Brian’s eyes were closed, but he wasn’t asleep, it just hurt to have them open. Most things hurt recently. He wasn’t sure how much longer he had, he just knew it wasn’t much longer. His lips always felt chapped. He licked them, trying to return moisture to them, where the skin had become hard and started flaking painfully. His jaw bone was so sore these days, too, for reasons he couldn’t figure out, that sometimes it hurt to chew food and he had to force it down, his body shaking from the pain.

Dying was certainly not an easy process. The easiest part, for him at least, would be the moment when his heart actually stopped beating and he got to go home to Heaven. As much as he didn’t want to leave behind his family and friends, he really couldn’t wait to go… He needed to rest.

But first, today, he had something important to do.

The knock at the door made him open his eyes, even though the sunlight filtering through the drawn blinds still hurt. “Hallo?” he asked, his voice so weak he almost couldn’t recognize it himself. The sound of it, raspy and low, frightened him.

Amanda looked around the curtain, “Hey,” she said, a tentative smile spreading across her face. She stepped into the room. “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”she asked, pulling up a seat next to Brian’s bed.

Brian smiled, “No, I was just resting my eyes.”

“The light bothering you?” Amanda asked. She knew because of her brother’s experience exactly how sensitive the eyes became to light. She got up and started tightening the shades, blocking out even more light. The only light in the room now was the shuddering blue of the TV in the corner of the ceiling, and the pale green from the heart monitor. “How’s that?”

“Much better,” Brian answered, sinking into the pillow behind him in relief. “Oh my Lord, I can’t believe how many little things are effected by Leukemia,” he muttered. “I never imagined before.”

Amanda smiled sadly, “Neither did I.”

“I’ll tell you what, though,” Brian said, “It gives me a whole other respect for the little kids in the St. Jude’s commercials. I’ve seen two or three of them today,” he added, nodding weakly toward the TV set, “And every time I can’t help but feel a little bit like I’m selfish for being so miserable. They’re so much younger, with so many fewer experiences than I’ve had,” he looked at Amanda, “And they don’t have Nick.”

Amanda’s smile was sad. “You aren’t selfish, Brian,” she said, shaking her head, “God you’re the furthest thing from selfish.”

“I just feel like things could be worse,” Brian said, “And really, death isn’t the end of anything really.” He watched her as she pulled opened her bag and her micro-recorder and legal pad came out. She put the micro-recorder on the nightstand beside her, and situated the yellow pad of paper. “Death is just the beginning.”

Amanda looked up at him, “Where do you get all these beautiful words from? Seriously, there’s got to be a book of ‘Brian-isms’ somewhere, right?” she smiled.

Brian tried to laugh, but it tightened in his chest and became a cough. Amanda stood up, dropping the legal pad on the bed beside him, and quickly patted his back as he leaned forward to cough. Like burping a baby, Brian thought. When the fit of coughing passed, he took a sip of water from the glass she held out, and looked up at her, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” she replied.

“So you have the interview all planned out?” Brian asked, trying to peek at her notes. “Any interesting questions?”

“No worries,” Amanda answered, winking, “You’ll hear them all in due time.” She pulled a pen from her hair, where she’d tucked it for safe-keeping. “Are you ready?” she asked.

Brian smiled, “Oh yes. Of course.”

Amanda clicked the record button on the recorder and smiled at him, lifting her legal pad up to read it. “Brian, over the past few months, you’ve spent time on the road with Nick and I. Do you feel like you’ve accomplished your goal?” she asked.

Brian’s smile was warm, even though it hurt him to do it, and his eyes twinkled beneath their hazy sheen of exhaustion. “Yes,” he said, his honey-coated voice raspy from the illness. “I did.”

“So you found something beautiful?” When he nodded, she asked, “What was your something beautiful, Brian?”

Brian reached behind him to the right-side nightstand. He moved aside the worn Bible and lifted his leather bound journal, pulling it toward him on the bed. Setting it onto his lap, he opened it up about three quarters of the way through and held out a picture to her. He smiled, “This.” Closing the journal as she took the photo, he added, “Tell Nick the page without a picture is the one this belongs on.”

Amanda took the picture as Brian wound the leather strands that kept the journal closed around it and knotted them in his quirky way. Tamper-proofing, he thought to himself with a tiny smile. He and Nick had tamper-proofed everything when they were younger, traveling on the bus with prying eyes (AJ’s). She studied it a moment, considering, then looked up at Brian, confusion in her eyes, “Your something beautiful is the back of Nick’s head?” she asked, holding up the picture.

She remembered taking it. It had been during the drive from Boulder to Omaha, before they had moved into the Hummer. Brian had been stripping the gears of the bus, and Nick had been trying to patiently teach him how to drive it. The boys had spent a good deal of the ride laughing and talking happily with each other. The picture she’d taken had simply been of the back of the boys’ heads as they laughed, the dashboard of the bus beyond, and through the windshield, the long stretch of road going on, seemingly forever, the double solid yellow line stretching away across time.

