“Start talking.”
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“At the beginning. Tell me everything.”
“Okay, well…it was a strange evening right from the start. Normally he has a beer or two. But when Derek offered him a Stella, he said he’d rather have a Jack and Coke. To be honest, it looks like he’s been hitting the bottle lately. His hair’s always a little disheveled—you know, he has that naturally messy but owns it kinda look, but last night he looked like shit. He had dark circles under his eyes, hadn’t shaved in a while, and it seemed like he’d slept in his clothes. There was some sort of unspoken communication between Derek and Hunter when he said he needed a drink. Derek nodded as if he understood, as if the two of them had done this dance before.”
I’d wanted him to struggle after we parted ways, but hearing it didn’t give me the gratification I’d assumed it would. Instead, it felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
“I didn’t know his brother committed suicide,” I told her. “He said he was sick. But I don’t understand what brought it all to the surface now. He died years ago, right? Was it the anniversary of his death or something?”
“None of it makes sense. Let me keep going and maybe you’ll understand it better.”
“Okay…”
“So he throws back the first drink in, like, three minutes. I watched Derek make it. The thing was basically whiskey in a glass with a splash of Coke. Hunter didn’t even wince swallowing it down. After the second one, he grumbled that he’d gotten a promotion at work.”
“He grumbled about a promotion?”
“Yep. When I congratulated him and said that was great news, he told me life wasn’t about the news—it was about the first person you wanted to tell that news to.”
Ironic. Two days ago Izzy had been named game MVP, and my first instinct was to text Hunter to let him know. It was a small thing, and it took all of two seconds to remember I had no reason to text Hunter anymore, but my gut reaction had hit me funny, and the rest of my evening had been tarnished by that moment. I’d felt sad after that, instead of happy. I hadn’t allowed myself to analyze why it had affected me so much, but Hunter had nailed it—life is about the person you want to call first to tell good news.
I sighed into my cell. “He was sad he couldn’t call his brother?”
“No. He was referring to you, Nat.”
“I’m confused. I thought you said he was sad about his brother.”
“I did. That’s the confusing part. One minute he’d be saying he missed you, and the next he’d be talking about his brother. It was like you two were connected in his mind.”
I’d gotten stuck a few words back. “He said he missed me?”
“He said he didn’t give a shit about the promotion when he didn’t have you to share it with.”
My heart thumped against my ribcage. “I don’t understand. I never understood. If he wants to share things with me, then why say goodbye?”
“I asked him that very question.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said it was for your own good.”
“What does that mean?”
“I couldn’t get him to talk about it more. He just kept refilling his glass and talking about random stuff the rest of the night.”
“Like what?”
“So much of it made no sense. For example, he rattled on about wanting to put birdseed in the birdhouses in the yard, and then he started to talk about random memories of his brother. Apparently Jayce’s birthday is coming up. I honestly had no idea he’d committed suicide. I guess I never pushed Derek to talk about it much because he was close with both Hunter and Jayce. I knew Jayce had died young, and when I asked how he died, Derek had said he had a genetic disorder and was sick for a long time. Last night, after Hunter passed out on our couch, I questioned Derek about why he’d lied.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he hadn’t really lied. That Jayce was sick, and that he chose to remember that as why he died, even if it wasn’t technically the way his life ended.”
Jesus. “So he was sick and took his own life?”
“Yes. And Hunter never fully moved on from it. They were close.”
Anna was quiet for a while, both of us taking in the enormity of her words. “He’d hung himself, Nat. In his bathroom.”
My chest began to shudder with tears. Losing a loved one to illness was tough enough, but adding the tragedy of suicide…the people left behind often felt so much guilt.
“You okay?” Anna asked. I knew from the shake in her voice that she was crying, too.