Losing Ruby

Copyright © 2020 Kelsa Dixon

All rights reserved

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[Brody]

The service passed in a blur. A windswept, emotional haze. The swollen clouds lingered; they felt dull and lifeless overhead, suffocating the cemetery, as though they were closing in on us. Maybe that was the mental restraint collapsing inward that I felt as I stared at the caskets being lowered into the ground; the words of the priest bringing little comfort as he offered words of hope and beauty in the life beyond this one.

I still wasn't convinced such a thing existed. Not the way Ruby had been taken. Not the way our parents had left Chloe; with any already broken family.

I curled the program in my hand and studied the name across my knuckles. R-U-B-Y fit so perfectly it hurt to think of such a destiny. Four fingers, four letters. I found the petals of a lily etched across the back of my hand, wrapping down my wrist. A flower that had been her favorite, but only because it had too been our mother's favorite. Perhaps, another demented form of prophecy.

I was jerked back to the present as Chloe reached around Luca, tugging on my hand. They were all standing, her eyes brimmed with water that ran in silent currents down each cheek—on an otherwise emotionless face. I wanted to take away the pain she didn't let show. But I didn't know how and as she caught my stare lingering on her, she pulled back her shoulders. Her chin went with them as she raised it under the misguided scrutiny.

Luca's arm hooked around her shoulders, breaking our silence, and started moving her forward. Noah was the first one out of our row. The first one in the car. The first to loosen his tie and pop the first button of his collared shirt as he sank in his seat behind Luca. His elbow hit the window ledge and he propped his face on a fist, staring blankly out the window. For the first time all week he was quiet.

It must have surprised Chloe as much as it did me. She reached for him, her fingers curled over his forearm. "You okay?" she whispered.

Noah instantly withdrew his arm and silenced her with a short hiss. "Shh."

As he recoiled his arm it snaked around her neck and without breaking his stare to the outside world—the trees as they blew by—he dragged her across the back seat until her head hit his chest, tearing her prying eyes from reading too much into a stoic stare that rivaled hers.

At a red light, Luca's gaze flickered from the car in front of us to the rear view mirror before darting back to the road again. Briefly they landed on me with a pointed look that dropped to the strap across my chest. Then the light in front of us turned green.

"Chloe, seat belt," I murmured.

Noah scoffed. "Like it'd be the thing to save her."

Luca's grip tightened over the wheel. My vision turned momentarily fuzzy. All I heard from Chloe was the distinct click of the metal clasp and my mind went to that day seven years ago once again. It's what I'd ask of Luca; I'd cared—I'd meant to do the right thing. But it hadn't been enough. Trying was never enough. I'd stopped at the stop sign. I'd looked for cars in both directions. I'd done what I was supposed to do.

But the car had come barreling toward us.

Ruby knew—I'd seen the look in her eyes—she knew it was moving too fast. I leaned away from my door now as I imagined Ruby had been the one to drive. She'd wanted to, and I hadn't let her. Maybe if I had she would've waited long enough. Maybe we would've sat in the car longer, trying to pick the right song, that the car would've already blown through and we would've missed the accident entirely. Maybe it would've been me, instead of her.

The engine cut off and our home loomed above—my past loomed over me. I couldn't get out of the car fast enough. My feet hit the drive and I was quick to slip around the side of the house. I went in through the kitchen door, and up the stairs at the back of the house. I desperately wanted to tear through the tie and the buttons on my shirt, out of the chains and shackles binding me to a scenario similar to this one seven years ago.

Picking through the jeans on the floor of my bedroom, I found what I came for. Stuffing the pack into my pocket, the lighter rattled inside. As I moved toward my door, Chloe passed in front of it. She didn't notice me and it was the first time I'd seen her eyes squeezed shut so tightly. Her lips pursed in a sealed line concealing any sound that might escape. I moved forward and caught a last glimpse of her before she ducked into her room at the end of the hall. Her hands scraping and brushing and kneading the tears from her cheeks as I heard a glutted gasp for air. It was the first sob I'd heard.

It was the first time I'd seen anything that resembled true grief since that night in the hospital. The first time I'd seen more than just a watery stare; a stoic expression; a simple slip of a tear.

I nearly took a step in her direction. I'd angled my feet to move towards her, but I paused. What would I say to her? How could I possibly bring any comfort to this situation? I hadn't been here. For over seven years, I hadn't been present in her life. Anything I now knew about her, was of her doing. The brief conversations we had via text, she instigated. The warm conversations we'd had over the years, the handful of times I'd see them a year were glazed over, superficial bits of our lives. What did I really know about her but the little girl she'd been before I'd turned this life upside down for all of us.

My foot retracted and I turned.

"It's best you left her alone. She doesn't like to appear fragile." Noah was leaning against the railing behind me.

"She's not fragile," I bit out. I don't know why it sounded so defensive. Maybe because in the last week she'd been the strongest person I'd ever seen.

Noah grinned and peeled himself away from the banister. "No, Brody. She is not."

And then he walked away, and although almost anything else out of his mouth was by way of mocking—boorish or brash—this seemed genuine. Proud, and genuine.

I watched as his door slammed shut next to hers at the end of the hall.

"People are starting to show up. We need to be downstairs." Luca stood at the top of the stairs, his arms hung at his sides. No tension. His fingers weren't clenched in fists. They weren't stuffed into his pockets.

For Chloe, he was keeping his composure, but undoubtedly this was as hard for him as it was for her. He was everything our parents had wanted for all of us. He carried that burden on his shoulders alone, and with great pride. A pride that they paid back in encouragement and adoration. He played for a team our father once had. For a school our father had then coached for; been promoted to head coach and then later athletic director. There was a bond he shared with them over a game our mother had loved to watch our father play.