Brian laughed, but it wasn’t the usual ringing laugh from deep in his stomach that Amanda had become used to since they’d left Los Angeles. Instead, it was a shaking, borderline cough laugh that came from somewhere in his lungs. It was heart breaking, the new laugh, because it wasn’t anything like the old one. “No,” he said, eyes twinkling, making up for some of the laugh’s missing elements. “No. It’s not the picture itself, I could’ve used any picture of us,” he said, “But what it represents.”

Amanda considered what that could be. Finally, “You and Nick,” she said, nodding. She understood completely.

“Yeah, me and Nick,” Brian answered. He paused, “Is that cheesy?”

Amanda shook her head, “Not at all. It’s – well, not romantic, but nice, I guess. It’s truth. It’s raw truth.” She looked at the picture carefully. “It’s beautiful.”

Brian glanced at it again. “I really couldn’t have used any other picture,” he admitted. “This one’s captured so much…” he pointed to the way Nick’s hand was bent in his silhouette, to the way you could tell they were both smiling because of the bumps on their cheeks, the way Nick’s mouth was outlined against the bright windshield as he laughed. It was truly a perfect photograph of a friendship, caught unaware, preserved forever.

“It’s perfect,” Amanda agreed.

Brian smiled. “Everything he did to make this trip happen… everything he ever did before… and everything he’s done since I’ve been sick to keep me comfortable…” Brian looked to his right, “He’s slept in that cot over there for the past week, you know.”

“Where is he now?” Amanda asked, her heart catching in her throat.

“He went to the house to take a shower,” Brian answered, “I didn’t tell him you were coming.” He licked his lips again, desperate for moisture on them. “I didn’t think it was quite the right time yet.”

Amanda nodded. She turned back to looking at the photograph he’d handed her, her heart aching for so many different reasons. “Brian?” she asked.

“Yes?” he said.

She held up the photograph, “Did you tell Nick about your something beautiful?”

Brian shook his head, “No,” he said, “You are.”

“What?” she asked, blinking up at him in surprise, “Me? How? He won’t even speak to me.”

Brian smiled, “In your article. You’ll tell him in your article.”

“You know he’s going to treasure this,” Amanda whispered, “Knowing this answer.”

Brian nodded, smiling to himself. “Yeah. When you tell him, I know exactly how he’ll react. I can see it in my mind, just like I’m there.” His eyes seemed far away as he watched in his mind’s eye. “He’s going to look at it, and you’ll tell him, and he’ll get that smile on his face – you know the one I mean? And he’ll toss his head back and laugh because it was so simple of an answer, so obvious. Then he’ll agree, and he’ll keep it forever.” Brian’s eyes returned to the now and looked at Amanda, meeting hers. “I know it, because that’s just how Nick is.”

Amanda smiled. “Yeah, it is.” She held out the photograph for Brian, “Here.”

“What’re you doing?” Brian asked.

“Giving it back to you?” Amanda felt confused.

Brian shook his head, “No. You’re showing it to him, remember?” Brian smiled, “I have faith in ya’ll. Really. Seriously. Just –“ he looked at the photograph carefully from where it was suspended from her fingers. “Be careful with it. There was only one copy.”

Amanda nodded. “I’ll guard it with my life, Brian,” she promised. She opened her bag and pulled out a book, which she slid the photograph into the center of. She studied Brian for just the slightest of seconds. “He’s never going to forget you, you know,” Amanda said slowly, “And neither am I.”

Brian reached out a hand and laid it gently on her cheek. She was surprised by how cold his skin had become in his hands, how much his wrists shook. She laid her hand over his, part of her instinctively wanting to warm him. “Thank you,” he whispered, “For everything.”

Nick held Amanda’s hand.

The ocean stretched before them into the distance. The wind whipped around them, cold and unforgiving. They’d arrived in Maine that morning at 4:00 AM and the only thing they had done before coming to the ocean was put down the keys in the cabin that stood behind them, in the trees. The water roared and crashed against the rocky jetty in front of them. Nick squeezed her hand tighter, and they just stood, side by side, staring at it.

There were, of course, a million things they could say to each other, but somehow it seemed better quiet, Nick thought. Almost like they were listening for something. Or maybe someone.

Amanda turned to look at him, a sad smile on her face, and tears streaming down her cheeks.

They had left from Atlanta, after the funeral, and driven up the coast as the original plan had detailed. They’d stopped and taken pictures in Raleigh and Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, Niagra Falls, Vermont, New Hampshire, and now northern Maine. So far up that there was a threat of snow forecast for that night, despite the heat they’d left behind in Geogria.

Nick held the camera up and snapped a picture of the ocean – the last piece of the puzzle. “Okay,” he said quietly.

They walked back toward the cabin, Amanda picking her way over the sand in her bare feet, having kicked her shoes off at the end of the boarded walk that led to the cabin they were sharing. Nick noticed her struggling not to step on broken shells or rocks, and quickly scooped her up in his arms, carrying her toward the walkway. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him. The weight of her body felt good, and real, against his chest, and he absorbed the feeling, enjoying it the same way she’d always enjoyed his scent.

