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Ryland can taste salt on his lips.
A soft breeze wafts off the shifting ocean waves, brushing over his face and ruffling the hair on his forehead. The sand cradles him as he sits, tickling his hands as he buries his fingers deeper and deeper into the powdery grains. It's warmer the further he presses his fingers in to hide away from the midnight chill. He could explain the science behind that, he could try and calculate how long it'll take until the cold of the night saps away the remaining bits of heat, but he doesn't want to think about that right now. Just for a second.
Right now, he wants to sit here and watch the midnight tide breathe with him. Inhale in, inky blue waves suck back in toward an endless dark horizon. Exhale out, fresh sea foam comes crawling back up the sand, inching up to barely kiss the tip of his converse and dampen his loose laces.
He loves the satisfying sound of the sea foam fizzling out at the tail end of every exhale, rushing over the dense wet sand like a caress before dragging right back in.
It's dark out tonight. The waxing gibbous that took to the sky tonight has been curtained by thick, dense clouds. The silver on the horizon has been erased away, leaving the sky and the deep black of the ocean to converge into one, impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins; two ends of unknowns, tied together.
Inhale, exhale, a gentle crashing of waves and an inevitable fizzing out.
Inhale, exhale, a gentle crashing of waves, and quiet footsteps shuffling closer in the sand.
The old, baggy college hoodie he has flipped up over his head obstructs his peripheral, but Ryland doesn't turn from where he stares at the void of the horizon. He doesn’t need to see the visitor to know exactly who they are. He’d know those footsteps anywhere, knows them as well as his own heartbeat.
The footsteps stop behind him and a beer can floats down into his vision, cutting into his staring match with the invisible horizon. The can is wet with condensation and the tab is already cracked for him. Cold water drips over his finger tips and his palm as he accepts the can, taking a sip. He can still taste the salt on his lips as he swallows down the crisp beer.
Sand quietly shifts and resettles as his beer-fairy gets comfortable beside him, taking a noise slurp from his own beer can. The ocean breathes in, then out.
It's been a while since they've been out here together. He's missed it, but it wasn't until he noticed the gentle brushing of a jacket sleeve against his own that he realizes just how desperately.
He has this feeling, though, one that he knows he'll never quite shake. There's someone missing here. His right side is too cold.
“What’s going on in that brain of yours, genius?” Colt’s voice just barely brushes over the crashing of the waves.
Ryland sucks in a breath, feeling his ribcage expand to make room for his lungs as they fill with salty air. “Just thinkin’,” he exhales.
“Yeah?” Colt squeezes his beer can lightly, making a little metallic thunk sound. “About anything in particular?”
That’s the thing about coming here, about sitting here just out of reach of the waves. It’s perfect for thinking about everything, or nothing at all. Here he was hoping that it would be the latter, but his brain seemed to have other plans tonight.
Ryland passes his beer can from one hand to the other, wiping his wet, empty palm over his knee. His eyes drop from the void-like horizon to watch the white foam of the ocean rush toward his feet then race away. “‘M thinking about that story Mom loved to tell us.”
Even with the gentle crashing of the waves, Ryland can hear the soft huff the escapes Colt’s nose. “The one about Court?”
Ryland’s chest reacts to the name before his brain can, constricting inward and closing up tight like a flower to protect itself from the grief that comes rushing back. The defenses never work, and his heart absolutely aches. Within a single syllable he's reminded of the empty space beside him. He's reminded of how much he misses saying it, how much he misses hearing it, how much he misses hearing a voice call back in response.
He's not sure when it won't feel like that to hear his brother's name. Probably never.
“Yeah,” Ryland takes another sip of his beer, hoping to wash away the thickness in his voice just like the waves clear the sand before him. A disturbance righted once again.
“Tell it to me again?” Colt asks quietly. “Tell me a story?”
Ryland turns his head to look at Colt, finding him just as he pictured. His blond hair messy from the salty midnight breeze, his elbows resting on propped up jean-covered knees with both hands clutching his beer can. His Miami Vice stunt jacket is, as always, wrapped around his arms. He’s already looking at Ryland, his eyes tired but soft as he patiently waits.
