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Alfred lay wiped out on his bed, staring hopelessly up at the ceiling. Ugly sobs echoed through the empty house, glass bottles clicking noisily on the other side of his wall. Ever since then, Arthur had locked himself up in his study and hadn’t come out.
It takes two weeks for them to forget. Fourteen days for life to move on, as if he hadn’t existed in the first place. Three-hundred and thirty-six hours since they had cried and wept over the turned patch of dirt, since people he hadn’t seen in years coming up to offer their condolences. Twenty-thousand one-hundred and sixty minutes of agonizing slowness.
One million, two hundred and nine thousand six-hundred seconds, each moment a needle in his heart, before someone uttered their first who?
It was only two weeks.
Alfred had broken their nose. How dare they? he seethed, red hot rage-filling him as he loomed above the writhing boy on the ground. How could they forget him so quickly?
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair they could flip a chapter in their lives and move onto the next when Alfred was stuck in a dead limbo. He couldn’t move forward, he couldn’t move back, frozen with a lump in his throat. Life passed in a blur as he watched the memories slip by. He barely registered the disappointment in the face of the principal or the subsequent suspension. Arthur still hadn’t come out.
Sometimes when Alfred curled up in the darkness, staring at the bed across from him, he wished he could be as apathetic as that boy he had beaten into the pavement. To have that blissful ignorance, as if his world hadn’t shattered into a million glittering pieces with that gunshot. To have normalcy, stability. To have the past back and not look toward the dreaded future. But even as he felt the numbness spread over his heart, he clung the pain. He was scared. So scared.
Because.
Because-what if he forgot too?
Because more than his aching heart, he feared moving on more than anything else. Acting like everything was the same, like he was fine, like he didn’t feel as if his heart wasn’t trying to kill him from the inside. Living a good life, getting over his grief, forgetting the wrenching past entirely. Pretending like he was whole and the same cheerful boy he’d always been.
Like Matthew hadn’t mattered.
Mentally, he knew he was being ridiculous. Punching a kid just for not knowing his brother’s name, risking his college acceptance so close to summer. But a larger part of him didn’t care. Graduating, partying and sleeping with cute girls, joining NASA, being part of the latest scientific achievements, raising a happy family-his dreams he spent days planning, so ready to jump at the first opportunity to make his life-it all seemed so pointless now. Who would be there, after a night of drinking, to make sure he got home safe and sound? Who would he celebrate with, chatter on laughing and teasing together? Who would he share his secrets with, the darkest corners of his soul? Who would be there for him now?
“Fuck Mattie, why’d you have to go?” he croaked out, rubbing furiously under his glasses.
Matthew. His baby brother, always ready with an aspirin after a hard night of drinking, always so considerate and kind. Always right there when he needed someone, worrying, whispering assurances lost between their beds. So stupidly self-sacrificing, ready to give an arm or a leg to spare others from pain. Alfred knew, if he had been here now, he’d do anything to soothe Alfred’s heartache, all he had to do was ask.
And what had Alfred done to repay him? Nothing. He hadn’t noticed the slowly accumulating bruises, the sweet, false smiles and lies. Nor Matthew slowly shrinking away into the background, becoming quieter and quieter until no one could hear him anymore. No one heard his cries for help, his quiet suffering, the moment when he just couldn’t take it anymore.
”Why didn’t you tell me? Why couldn’t I have been your hero?”
Alfred’s hands shook. It had been his gun. For self-protection, hidden under a floorboard next to his bed. No one, not a single soul, had seen him place it there. Only Matthew. Alfred had made him promise not to tell anyone else, not even Arthur because he had thought Matthew could be trusted. And he could. Matthew would never point a gun, never think to harm another person. Except himself.
Alfred buried a sob in his pillows. Why? Why had Matthew used his gun? He had to know what it would do to him, how hearing he had providing the means for his death would break him. Had it been a message? Reminding Alfred it had all been his fault? That if he had looked a bit closer, said a little less, been different, Matthew could’ve survived? Lived? Smiled so softly and laughed that tinkling joy and been so full of life. He could’ve been here, and everything would be perfect.
But he wasn’t. And Alfred knew, deep in his soul, that he was to blame. That, more than anything else, ripped him apart.
Alfred stood up and stumbled into the hallway, banging his arms on the walls and knocking over furniture. Maybe one of Arthur’s precious vases laid among the wreckage, maybe not. Right now, he really couldn’t care less.
Had Matthew even considered how this would make him feel? How his death would ripple, waves crashing into his life? Or had the beatings and the scars and isolation been just too painful? More than his aching heart, squeezed dry of all the emotions Alfred could muster?
Could Alfred had stopped it? Could a softened word, a tight hug, anything Alfred did made things better? His mind raced as he stumbled into the kitchen, memories of their last year together flashing through his mind. Back then he looked towards the future, eyes wide with all the possibilities. Knowing what he did now, he couldn’t call himself anything but ignorant. Stupid for ignoring all the signs, the quiet confessions he had so easily brushed off. He wished more than anything to go back, wrapping Matthew in his arms and not letting go until he knew just how much Alfred loved him. Would that have mattered? Alfred didn’t know and didn’t want to know, because if he had the chance to save Mattie and he didn’t... the thought was just too horrible to bear.
Luckily he wouldn’t have to soon. He clumsily fumbled with the lock, opening the cabinet to find a safe. Numbers came unbidden to his mind, whispered there by Mattie when they were young and carefree, when this was all just a silly game. Alfred would give anything to go back to that time. Even his life.
The metal door swung open, revealing within it’s depths a gleaming silver barrel.
“See you soon Mattie.”
Arthur was awoken from his drunken slumber by a gunshot.