“It feels like he’s here, doesn’t it?” Amanda asked, staring at the water over Nick’s shoulder as he carried her, “Like he’s right here.”

Nick nodded slowly, fighting emotion. He’d become a blubbering fool, he thought, ever since the night Brian had died. Before, he had hardly ever cried. He’d been like steel. But that was because he’d had Brian. Brian had always been Nick’s backbone.

They reached the cabin, Nick only just managing to contain the feelings inside of him, and went inside. It was getting dark already, as autumn was in full effect and the days were shorter. Amanda turned on the lights and Nick went out to get their things out of the car. He made two trips into the cabin, one with the luggage and duffle bags they’d packed and one with the box of pictures, notes, and miscellaneous stuff. It was a box full of memories, a box that Nick had gotten to referring to as “the box of Brian” in a reverent tone.

They made coffee and sandwiches and sat down on the floor in the living room of the cabin. Nick put the box down next to the squat coffee table they were sitting at. He pulled the box closer to his side than hers and gazed into it, already feeling the depths of him beginning to stir. It all sat there before him, like a giant blur of the past. In a funny way, he felt like he could identify with the phrase ‘my life flashed before my eyes’.

“You’re sure you’re ready?” Amanda asked cautiously.

Nick nodded. “If not now, then never. It’s the last night before we have to go back to ‘real life’ and figure out what that even is now…” he licked his lips and took a deep breath. “Besides, its just time.”

Amanda reached over and patted his hand gently, reassuringly. If it was this hard on her, she could only imagine how terrifyingly awful it must’ve been on Nick. She watched, both afraid and proud, as he reached a shaking hand into the box and pulled out the old worn journal.

Brian’s journal was dark brown leather, with intricate stitch detail around the edge that didn’t compromise its simple look. Leather strands bound it closed from the spine, wrapping twice around it before being tied off in a knot. The pages, even from the outside, looked worn – they’d been made that way to start, and they’d been well used as well. Ink splotches darkened their edges in various places, and a fair amount of water damage had pulled part of the top corner of the leather away from the lining. Nick ran his hands over the cover of it, admiring its battered state.

”Brian wanted you to have these,” Leighanne had said, handing both the journal and his Bible into Nick’s hands. She smiled sadly, her fingers running across the burgundy cover of the Bible. “Just promise me you’ll never get rid of it, okay?”

“I won’t,” Nick promised.

Leighanne had nodded and gone to find Baylee, whose little black suit was going to get ruined if she didn’t change him – as was her make-up, if she didn’t distract herself from the pained look of sadness that rested in Nick’s eyes. She was sure it had reflected in her own.

“He used it well,” Amanda observed, watching Nick’s hand move over the smooth leather.

“Yeah, he did,” Nick agreed, smiling. He could picture Brian sitting on a rock in the bottom of the Grand Canyon with a pen, his Bible precariously balanced on one knee and the journal on the other.

Carefully, he laid the journal down on the coffee table between them and his fingers clasped the end of the leather string that held the book closed. It hadn’t been untied since Brian had last closed it, Nick realized, looking at the way it had been knotted. It was definitely the work of his best friend’s hands and no one else’s. The realization made him hesitate, like by undoing it he’d be trespassing into something sacred.

Brian, however, had told Nick what this journal was.

Nick pulled the string ever so softly, and felt the knot break. Inside him, he felt his heart begin to race. Everything that was left for Brian to say to him was right here in his hands. Once it was done, he would never hear from Brian again.

The thought that Brian’s voice was silenced killed him. It was the strangest feeling, really, because there was no silencing Brian, no erasing him from the face of the earth. Too many videos and recordings existed. Half their memories were on tape somewhere. Nick could literally see Brian anytime he wanted with just a few clicks of his computer mouse. Usually, when someone died, they were gone forever and the moments that are on camera are few and precious.

To Nick, it was those that had never been caught on film that were precious. The ones that couldn’t be conveyed by pixels on a screen, no matter how “high resolution” they were.

Brian’s words had always meant the most to him. Whether written or spoken, they were always sincere and strangely other. They could’ve belonged to no one else except Brian because only Brian spoke the way he did. It was hard for Nick to explain to anyone what he meant when he said that nobody could talk to him like Brian did. It wasn’t about the accent – although he missed that, too – or the skill of the actual exchange, as Kevin had thought when Nick had tried to explain it. It was his actual speaking style. It was the words he said – his vocabulary itself at times– and the words he left out.

And these, Nick thought, looking at his hands clutching the journal, are the last of them.

He looked up at Amanda, who smiled a tiny little smile.

And then Nick opened the journal to the first page. Brian’s tight, cramped, all-capitals hand writing filled the page, and Nick smiled at it.

Nick could’ve started right from page one and read straight through. Eventually, he knew, he would. But tonight – for this purpose, Brian had left a specific entry. Nick dug through the pages until he found the one without any pictures or notes tucked in, just as Brian had described it…