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…