Tell me a story? Colt would ask when they were younger, curled up in a pile in their shared room and safely tucked away behind their bedroom door— however temporary that may have been. Ryland would be reading, usually, about everything and anything he could get his hands on. Colt would, without fail, immediately grow tired of the silence, needing something to focus on lest he get stir crazy.
Ryland would usually just retell the story of the book he was reading, maybe changing a few things here and there so that Colt would only know his version instead of the original author’s. You tell the best stories, Ry. He’d say, Tell me another? And Ryland would. Then their Dad would come home and they’d have to be quiet again.
Tell me a story? Colt would ask when Ryland would finally find the time in his busy PhD candidate schedule and Colt with his filming schedule to spend a night together and catch up. Mostly it would be Ryland ranting about his research and his professors and the long road he still faced before getting his doctorate, complaining just to complain. Colt knew that he was enjoying every second of becoming an expert in his field, and complaining was just his right as a stressed out student.
Ryland would of course offer Colt a chance to do the same, to talk about the snooty actor he was contracted to work with, to complain about his work just to complain, but Colt would just shake his head with a smile. I like listening to you. He’ say. You live in a world I could never imagine.
Tell me a story? Colt asked once when Ryland came to visit him in the hospital post-fall. Everything felt so unsteady then— the ice was cracking beneath their feet and they both knew they couldn’t do shit to stop it. Ryland was grateful that Colt was still alive and breathing. He was also terrified that at any moment Colt would take a turn for the worst. That his rush of adrenaline, revving of an engine, larger than life twin brother would suddenly never move again.
Colt thought the same, but he didn't say it to Ryland. Colt hadn’t been honest at all, then, about what he was feeling, and he tried to distract Ryland from asking about it. Just tell me a fucking story, Ry. Colt begged, his voice strained from where he was laid back in a hospital bed, Just tell me a story.
It didn’t work.
Inevitably, the ice fell through and they dropped straight into the deep end. Pain and surgery and pain killers and physical therapy and more pain— Colt had every right to be pissed and vicious and sad, even if he never admitted that last part to Ryland. Ryland could see it though. His brother thought he could hide it all in his anger, but that idiot forgot just exactly who he was trying to fool. Every time Colt snapped at him, cursed him out, threw stuff at him, told him to f-off and never come back, he saw it. That sadness was there, and it bit it’s teeth in and tore into Ryland as hard as it could. Space, it demanded, space to wallow and simmer.
Ryland put up with it for as long as he could because he loves his brother. That’s a statement like that feels as obvious as saying that the sky is blue or that grass is green, but there are reasons behind those fact. Scattering light waves and chlorophyll and Ryland was born into this world never knowing life without Colt— and he’d be damned if he just gave up on him.
But that sadness kept biting and tearing and snapping, and at some point Ryland felt like he had no other choice but to listen. Figured he was just doing more harm than good by sticking around and agitating his brother. So he let Colt be. Whatever he needed with all that space and loneliness, he let him have that. Not completely, of course. He sent texts he knew would be ignored, left cooked meals on his porch that may or may not have gotten eaten, the whole nine and a half yards. It was like that for a long time, so long that Ryland was nearly beginning to think that this… torrential storm and forced distance was going to be the rest of their life.
Thankfully, it wasn’t. Now, the tides are calm, pushing and pulling at his feet as they always do, and once again his brother wants him to tell a story.
“Court was in the second grade when Mom was pregnant with us,” Ryland begins softly, turning back to stare at the water. If he looks hard enough into the black velvety waves, he can almost picture her retelling the story for the thousandth time, rocking in her favorite chair in the setting evening sun on their back porch and watching the fireflies shift around the tall grass of their yard. If he listens hard enough to the crashing waves, he can almost hear Court sighing fondly, readying himself to be the subject of attention again, if just for a little while. The memories feel like a hand reaching inside his chest and squeezing it in a death grip.
