procrastination place

The coroner had estimated that Brian had died sometime around 11:30 that Friday night. He had been dead for nearly ten hours before Leslie had found him, stiff and cold, dangling from the rafters, a makeshift noose made out of an electrical cord tight around his neck.

That was six days ago.

No.

Five days, sixteen hours, seventeen minutes and 48 seconds.

She was still pretty numb about the whole thing. Then again, nothing could really prepare you for finding your older brother dead. The paramedics had checked her out when they arrived to set Brian free from his noose and take him to the morgue; they took her blood pressure, put a stethoscope to her chest, shone a light in her eyes, asked her what day it was and her name. They calmly explained to her that she was in shock, then a paramedic who reminded her of her older sister, Morgan, took her to the living room and guided her to the couch, advised her to lie down and put a pillow underneath her legs. She stayed there with her, making small talk while Leslie heard her mother’s screams from the garage, and the faint voices of police officers, asking her father questions that Leslie thought would never relate to Brian:

“How long has he been depressed?”

“Did he say that he had a plan?”

“Has he flat out said that he wanted to hurt himself?”

Hurt himself? No. Hurt other people? Maybe. It really depended on the person.

Back when they were younger, Brian was the kid that future Brian would have loved to pick on. He was the fat middle child while his older sister was an actual pageant princess and his younger sister was a point spot flyer for their state’s most prestigious competitive cheerleading team. He was boxed in and overshadowed by his sister’s accomplishments and his parents’ divided attention. On Fridays, their father went to Leslie’s cheer competitions and their mother accompanied Morgan to the multi-day pageants. They would all return Sunday afternoon with trophies, tiaras, medals, and flowers, usually with the expectation that they were heading to higher and higher things.

The summer that Brian went to fat camp, Leslie’s team, Cheer Extreme Great White Sharks, placed first in their division at Worlds, and Morgan won Miss Virginia Teen USA.

Was Brian depressed? Leslie honestly couldn’t tell. The only thing she could point at was that when Brian was fat, he often parked himself in front of the television with an armsload of food, not moving for hours.

Kind of what Leslie was doing right then and there.

She had made herself comfortable in a hoard of blankets that would make any dragon proud, armored in four-day-old sweats, decked out in a messy bun that hadn’t seen anything but dry shampoo in days, staring at reruns of Family Feud, all while nursing a cold plate of chicken enchiladas that her cheer friend, Tazzy, and her two dads brought over yesterday. She wasn’t hungry, she had only cut out a slice of the dish an hour ago when Morgan begged her to eat something. It had been nearly 20 hours since she ate something, she needed to keep up her strength for the funeral tomorrow.

“You need to take care of yourself, babe,” Morgan had said when she put the enchiladas in the microwave for her. “Keeping yourself away from food isn’t the best thing for your body right now. I’m sure your coaches feel the same way.”

Oh, right. Her coaches. They had stopped by the other day with white chrysanthemums and a card signed by the entire team for Leslie. They uttered the usual platitudes, how sorry they were, how was she holding up, if there was anything they could do let them know, but they needed to know when she’ll be back. The Sharks had a huge competition coming up soon and they really needed her back at the gym.

Leslie missed the gym where she had been training at for the past ten years. Five times a week, since she was four, she was in her own world. Surrounded by her teammates, they tumbled, danced, stunted, jumped, and cheered. Practicing over and over until they could easily perform award winning routines in unison. Leslie found a second home in The Shark Tank over the years, a place where she found refuge from the drama in her family, where she was surrounded by the girls she grew up with, girls she considered to be her sisters, and her coaches: Anthony, Dallas, and Regan, who she looked up to as mentors.

But since Brian died, it seemed that cheer and all desires to return to The Shark Tank had been put on the backburner. She hadn’t brought herself to go through her at-home conditioning drills. She hadn’t even bothered to stretch, something that was vital to any cheerleader, especially to a point spot flyer. She was the focus of the entire routine whenever she and the other flyers went in the air, she had fought tooth and nail for that position, dealt with numerous concussions, conditioned her body and pushed herself beyond her limits to be the ideal flyer. She was the best flyer on the team, the entire team depended on her.

But now, all kind of spirit she could muster up for her team was reflected in her Great White Sharks hoodie, the one that had WORLD CHAMPION pressed on the back in obnoxious, blocky letters.

