Devin drove his dirt bike over the curve before losing balancing and falling. After being suspended for starting a fight, he hopped on his dirt bike and went to the nearest convenience store and found a homeless guy to purchase his alcohol in exchange for twenty bucks. The rest was a haze.

Devin got up and staggered into the house. The room spun round and round as he made his way up the stairs, holding on tightly to the rail. His head pounded, and his liquid courage was wearing off. He paused at his parents' door; they closed the room off, leaving it just the way his parents had. He took a deep breath and then went into the room, the smell of his mother's perfume no longer lingered in the air. It was stale and stagnant. He went into the bathroom, his mother's lipstick standing at attention, mocking him. They would never touch her lips again.

He knocked them off the counter in a fit of rage, then threw his father's cologne and everything else that reminded him of that fateful night. He couldn't stand it. The dead silence. The unrelenting loneliness made him physically sick. The nightmares of his parents when he was able to get a couple of hours of sleep.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel, and if there was a god, he hated him. He stared at himself in the mirror, at his bruised eye, at a long gash that swept across his cheek, bleeding lip, yet he felt no pain. His tongue darted across the split on his lip. Was this what his life would look like? Fights and drinking to relieve the pain? He couldn't be fixed, not even by the girl across the street. His broken heart that kept beating was the only reminder that he was alive. Every room in the house held a memory that crushed him. He would go outside and see Yoon Mi Rae working in her garden, only to go over and greet a hallucination. Or his father's voice would call out for him to come help fix a knick-knack around the house—he would rush to help only to be greeted by nothing. He hated everything and everyone. He hated pitiful glances, friendly smiles, small talk, and sympathetic glances. He didn't need anybody's pity. It wasn't going to bring his parents back. It wasn't going to catch the bastard that ran them over.

Devin held onto the side of the sink to steady his swaying body. Suppressing the need to puke, he hung his head and closed his eyes. Then he looked back at himself. Barely recognizable.

The longer he stared in the mirror, the more reality functioned as a loophole. The mirror began to move in a wave-like motion, and the glass turned into a hypnotic swirl. Devin pressed his fingers into the counter, bending the tips, and drew a long breath. Reality slipped from his grip.

"Devin..." the hushed voice of his mother called out to him.

He shook the sweaty strands of his hair, clamping his teeth together. It's only a hallucination, he told himself.

"Son," his dad said, his voice dark and filled with malevolence. "Why don't you join us?"

"We miss you," his mother added. The sweetness of her tone lured him in.

"NO!" Devin shouted at the top of his lungs, sweat and tears dripping from his face. His stomach knotted into pretzels, and unmistakable fear snaked a rope around his body, paralyzing him.

"Look at me, son. Look at the damage you caused us."

Devin refused, keeping his chin on his chest.

"Look me in the eyes, Devin. Have I not taught you the basics of what it means to be a man? Look me in the eyes, dammit!"

Devin jumped at the thunder of his father's voice, an icy hot feeling engulfing his body. He slowly lifted his head, though his eyes remained glued to the marble.

"Tae, look at Mommy. Am I not pretty?"

"You are pretty, eomma––very pretty. " He glanced at his mother and then stumbled back from the mirror, plastering his body to the wall. Devin's eyes bulged. His heart catapulted out of his chest.

Half the side of his father's head was crushed in. Black eyes glared at him. Blood leaked from his nose and mouth down a navy-blue shirt. Huan's lips slid upward, then his mouth opened and a wave of blood spilled out.

Even spaced red lines trickled from his mom's hairline. A black tire print was embedded across her face. Warm black orbs squinted, "You should join us. We miss you dearly," Yoon Mi Rae said.

"Eomma, I miss you so much,"

Yoon Mi Rae beamed with a toothless smile.

"I'm afraid, Eomma." Tears trickled down Devin's face. He looked to his father, his black eyes boring into Devin. "I miss you, Dad. I'm lost without your guidance." But he couldn't tell if he was thinking the words or saying them out loud.

Huan wiped the dust off his shoulder, then looked at him again. "You know what to do then. Join us. Leave everything behind. School, friends...Trechial."

Devin shook his head no. "I can't leave her. I promised Mr. Ashton."

"You owe us! We died because of you! Leave her. Let Charlie have her. It's not like you can beat Charlie. Look at your eye, son. He did that! Is she worth it?" His father sneered.

Like background noise, Devin's mother whispered, Eomma misses you, over and over, an echo Devin couldn't shake.
"Is she worth getting the snot beat out of you? She doesn't love you," Huan yelled, then broke into a sinister chuckle.