“He was really excited to have little siblings. So excited, in fact, that he told every teacher and classmate at school about us.” Ryland gives a weak smile, blinking away the image of his older brother running around his second grade class, whispering the good news like he couldn’t physically keep the excitement to himself. “As our due date drew closer and closer, it was all Court could talk about. Then finally our prospective birthday came around and Mom went to the hospital, Court went to school that day telling everyone ‘My baby brothers are coming home today! I get to meet my baby brothers today!’”
Ryland lets out a soft laugh, feeling a strange fondness for his then 6 year old brother that feels a lot like how he feels for his students. Young and eager, excited and ready to take on the world. “Everyone was so happy for him that they made congratulations cards for him, and he came home with his backpack full of them, excited to show them off to us.”
Colt makes another amused huff beside him, fiddling with his beer can again after taking a noisy sip. The huff sounds a bit like a sob, but Ryland doesn’t say anything about that.
“Much to his disappointment that day,” Ryland continues, “We decided to stick around in Mom’s tummy for a bit longer. No matter, though, because every day leading up to our birthday, Court would go to school and say his brothers are coming home that day, and every day he’d come home extremely disappointed by our tardiness.”
Ryland has to pause and watch the waves for a second as his voice starts to break; inhale, exhale, gentle crashing before fizzling out to do it all over again. He forces sips of beer to slide past the knot forming in his throat. He pushes up his glasses and blinks until the inky waves look clear again.
“He waited, and waited some more, until finally March 21st rolled around and, whoop, there we were. We were born.”
“15 minutes and 27 seconds apart, mind you,” Colt cuts in, bumping Ryland’s shoulder with his own and raising his beer can up in a stupid cheers motion.
“Right. How could I ever forget?” Ryland rolls his eyes with a laugh, then he rolls his eyes again when Colt insists they clink beer cans together. He obliges. “Whatever, there we were on March 21st, and Court’s wait was finally over. He brought the cards his classmates made for him—” his voice catches, a sob threatening to escape. He barely manages to continue, “For us— to show us. And according to a few reliable sources—”
A sob finally breaks free from his lips, and it devolves into a quiet whine as hot tears start falling down his cheeks. He feels a warm body scoot closer to him as he cries quietly, then a heavy arm wrap about his shoulders into a hug. The pressure, the scent, the heart beat in his ear, all painfully familiar and so comforting it makes the crying worse.
“Apparently Court burst into tears—” Ryland pushes out through his sobs, shoving his glasses off his face to hang off his ear so he can wipe at the tears, “—at the sight of us. He was so, so happy he cried.”
He wishes so, so badly that he could remember this memory himself. That he didn’t have to imagine it through the eyes of an outsider. Their older brother, wanting them so badly that he waited and waited and waited for them to come home. Their strong Cory, who loved them so much already that he was reduced to tears just at the sight of them.
God, he loved them so much and they didn’t even know it yet.
God, for just one more memory of him.
The tears are uncontrollable and never-ending as they burn wet tracks down his face. With the sleeve of his hoodie, he wipes the snot and tears away as best he can, but it’s pointless. His chest hurts so bad, his heart aches so much that all he can do is press his body into Colt’s and sob and ache and hurt some more.
Ryland can feel Colt’s chest freeze as he holds his breath to keep his own crying quiet. A poor habit from when they were younger that’s trailed along with him into adulthood. It’s nothing but a promise of light headedness and headaches later down the line, and it’s not fair. If Ryland is loudly ugly crying, so will he. He shoves his head a bit too harshly into Colt’s chest, a silent Breathe, idiot.
Colt immediately sucks in a wet, shuttering breath. The arm around his shoulders squeezes Ryland just a bit harder, tugs him just a bit closer, a silent Shut up, idiot.
Inhale, exhale, crashing gently against each other.
The story is over, but the ritual of retelling it isn’t. After the resolution, everyone is supposed to turn to a pink-cheeked Court and tease him for being so soft on his brothers. Court, good natured and quiet as he was, would sit there and accept the teasing with a smile on his face. Then he’d say, dry as chalk:
It was rude of you to keep me waiting like that. Sounds like you two owe me something.
And just like that, he and Colt would tackle Court to the ground in one big dog-piley hug. And just like he was in the story, Court was waiting for them with open arms.
