Shotgun nirvana

“Somethin’ wrong?” 

“No...nothing.” 

How could she say what it was that was wrong? Everything was wrong. Everything and nothing at once. He reminded her of Kyle. 

And just as that thought came, she was sitting up, throwing her t-shirt back on and reaching for her underwear.

“Hey.” 

She glanced back at him. An explanation. An excuse was needed. “I gotta go. I promised Donal I’d, uh, be there for something.”

“Bullshit.” 

He saw through her. Others didn’t, but he could. Somehow. 

“Listen, I’m not good with this...” she gesticulated with her hands once she was dressed again.

“This, what?” 

“Just...nothing.” 

He looked a little upset, but mostly just confused. Ethan sat up and wiped at a brow. “A’rite.” 

A part of Billie felt bad, but a bigger part couldn’t stand to be here, to be force-choked by memories again and again that resurfaced anytime she returned home. Home. This wasn’t home. Nowhere was home. 

“I just...” She avoided his gaze when she spoke again. “Every time I’m back here, I think about Kyle again.” 

“Jesus,” Ethan cursed. “This again?” 

“What?” Billie crossed her arms. Now she was on the defensive. What was he trying to say?

“When are ya gonna let go of that, Bills?  If you don’t do somethin’ about it and reckon with your past, you’re gonna think of him every time you come back.” 

“Why do you think I avoid coming back?!” 

“You can’t run from this. You can’t run from him. You gotta...you gotta find a way to make peace with that shit.” He was sitting up now, the thick blanket covering him waist-down.  He pulled his arms around his knees. “You won’t be okay until you do that. My aunt, she offed herself last summer—”

“—Jesus. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay. Is what it is. But you gotta let go of people. You gotta find a way to mourn, to say your goodbyes, and make peace. It’s been, what, ten years?"

“Eleven.”

“Exactly. It’s time to let go, Billie.”

She nodded, feeling guilty, like someone convicted. She had nothing more to say. She just wanted to go now. An awkward, silent but mental see you around was shot his way and she was on her heels, scrambling to climb down and out of the barn to get away from this scene as fast she could. 

******

On Sunday, she talked Maeve into going with her. It was a half hour drive that wasn’t particularly busy or eventful, and a ball of twine tightly wound inside her stomach took up most of her concentration. 

“Want me to wait here in the car?” Maeve offered when they’d parked. 

“No, you can come if you want.” 

It was so hard to read her sister, Maeve always thought. But sometimes, she succeeded. She got out the car to go with Billie. Once they approached his headstone, she fell back. 

“You go ahead,” she said, wanting to give her some privacy.

Billie approached, and with each step, the closer she got, the easier she could read his epitaph: 

       Kyle Forrest          1991-2009 Beloved brother and son. 

Fuck. She didn’t think the tears would come this fast, but they came down a-rolling, faster than she could stop them. Her feet took her closer until she was standing there, hovering over it. 

“Guess I never got to say goodbye,” she said, thinking how dumb it was to be talking to a headstone. The peak of dumbness. But somehow, it felt right too. “Not properly. I wasn’t there at your funeral. I mean, I was there, physically, but mentally...I wasn’t there. I was a thousand miles away. Anywhere but here.” A breeze played up in the cemetery and rustled her hair. 

“Anyway, I wish I could’ve been...I dunno, more present. Said goodbye the right way. Maybe I wouldn’t be here now if I had.” She bit her lip to stop it from trembling, but it was almost impossible. 

Billie sat down on the ground, tucking her knees together. She wanted to be closer to the headstone, so nobody passing by could hear her words. They were meant for him only. 

“I miss you, you fucking fuck. You hear me? You left me, you left Heather, Nate, and we missed you so, so much. We don’t speak anymore, by the way. I miss her too. A lot,” she nodded, and she couldn’t stop herself. She was definitely crying now. She didn’t know where Maeve was, but she guessed she’d wandered off a bit, to give her space. Thank god for that. “But I miss you the most. I miss our old stupid pranks on Mrs. Norbury, our night rides, screaming at people from the car. I miss beer lobbing. I miss sleeping over at your place and getting into wrestling matches with you and Chuckie. Remember when we made that nacho tower that was like, ten feet tall? And you burned your pinkie because the cheese was scalding hot?” She laughed at that, despite herself. 

“You were supposed to be here. Maybe I would’ve still been in Shit-son. Maybe we’d both have been in L.A. Who knows. All I know is we would’ve still been together.” She thought of Heather, who was in L.A. too now. Who made props for movies and by all appearances,  at least on Instagram, was happy with her life. Maybe she and Kyle would have been married by now, if he had still been around. They had seemed headed for it, anyway. She would’ve made her props, Kyle would’ve pitched scripts, and Billie could’ve acted in them. They’d have made a weird little Arizona collective in Hollywood and things would’ve been grand. She sniffled loud and wiped at her nose with her hoodie.

"I hooked up with Ethan. I know, I know, judge me all you like. I remember just how much you hated him. Actually, I think it was ‘cuz you guys were so alike. He’s actually not that bad. He’s working for my uncle now...it’s chill.” She worried and chewed the skin off her lips, grappling physically and mentally with the facts of the truth. “I think I did it ‘cause he reminded me of you. God, it’s so dumb, I’m talking to a headstone,” she said, pulling back and realizing what the fuck it was she was doing. “I’m talking to a goddamn headstone.” It was ridiculous, but it also made sense, somehow. Luckily, no one was around to witness this episode of psychosis, but it felt weird to do so anyway, even without the witnesses. She wiped at both her eyes with the sleeve of her hoodie.

“You know what? I’ll come back...it’s cheaper than a therapist.” She smiled at her own dumb joke. If Kyle were there, he would’ve laughed. Probably. Maybe.  She didn’t know anymore.

That would be absurd. But thoughts of him permeated her thoughts of Heather, and they mingled together with all the flashbacks of how much fun they used to have, how they swore to be inseparable, how they’d all move to L.A. together and run the film industry together. Billie fancied herself a mighty exec in power, one who would veto multi-million projects with the raise  of her eyebrow (who was she kidding though; she’d soon as hang herself than become The Man). But something different, working at a non-profit or making guerrilla documentaries highlighting important issues, that would’ve been fun. “Those people...won’t know what hit em’,” Kyle would conclude, after a long speech in his stained Che Guevara tshirt, bogarting a blunt that the rest of them were grasping for. “Not a fucking clue.”

He backflipped off of Jason Weiner’s roof, to Heather’s screaming protests and Nate’s uncontrollable laughter. There were bets being taken if he would miss the trampoline below altogether and die, but he landed right smack in the middle of it. That crazy fucking bastard. Two seconds, just two seconds it would’ve taken him to make his mind up, to not have gotten in that fucking car when he was smashed, just two seconds not to actually end up smashed. He could’ve called anyone. Could’ve called Billie. The night he was dying, she had stupidly stayed up studying for a fucking chemistry test, and was flat passed out in the middle of her books. 18 missed calls from Heather. She should’ve been at the party. Maybe then, maybe then—

Stop. It wasn’t your fault.

Heather’s life now was so easy, so breezy, a fun job, a chill boyfriend, a nice house, good friends. Shit, she’d even gone to Cannes and Sundance last year (and Coachella, but she didn’t care for that one, Billie told herself). Nothing more anyone could ask for. Not a single problem. 

But nobody puts their problems on social media.