Page 136 of Burn

Sadly, I hadn’t realized Evan’s impact on me until he was gone. Until the guy two days older than me who used to sit on the roof with me at night and point to the stars, tell me my family was there with me, was now with them.

It’s the day of the funeral, and I’m in a limo with Mila and Jacey on the way to the church. Mila’s in a black dress next to me, holding my hand, being there for me when all I’ve ever done is constantly push her away.

I can’t tell if she hates me. She should, but she’s looking at me like she either wants to punch me in the face or kiss me. Maybe both.

It’s my brother’s funeral. The day we bury him. The day he’ll be forever part of the dirt as Finn so elegantly put it this morning. And all I can think about is why Mila won’t look at me. She’s been staring out the window the entire drive.

I bet she’s mad about the other night. I feel bad. Who shows up at your apartment, fucks you for an hour and then proceeds to throw up all night long?

Me. I do that shit.

“I’m sorry about the other night,” I whisper in her ear after a few minutes, hoping my apology means something. The way the words shake, I think they do, but I’m not sure she takes them the way they’re delivered. “And for the way I behaved at the hotel that night.”

I wonder if she knows I can literally count the number of times I’ve said I’m sorry on one hand?

Mila regards me silently but then looks out the window again. “I know you are, Caleb.”

Does she or is she just saying it because she thinks I need to hear it?

Sometimes I wonder what the hardest part is of someone dying. I think moving on is because you’re accepting the fact they’re gone.

And that’s what it’s about, right? Acceptance of what happened?

Accepting the fact that they’re gone.

In the beginning, when all you have is shock, it’s scary because it’s a change you never wanted, yet here you’re forced to accept it.

It’s not easy. No one said it would be.

When you lose someone close to you, the news, while devastating, has a way of festering. Like an infection, it starts out painful, sharp and radiating. Then it takes over, and you can’t move or so much as breathe without thinking about it. And then you get medication, because without it, then what?

So let’s say in this case the medication is the funeral. It should offer closure, maybe the only closure you’ll get.

Sure, it will never take away the pain of them being gone, but the initial shock, the pain, the redness of the infection, in time, it fades. It may not feel like it, but it is.

I know from experience the pain doesn’t last forever. It can’t.

Jacey knows too.

In the week since he died, every night I’ve had the same dream. It’s one where I wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and crying. It’s the one where Evan is in flames, and I’m walking away from him. It’s an image I can’t shake.

At the church, faces and voices all contain the same stoic tone, one that conveys their grief, but I don’t want to hear what everyone says, and I know damn well Jacey doesn’t either. Everyone offers condolences and shit that doesn’t matter. I don’t want to hear “We’re sorry for your loss,” or “Everything happens for a reason.”

Fuck that shit. Fuck you for saying it. Everythingdoesn’thappen for a reason. Everything is fucked up.

Inside the church, my mind goes blank.

As a firefighter, you never want to attend another firefighter’s funeral.

It makes the possibility of it happening to you and your family real. You see it. You see the family suffering and know that it could have been you. Death is suddenly right there in your face, taunting you, reminding you just how precariously you’re balancing on the edge of disaster.

The heartache in the church is suffocating, filled with an agony so excruciating that it can’t be relieved by anything I’m about to say. The pain is unyielding, a merciless torture that won’t let up, because with every breath, I know he’s no longer taking one, but as I look at his picture of him in his Class A uniform next to his casket, I’m proud to have been his brother. Regardless of the differences we had, I’m a better person for having known him.

Soon Evan will be laid to rest. Buried. And soon people will forget him. But not us. Not me, not Jacey, not my parents or any of the guys at Station 25.

THE PROCESSION IS silent. Nobody says a word during the journey from the church to the cemetery.

I’ve never experienced silence like that. Not since they pulled his body from the fire.

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