I dunno, win her a stuffed animal or something. Something blue, OK? Remember how she used to love blue? Not dark blue, that was for boys.”
Kyle stops to laugh and I start to cry.
“Light blue. Her whole room was light blue. Anyway.” Kyle sighs again. “Sucks, man. Thinking about death. I was gonna tell you about this the other day. For real, I was. Because I thought, ya know, if Aiden bailed on me I’d want a last message from him. I’d want to hear his voice again, just one more time. But I wouldn’t want to know about it ahead of time. I don’t know why, I just wouldn’t. And I don’t know how everyone feels about me doing this. Probably sad. Maybe it’s morbid. I don’t know. I just know that… if you go first, bro, I’d want this chance to hear you again. So I’m giving that to you. Oh, and hey, you know what? You can leave me a message back. Yeah, that’s the best part. You can leave me messages for like twenty years. I bought the platinum package. So any time you ever have something you need to get off your chest, you call me, bro. I’m here, I swear. I’m watching from… wherever the fuck it is we go after this whole shit show called life ends. I’ll listen,” he says. Then his voices hitches a little, like he’s crying too. “I’ll always be here for you, understand? Brothers for life… and death too, turns out.”
I glance at Aiden and find him bent over, elbows on knees, head in his hands.
“OK, then. I wanted to say more but… shit. I don’t know what else to say. Just, I love you, man. You’re the best friend ever. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I checked out early. I really am.” Kyle sighs. A long, sad, empty sigh. Then he says, “Later, bro.”
I nod my head, unsure what to do now. Just feeling grateful, maybe? That he did this for us. And sad too, but it’s so real now. That loss.
I walk over to the phone sitting on the table and I’m just about to pick it up when Kyle comes back. “Oh, hey, I forgot. One more thing. You were my friend first, remember that?” I can almost hear him smiling through death. Then he says it again, just to make his point. “You were my friend first.”
Then there’s a beep and Kyle’s voice one more time. “Hey, you’ve got Kyle. I’m here, I promise. So leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Another beep.
And then… silence. Because I end the call without saying a word.
I turn to look at Aiden. He’s staring up at me with red, watery eyes. I say, “I’m gonna call in sick today.”
But he shakes his head. “No. You’re going to work, Kali. I’m fine, I promise.”
And looking back on it now, I should’ve stayed. I should’ve told him no, I am not going to work. We’re going to talk this through and get past it, and everything will be great.
But of course, I did go to work. Aiden walked me there himself.
And then two hours later he called me.
And he said, “I just can’t do it, Kali. I just can’t do this to him.”
And even though he didn’t explain, he didn’t need to. I heard that last message from Kyle clear as day.
You were my friend first.
In other words…
Stay away from my sister.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE – AIDEN
I am a worthless piece of shit in more ways I can count. I knew. I knew all along that Kyle wanted me to stay away from Kali. He made one request of me. Just one.
Stay away from my sister.
That’s all he ever demanded from me, ever since we were eight.
