“Brian!” I shouted.
We ran up and down the shore. I wasn’t sure what was making Jax panic, but the longer we shouted, the more I realized that something was wrong. Why would Brian’s guitar be lying there on the ground all alone? He loved that thing; he wouldn’t just leave it unattended. He would at least be nearby. And yet he wasn’t answering our shouts . . .
I followed Jax as he ran through the trees to get to the footbridge, where we could cross. The whole time we were running, Jackson was shouting Brian’s name. As soon as we got to the clearing that led to the footbridge, we climbed down a little ravine where the mud met the water.
That’s where we were struck by the most horrifying sight—an image that will never, ever leave my mind.
“No!” Jackson’s cry was unprocessed, unfiltered, like a child’s. “No!” he screamed again.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” I repeated over and over, but there was no god to help save Brian. His bloated body was facedown, floating near the shore.
“No! No! No!” Jax kept shouting as he moved closer to Brian’s body, reaching his arms out to grab him.
“Don’t touch him,” I said. “You can’t help him.”
He turned to me instantly and fell into my arms. I held him as we cried together. “That’s my brother.” Jackson sobbed. “That’s my brother, isn’t it? He’s dead, isn’t he?”
We didn’t need to flip his body over to see his face. We recognized the hair, the clothes. We had seen the guitar on the ground. “Yes,” I choked out.
“What happened?” Jax screamed into my chest.
I tried not to look at Brian floating behind Jax. I held him as he sobbed and sobbed. I was doing nothing, but I was doing everything at the same time, and I could feel it in how fervently he held me back.
I knew we had to get up to the house and tell Leila and call the police. I led Jackson back to the house while he continued to cry, nonstop. I went into his kitchen and dialed 911.
The emergency operator picked up. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“My friend’s brother is dead in the creek,” I said flatly.
The rest of the conversation was a blur. Jackson was still crying audibly next to me. When I hung up the phone, we both turned around and saw Leila standing at the end of the hallway. She hadn’t made a noise. She had heard the conversation, but she was clearly in shock.
She looked at me and then back at Jax a few times before starting to cry. “Is it true?” she squeaked out.
“Yes,” Jax whimpered.
“The ambulance will be here as soon as they can,” I said quietly.
Leila dropped to her knees and pounded her fists on the floor. “No!” She made a bloodcurdling sound and then fell into a pile, screaming, crying, and writhing like she was being burned alive. That’s how I imagined losing a child would feel . . . maybe even worse.
Jax and I held each other again as he continued sobbing.
My mother had taken off, and his father had done the same, but neither one of us had ever faced the reality of death in this way. At that age, you don’t have a full grasp on mortality until you see the body of a healthy man you spoke to mere hours ago floating in the water, facedown, tethered by a broken branch to the shore, like a dead animal.
Jackson’s full-throated sobs evened out into painful whimpers. My shirt was drenched with tears and snot, but I didn’t care. In the smallest voice he said, “You’re all I have left. You’re holding my whole world together, Em.”
“But you have your mom. She loves you a lot,” I whispered.
“My mom is a shell, and she’ll be even less than that now that her golden boy is dead.”
“That’s not true, Jax,” I said, but I wasn’t sure I believed my own reassurances.
LATER ON, AFTER the EMTs, police, and coroner arrived, Jax and I sat side by side on the fence, as we’d done so many times before. Jax was sniffling, but he had calmed down a bit. We were watching Leila, who was wrapped in a blanket and sitting on a bench on their porch, speaking to an investigator.
“When she looks at me, all she sees is my dad, and she hates him. She loved Brian more than me. She’ll wish that was me in the river.”
“Stop it, Jackson Fisher. You stop that right now. You’ve been reading too much. Don’t ever talk like that,” I said.
“I guess now you can’t marry him.”
I hopped off the fence, turned, and looked at him pointedly, but I had no words. He got down too. We were face-to-face. I felt crushed, and Jackson looked tormented. I started crying again. “Don’t, Jax. Don’t do that.”
He started to cry again too, and then he hugged me and buried his head in my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “He’s gone. I can’t believe he’s gone.”
That moment was followed by days of grieving. Jax and his mom sat inside of that dark, dank house, now further tainted with loss and tragedy. When the investigation was over and foul play was ruled out, Leila had Brian cremated. We all went into town for a short service at the funeral home. The cause of death was never once mentioned.
We sat in the front row while a stranger spoke from notes that Leila had written about Brian, detailing his musical achievements and how kindhearted he was. His girlfriend, who we later found out was a street kid, sobbed in the row behind us. Other than that, there were only a few people he worked with and went to high school with in attendance. The whole event made Brian seem so insignificant. I wondered how long it would take for the dirt road to end Jax or me. How long it would be before any chance at a legacy would be robbed from us.