He took a step toward me. "Is Chloe okay?"

Her door opened, and her head popped up as she found us standing in the hall. Her face was clear of any of those tears I'd watch her smudge across her face. Her cheeks weren't red and blotchy as I'd expect them to be. Her makeup was as if we hadn't just buried our parents. Her hair was tucked neatly behind her ears, and she looked...fine. Strong.

She cleared her throat and stole a glance at Noah's closed door. "He'll be down in a minute."

She breezed by me and made the same attempt past Luca, but he grabbed her. His hard blue stare bore down on her. I watched as they scanned over every inch of her. Maybe this was why she didn't like to appear fragile, because really I never knew what Luca was hoping to see when he poured over every one of her features like he was now. Was he hoping to find something that she needed him to fix? Or was he just wanting to be sure she was in fact as wholly intact as she always seemed to be.

She pulled away. "I'm fine, Luca."

"You shouldn't be fine."

"Why not?"

"Because they died, Chloe. You don't have to be fine. Not for us." Not for me is what I heard. And that's what he needed—someone else to feel what he was feeling. To share in the pain he was feeling, so that their memory—our parents memory—didn't last only as long as the few short days they'd already been gone.

If there was anything about the last few days that seemed wrong, it was that we didn't talk about mom and dad. No one had; not once.

— • —

It was the fourth time, in the thirty minutes we'd stood by the front door, that Chloe's chin sunk to her chest and Noah offered a flick of his fingers beneath it. The reminder to keep it up was not lost on Luca nor I, and I didn't find appreciation in the gesture the way Chloe seemed to. Nor did Luca as his eyes crept sideways every few minutes. Her posture would straighten, her feet shifting only so slightly at the weight of each glance.

Yet in all of the not-so-subtle glances Luca gave her, not once did she offer him a comforting look. She stared straight ahead, poised. Her lips curled at the appropriate moments as guests appeared in the doorway. The slim curve vanished the second they passed. With her hands draped in front of her, fingers laced and locked together she seemed refined beyond even my twenty-five years.

"I need a drink," Noah abruptly mumbled. Without waiting for approval, or dismissal, he tugged Chloe behind him.

I saw the pinch of annoyance cross Luca's face. "Just let them go," I said.

The scowl simmered on me before a dark haired girl appeared before us over the threshold. Her eyes were damp and shone under the warm light of the entrance chandelier. For a brief moment my heart rate picked up. I saw a happier part of my past staring back at me.

Ella.

Long dark hair. Brown eyes. A worried, loving expression as she stared back at us.

But the hair on this girl was black. The eyes were wide-set; violet. Ella's were honey. Her square jaw and round lips didn't match the woman's I'd loved. The warm, worried expression wasn't aimed at me.

My heart sank further at the thought of Ella.

"Kendall." Luca's voice softened and so did his expression. She rushed at him.

He caught her in his arms and pulled her in tight. His face buried deep in her hair and I remembered what that felt like; to be loved, to be cherished and to feel validated. Feelings I'd burned in my own self-inflicted demise.

I needed a drink, too. I excused myself as a swarm of guys, no doubt his teammates by the size and number of them, piled through the door and filled every inch of the foyer with apologies and sentiments and graceful prayers.

No one heard me as I slipped into the background.

I was across the room before the first hand thrust into mine. Words of sympathy began to come at me every time I turned around; from people I didn't know—people I wasn't sure knew me. Most of whom I assumed were my father's work colleagues; people who might've known my name in passing, surprised me when they'd been able to accurately recognize me. And I found myself at a loss for a response when they said anything remotely gracious—considering what I was sure he'd had to say about me.

I knew what he thought:

The one that killed our daughter—that'd torn our family apart.

A shame—wasting away a talent that rivaled his.

The black sheep.

A drunk.

Another hand plunged into mine and it cast my gaze up once more. This time he didn't let go so quickly. The quiet sadness staring back at me had my stomach twist as his grasp grew firmer. "Brody." The man my father's age paused, gathering composure it seemed. "I'm so sorry."

He cleared his throat and dropped his hand, and they found the pockets of his gray suit. A ring glinted in the light just before it disappeared. I caught the University of South Carolina emblem and wondered if he'd been a teammate from the days my dad played, or a coach in recent years.

The dark skin around his eyes creased. "I know things weren't always easy between you two, but your dad was proud."

It felt like a physical blow to my stomach.

"What you've done with that old mill on Meeting Street.... He talked of it endlessly."

My studio—my home. The old brick mill I'd converted to a tattoo shop on the first floor and apartments on the second. He'd never once been by.

"You made them both proud." He cuffed a hand around his jaw. "I know he'd wish he could be here to get the chance to tell you." He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, handing me a card. "If you ever need anything; I'll do whatever I can."

The card read Paul Holloman USC Assistant Athletic Director.

A knot tightened in my stomach. Not in any lifetime would I have believed my father was proud. He was a man of pride in all that he had done in his life. Of all that he'd done for his family, of all the good. I only brought the bad, the pain, the sadness.

There was no way he could be talking about me—he had the wrong son. But the man was gone when I looked up. No one to refute the compliment with. To deny the affection that belonged solely to Luca. Or Chloe. Even Noah with his equally rocky relationship with our parents.

Instead, I found myself staring at that past again. The one before I burned it all down. Noah was across the room, a hefty pour of bourbon firmly in his grasp as he talked to his friend Hayden. And Hayden's parents—Ella's parents. Again, my heart rate quickened as I scanned the people around them. I looked for her in every face that caught my eye. In their smiles; in anyone with brown hair who moved gracefully in a crowd of people. I looked for her to appear from around any corner at any minute.

But she wasn't there. And it hurt too much to continue looking for something I'd let slip away long ago. 

— • —

• losing ruby •

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