I don’t even know how long I ride for. I just keep going, and before I realize it, I’m pulling into the Flintlock Cemetery where Cooper is buried. Parking my bike just inside the entrance, I climb off and make my way through the green lawns and rows and rows of tombstones until I find my brother’s grave. It’s nestled in the shade of an Eastern Redbud and surrounded by the trinkets and personal items people have left him over the years.
Like his college football helmet and the glass beads from a trip to Mardis Gras he took with Bronte just a few months before his death.
Walking toward it, the all-too-familiar sense of loss washes through me. No matter how long I live, I’m never going to get used to walking toward my brother’s grave. It will never get any easier or make any sense even if I live to be a hundred.
On his tombstone, there is a picture of him. In it, he is smiling, and I can see a lot of me in him—the same eyes, the same dimples, the same jawline. It’s so fucking hard to believe he was here one day and simply gone the next.
The ache grows stronger and burrows into my chest.
Christ, I miss him.
Kneeling, I place a palm on his stone and close my eyes. Some days, it feels like he’s here with me, and there’s a warm comfort in that feeling. But other days, he feels gone and dead, and so far away it’s almost too much to bear. Today, however, I feel him near, and my heart feels calm.
“I suppose you know what’s been going on. S’pose you’ve seen what a fucking mess your big brother has gotten himself into. Fuck, Coop…” I rake my hand through my hair, “… I wish you were fucking here to talk to, brother.”
His picture smiles back at me from his gravestone.
What would he think about his brother falling for his best friend?
Because that is the truth of it.
I’m head over fucking heels for Bronte.
Bat shit crazy in love.
I’m not afraid to admit it now because there is no place for lies. Here my heart can be open. It can be vulnerable and honest with no fear. I don’t consciously choose for it to be, however, sitting here, it happens naturally.
I close my eyes and think about my last conversation with Cooper and about his hesitation to talk about his sexuality.
How I wish he knew my feelings and that it’s okay to be who you are.
To love who you want.
Then, the realization hits me.
He would be okay with this, just as I was okay with whoever he chose.
The knowledge wraps itself around my heart.
It’s okay, something whispers in the warm summer breeze.
When I open my eyes, a glint of something blue and shiny catches my eye. It’s one of Bronte’s bracelets sitting amongst the stones at the foot of the gravestone, in between the multi-colored pinwheel Rosanna put there years earlier and a big stone someone has painted with his name.
I reach for it and turn it over in my fingers—it’s definitely Bronte’s. She’d been wearing it only a few days earlier. I remember because it reminded me of the bracelet she’d made Cooper the year she went off to college.
She’s been here, and I don’t know why but the thought makes me smile. It makes me feel incredibly close to her. Being with Bronte makes me feel the things I thought were dead inside me. Like hope and happiness. Love. She makes me realize those things aren’t dead for me. They have simply been dormant, sleeping in the shadow of my dark heart and waiting to be nurtured back to life.
A cool summer breeze blows up from the river and kisses my cheek.
It’s like a whisper in my ear.
A gentle acknowledgment in my heart.
Rising to my feet, I put the bracelet back where I found it and press my fingers to his gravestone.
Dammit! I hurt Bronte by leaving this morning, motivated by my own selfish need to get out and clear my head. Now, I must get back there and let her know I’m all in. That I’m playing for keeps. She is my destiny. Since the moment we met, our fates aligned, and she became a part of me. Now she’s under my skin and ingrained in my soul, her name etched permanently in my heart, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.
She needs to know I want everything with her.
I will have some making up to do, so when I get back to the clubhouse, I’m going to kiss the pain from her lips until she forgives me.
I leave Cooper behind and climb on my bike.
I’m riding back to the clubhouse to claim my future.
Only, when I get back, she’s gone.