They never get to that part now, they can’t any more. The ritual remains unfinished. Mom’s not here to laugh musically at their antics. Court’s not here to catch them. They’re both gone— one in an urn lost due to a sudden move, and the other forever stuck in the ground of a penitentiary graveyard in Florida. Now, Ryland and Colt can only hug each other, puffy eyed and sniffling and shivering in the cold night, but he wishes badly that this wasn’t the case.
Ryland’s not so sure he's ever wanted something so bad in his life than to do that again. Just one more time. One more time to see him without the barrier of thick, bullet proof plexiglass. One more time to hear his calm, steady heart beat. One more time to feel his arms squeeze him back. One more time to just be Court and Colt and Ryland, three brothers who would do anything for each other.
Ryland knows better than to wish for impossibilities, but he’s always been foolishly optimistic.
Colt gathers himself first, sniffling and bringing his beer can up for a long sip. Then he lets out a tiny, wet chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Ryland wipes his nose again, cringing at his snotty sleeve. Ugh.
“Court brought us those cards as if we’d be able to read them,” Colt rocks Ryland slightly with every huff of laughter, “We’re like hours old and he wanted us to read.”
Before he knows it, a smile starts to bloom on Ryland’s face and he huffs his own giggle at the thought, “He probably cried harder when he found out we could barely see him, never mind the cards”
Colt laughs harder at that, solid and warm and straight from his chest. Ryland can’t help but echo him with a nasally laugh.
“That sap,” Colt whispers on the tail-end of a giggle.
“Yeah,” Ryland agrees, fresh tears welling in his eyes, “He was the sappiest.”
A fun fact suddenly pops into Ryland's mind, and on instinct he must share it, "Tree sap has been used as a natural first aid treatment for thousands of years. It's a natural antiseptic and anti-inflammatory, and it can be used as a glue to hold wounds together as they heal."
"Huh," Colt hums, something Ryland feels more than hears. "So it fixes things. Makes things better. Takes the pain away. Yep. That's our Court all over."
The waves inch up toward their feet again, just a few centimeters from his converse and Colt’s black boots before drawing back in.
Ryland sucks in a shuttering breath, fidgeting with his beer can. “I miss him,” he breathes out. It’s frustrating just how poorly those three words truly reflect the longing he feels. Three simple words aren’t nearly enough. He’s not sure any would be enough.
Colt rocks him slightly as he nods, “Yeah. I do too.”
"Sometimes," Ryland starts suddenly, pausing for a second to gather his thoughts before continuing, "Sometimes my students will remind me of him."
"Yeah?"
Ryland nods as he traces his fingers along the lip of his beer can. "It’ll be so… odd. Like they’d say something in a specific tone of voice, or they’ll raise an eyebrow a certain way and for just— a split second, I see him again.”
Tears run continuously down Ryland’s cheeks, spilling and spilling down to be absorbed into the fabric pinned between his head and Colt’s shoulder.
“I can hear him… talking to me now,” Colt shares softly. “I didn’t before, but now after— after the fall, I hear him reminding me. Be smart, Colt. Be smart and come home safe. Every time without fail. And it’s always in that soft but— unwavering tone that he had. I always wondered how he could always sound so sure of things. Like, what the hell did he know at 15? I didn’t know jack at that age.” Colt trails off into a weak laugh.
They fall into silence, letting the ocean fill the quiet for them.
It’s unfair, Ryland can’t help but think. The three of them were supposed to have the rest of their lives together. They were supposed to grow old and get all crotchety and wrinkly and slow together, but still undeniably brothers. Him and Colt and Court against the world.
In another life time, they have that. In another life, tonight would be them waiting for Court to come join them.
But it’s not, and until then, they’ll just be Ryland and Colt, forever waiting for the day that Court comes home.
Ryland raises his beer can, “To Court.”
Colt lifts his own beer can, dented in on the sides and the tab slightly askew, and taps it against Ryland’s, “To Court.”
Inhale, exhale, a gentle crashing of the waves, and they sip at their beers in unison.