Even though it hurt, I pressed play on the TV.
I watched ten minutes of smiles and laughter.
Ten minutes that I still remember as if it was yesterday.
A snowball fight.
My mom won. Then again, she always cheated and had premade snowballs when she challenged us to a fight so she would have enough ammo to destroy both me and my brother with a few good aims.
“Not this time!” I roared on the video, running straight for her.
A battle cry followed.
Along with four snowballs all at my face. Mom was scrappy like that.
I went down hard. Bridge charged after me.
And tripped over his feet, causing our mom to laugh so hard that tears streamed down her cheeks.
It was bittersweet.
Then again, mourning always was. You remember the good, and oddly enough, the bad seems to exist in a gray area where your brain refuses to visit—but even though you remember all the good times, you realize that your memory is a fucking imposter.
I was once told that when the brain conjures up memories, physically and mentally it’s like reliving what happened.
I call bullshit.
Because I would do anything to conjure up this memory and feel the snow on my face while hearing my mom’s laughter echo through the trees.
No, memories weren’t reliable. I stood by my beliefs.
“Hey,” a groggy voice sounded, causing me to nearly fall off my own bed.
Keaton had the blanket wrapped around her. She was standing in my doorway with sleepy eyes and a small smile.
I couldn’t press pause fast enough.
She turned, just as the screen froze on my mom’s smile.
Keaton gasped. “She’s beautiful.”
I wanted to kiss her for leaving out the past tense.
“Yeah,” I agreed, taking in my mom’s jet-black hair and blue eyes. “Absolutely stunning.”
“Your apartment is too quiet.” Keaton made her way around the bed and sat on the opposite side like I’d invited her into my room. I was too surprised to respond as she made herself comfortable. “You left crackers and water. I woke up feeling like the biggest jerk on the planet.”
Not what I expected. “What? Why?”
“You were talking about being selfish, and here I am, crashing at your apartment, asking you to help me write a book about my dead boyfriend. And here you are, in your room, still alone.”
It stung.
I looked away as my stomach dropped and a heaviness settled on my chest.
And then her hand was on my arm. “What I meant to say, and didn’t get across because I’m still tired, is that you’re more selfless than you realize. You don’t have to help me. You could tell me to go screw myself, you haven’t known me long.”
I let out a sigh. “Maybe I have bad intentions. Maybe I just want to fuck you again.”
“Don’t!” she snapped. “Don’t revert to the asshole in order to protect yourself. That’s not you anymore—you know it, I know it.”
Damn it, she was right.
I still couldn’t meet her eyes. “I really like you, but it’s not just that.”
“What is it, then?” The room was too silent, the confession in my head too loud.
“I lived my entire life trying to make my dad proud and finally realized that I would never be enough for him. My mom, however, was proud when I colored inside the lines, she was proud when I lost a tooth, proud when I didn’t spill my juice, proud when I came home and announced I had made the basketball team. She probably said she was proud of me a dozen times a day, hundreds of times a week.” I licked my dry lips. “Why the hell did I spend my life wanting to hear that one word from my dad when I was always enough for my mom? I ask myself this all the time. Why was I so blind? It’s like being told every day that you’re enough but not believing it because it’s from the wrong source, but she wasn’t wrong . . . and now she’s gone.”
Keaton sank onto the bed beside me and slid her hand to my shoulder. “Her absence from this earth doesn’t make her any less proud, Julian.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I should have tried harder, in the end, to make things right with my brother, been more charitable, to do—”
“Stop.” Keaton’s voice was soft, and she gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. “You can’t live your life that way, even if you fixed all of those things, even if you were the perfect son and you did everything right up until the time she died—you’d still doubt yourself because that’s what grief does to you. It tells you that if you just knew all the little reasons, if you just did this one thing, it wouldn’t hurt so bad. But that’s a lie, death hurts. The only thing that’s true about death is that it hurts those it leaves behind. Hurt is hurt, Julian. Let yourself feel it.”