She wasn’t supposed to be going through this. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. Leslie was supposed to breeze through her freshman year at Central High, making her place in student council and yearbook committee. She was supposed to travel with her team to Disney World in June, where they had the opportunity for a threepeat as World Champions. She was supposed to keep up with her photography, having her pictures place in local shows like they had been for the past year and half. She was supposed to look up to Alana Beck as a guide, like she had been since her freshman year started. But the moment Brain let out his last breath, all of that went away. She wasn’t a two-time World Champion anymore, she wasn’t one half of the freshman representatives on the Homecoming court, she wasn’t a member of student council or the yearbook committee or even a photographer, she was just Brain Harris’ sister. She had been his sister at the beginning of the year, but she had worked hard to differentiate herself from him for the past two months, not wanting to leech of his popularity by blood association and the fact he drove them both to school every day.

But Brian killed himself in their garage, next to where they kept their bicycles and his snowboard. He waited until his family was asleep, disabled the alarm, then tiptoed downstairs into the garage, with no intention of coming back out alive. And Leslie wasn’t Leslie anymore. She was just his sister who was listed in the obituary as one of his surviving family members. Nothing she did mattered anymore.

She felt a warm hand on her shoulder. Leslie looked up to find an identical pair of hazel eyes looking down back at her. Morgan must’ve finally taken a shower, Leslie noticed, her hair was damp and skin was flushed rosy red. Her older sister looked down at the plate on Leslie’s lap, frowning slightly.

“Did you eat any of that?”

“Yeah,” she lied. “I’m not that hungry right now.”

Morgan didn’t fight it. She circled the couch and sat down next to Leslie, then began to softly play with her hair. Leslie instinctually leaned next to her, resting her head on Morgan’s shoulder.

“When was the last time you took a shower?”

“I don’t know.”

“Les.”

“Five days ago?”

Morgan just let out a sigh. Leslie closed her eyes. Let Morgan pet her head in a soothing motion.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“Not really.”

That was a lie, Leslie had her outfit picked and had laid on her desk two days ago. Black scalloped dress with a black cardigan, black pumps and sheer tights, even black pearls to go in her ears. The pearls had been from her grandmother, a gift to celebrate her starting high school. Leslie had never predicted that she would have to use them so soon.

Physically, she was ready. Emotionally? Not a chance in hell. She wasn’t ready to face all of Brian’s teammates and friends, her dad’s clients and colleagues, her mom’s book club friends and old sorority sisters from college. She wasn’t ready to see some of her teammates who had texted her a few days ago that they would be at the funeral to support her. She just wanted to stay in bed, isolate herself until everything was normal again, press some sort of button that would skip the entire grieving process, exterminate every emotion she was feeling that arose when she saw her brother’s body hanging from the garage ceiling last Saturday morning.

She wanted to disappear.

“...gonna be there.”

Leslie must’ve tuned out again, only coming back to hear the tail end of Morgan’s announcement.

“Who’s gonna be there?”

“Mr. Murphy. He’s coming to the funeral tomorrow.”

That made sense, he and her dad worked at the same law firm downtown together. They had known each other from their days rushing Pi Kappa Delta. It was natural that Mr. Murphy would be there to support his friend during this time. She had once heard that Mr. Murphy and her father had to wrestle in mud pit during their time pledging, only Brian had told her later they had to do it naked.

“That’s nice of him. Are any other Murphy’s gonna be there?”

“I’m not sure about Mrs. Murphy, but I’m pretty sure Zoe might be there.”

Leslie nodded. She liked Zoe. They used to dress up together and play make-believe when they were younger, and Leslie taught Zoe how to do a backflip on their trampoline. They spent a lot of time together in the summer, when Leslie didn’t have cheer and Zoe didn’t had guitar lessons, usually swimming in Leslie’s pool or riding their bikes down to the park to play on the swings. She hadn’t seen Zoe since last winter break, when they went to Colorado for the annual “Harris-Murphy Skiing Trip / Disaster”. Morgan chose to stay back in Chicago with her boyfriend for the holidays, and Brian had decided to torment Zoe, snapping her bra and mimed jerking off whenever she passed by. But Leslie and Zoe made the best out of that week, making friendship bracelets out of colored string and making snowmen outside of the timeshare.

“That’s good. I like Zoe.”

Neither of the Harris sisters had to bring up the fact that Connor Murphy wouldn’t be attending the funeral. Even if he wasn’t in rehab, he wouldn’t want to show up within three miles of the service.