"Yes, she is! Yes, she does," Devin yelled. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Devin drove his fist into the mirror. Huan's laughter haunted him as he punched the glass until shards of glass began to splatter everywhere. Blood spilled out of small cuts on his fist. His body trembled. His father was right; he couldn't protect Trechial, he couldn't protect his parents, and he couldn't protect himself. He was useless.

Around the sink, his blood splatter dotted the marble. Around his feet lay red, shiny glass, and he thought that it should've been ugly, but really, it was alluring.

"Coward," his father spat at him.

Devin picked up a shard of glass and then looked his father in his eyes. "I haven't been a coward for a long time, Father." Devin jammed the glass into his neck. Instantly blood rushed out. Devin crumbled to the floor against the wall. He went numb, sinking, dying. He looked back up at the shattered mirror and his parents were gone. They left him...again.

His vision blurred and he began to shiver. If only he could say goodbye to Trechial. He thought of her smile one last time, choosing that as his last thought. Her. Of course, it was her. She would always be his last thought. Of course, she was his last. After all, she was his first. His first everything.

***

Diana burst through the door. "Devin!" She grabbed the white- t-shirt lying next to him and tried to contain the blood. He was pale, beads of sweat dotting his forehead. Her eyes roamed the bathroom, hoping the cordless phone was somewhere close. It wasn't.

She began praying. She couldn't leave without Devin bleeding out on the floor, yet she needed to call an ambulance. His shirt was stained with blood, and he reeked of alcohol.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Dee." His words came out in a whisper, though his eyes remained closed. "I'm sorry for making Trechial cry."

"Apologize to her yourself after you come out of this, kid."

The front door could be heard opening. "Thank you, Lord—Shan!" Diana called out, cradling Devin in one hand and holding the shirt on his wound."

"Diana is that you?"

"Call an ambulance, now!"

"What happened? Are you okay?" He rushed up the stairs and was halted by all the bloody horror that twisted his features.

"Call 911!"

***
The bus turned down Trechial's street. She stared out the window, the confrontation with Devin fresh on her mind. She could barely focus in English class, so she'd thought about skipping but was afraid of running into Devin. She almost caved and went back, even if to argue with him and tell him how stupid he was being. Sheesh, he was driving her to the brink of insanity. She knew him. He held her at pole distance because he didn't want to reveal how he was feeling on the inside. But still, it didn't give him the right to disrespect her the way he did, and in front of people. And instead of slapping his teeth on the ground, she'd just stood there, her heart bleeding for him because she could not help him in any way. Why couldn't he lean on her the way she did him? She thought back to his black eye and the words he said.

Why don't you ask your precious stepdad what happened to my eye?

When she got home, she was going to ask Charlie about it. No doubt he was going to deny it like he did everything else. She believed Devin— The kid couldn't tell a lie if his life depended on it. If Charlie hurt Devin, she would hurt him. Or at least try to.

"What happened down there?" she heard someone say from a few seats up.

"Isn't that Devin's house?" someone else said, drawing her attention toward the conversation. She stood up and cupped her hands over her mouth "Oh, my--," she whispered. She instantly made her way down the aisle, telling people to move as she pushed past kids who started to stand.

"Let me off the bus," she said, looking at the ambulance and police car lights flashing in Devin's driveway. Some of her neighbors watched on from their yards. The bus driver swung the doors open, and Trechial rushed down the steps. She ran towards Devin's house as two paramedics rushed a stretcher to the ambulance, carrying Devin's lifeless body down the steps. Her mom and Shan followed closely behind. An oxygen mask covered Devin's face, bandages wrapped around his neck. Shan hopped into his newly bought blue Camaro and started the engine.

"No," Trechial whispered running up to the stretcher, all that familiar pain of losing somebody washing over her. "Wake up, Devin! What's wrong with him?" She gazed up at the blue-eyed, brown-haired paramedic, then back at Devin's ashen face. Her eyes watered. "Wake up, Tae."
They made it to the back of the ambulance, and the doors popped open.

"Please back up," a female said from inside the truck as the paramedics lifted Devin into the vehicle.

"Please wake up, Tae! I'm sorry."

Diana reached for Trechial's arm, but she jerked away out her mother's grasp.

"Wake up, please!" she screamed, knowing she sounded like a broken record, everything was broken, though, at that point.

Diana grabbed Trechial by the arm and pulled her away from the ambulance and into the grass.

"Calm down, sweetheart, he's going to be alright. You have to trust God with the rest."

Her mother's glossy eyes made Trechial doubt her words. The vehicle started and the lights blared to life with a screeching noise, and within seconds, the ambulance was racing down the street.

"What happened to him?" Trechial croaked.

Diana's eyes began to water, she pulled Trechial into her arms no words came to mind to soothe her.

"It's my fault, Momma." Trechial bawled into her mother's scrubs.