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.”
Story Notes:
This is a companion to another story, Something Beautiful. Please make sure you read that story first or this one will make no sense! Thanks!