During that same ski trip, he wasn’t any nicer to Connor either. She vaguely remembered him trying to shove Connor off the ski lift when they were high off the ground, but Connor had gotten revenge by dunking Brian’s head in the toilet. Leslie remembered silently cheering for Connor during that trip, Brain wasn’t any nicer to Leslie as well. He had stolen her Nintendo 3DS and wiped her save file of Ocarina of Time, “just because”. So when she saw Brian’s hair soaking wet, running off to tattle, she couldn’t help but snicker.

Was she a bad person for still thinking that was funny?

She didn’t bother to answer that question, instead choosing to lean in closer to her sister. She then heard something buzz. Morgan fished her phone out of her pocket, swiping it open.

“It’s Eli. He’s gonna swing by in an hour and pick me up to get dinner. You wanna come with us?”

She just shrugged. She liked Morgan’s boyfriend enough, but she didn't think she could handle a sympathy dinner at the moment.

“Not really.”

“Are you sure? He invited you.”

“I’m not that hungry.”

Morgan just let out another sigh, typed out some words to Eli, then sent the text.

“Okay, I won’t push you. But can you promise me you’ll try and eat something tonight?”

“I’ll try.”

“And will you take a shower?”

“Yes, mom.”

“Thank you.” She kissed Leslie’s forehead, gave her a last squeeze, then got up, ready to head upstairs.

“Oh, hey, I found a cute picture of you and Brian on my phone. I sent it to you a while ago, I thought you’d like to see it.”

“Okay, I’ll look at it.”

She waited until the thump-thump-thump of Morgan’s footsteps trailed off upstairs before fishing for her phone. She thought it was somewhere in her blanket pile, but she eventually found it between some couch cushions. She turned it on, and sure enough, between thousands of notifications from Instagram, GroupMe, and Snapchat, she found a text from Morgan, sent about an hour ago. She tapped on it, revealing a picture of her and Brian last June at Orlando. It was just after Leslie had gotten off the mat from Finals at Worlds, and she was somehow sitting on Brian’s shoulders. She think Morgan might’ve forced Brian to let her up there, but she could barely remember anything just after the performance from all the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She remembered hitting a solid routine, no one had fallen or slipped, and just an hour later she heard her team’s name was being called as two-time champions.

She was in her uniform, decked out in a full face of makeup with blue and silver eyeshadow, her team’s colors, what seemed like five sets of false eyelashes, hair teased to the Heavens in a high pony, and the biggest smile on her face she had ever seen. She could see that she had picked out gray rubber bands on her braces, a choice that she had made at the orthodontist’s just weeks before. But what really stood out to her is that Brian was wearing a Great White Sharks T-shirt. She recognized that shirt, it was the shirt that the team gave to parents and siblings when the girls made the team every year. She knew that on the back it said LESLIE “BIRDIE” HARRIS. Brian was giving a smirk to the camera, flexing both of his arms while Leslie had her arms in a high V. It was a picture that her team’s Instagram would have loved to have posted a few days ago when they announced their support for Leslie, instead of Brian’s Sophomore yearbook picture.

But Leslie continued to stare at the picture. She didn’t know what to think. It all looked so… fake. Sure, Leslie looked like a model for a Great White Sharks’ Barbie doll, but the fact that Brian and Leslie could be civil for a moment to take a cute picture together was strange. Brian didn’t take cute pictures with Leslie. He stole her epsom salts way beyond when football season was over and would hog the upstairs bathroom to soak when Leslie was sore after three hours of conditioning at the gym. He didn’t show up to support her at her competitions. He didn’t even seem to care that Leslie was already being scouted by colleges as a freshman. He didn’t even seem to care about Leslie.

So why was Leslie sobbing on the couch, ears burning red and ugly tears cascading down her face? Maybe it was because when they were younger, he would hold her hand while they walked anywhere together. Maybe it was because he taught her how to play Legend of Zelda and would read the guide out loud to her because she couldn’t read yet. Maybe it was because he took care of her when she lost her very first cheerleading competition and held her while she cried. Maybe it was because she was grieving for the Brian she knew, and mourning for the relationship that they could have had.

But Brian had killed himself.

Leslie managed to calm herself down enough to reply to Morgan with a heart emoji, save the picture on her phone, and set it as her new phone background.

She was mourning her brother, but not for the brother she had lost five days, seventeen hours, fifty-seven minutes and 21 seconds ago. The one she lost what felt like forever ago.