He pulled on a t-shirt as he descended the stairs, wearing pajama pants and a pair of dirty socks. Outside, despite it being 3:14AM, the air was brilliant white and he pressed his face against the window to see little snow flakes falling down from the sky like they were in a snow globe. He stopped in the living room to grab Brian's journal, shoved his feet into his sneakers, and grabbed his jacket from a pile of stuff he and Amanda had taken out of their bags but never put away.
Nick walked down the path to the ocean, buttoning up his jacket, and staring at the moon. When he got to the beach, he stopped walking a moment to stare at the contrast of summer sand and winter weather as the flakes of snow danced along the tan sand dunes. He smiled to himself, and lowered down to sit on the very end of the wooden boardwalk that led from the cabin to the beach. Brian's journal rested on his lap and he shoved his fists deep into his pockets, rocking himself slightly by folding forward, and wiggling his toes in his sneakers and socks and watching his breath come out in thick white puffs of smoke, which hovered before vaporizing and fading away.
After a few moments of just enjoying the cold, Nick took his hands out of his pockets and opened Brian's journal back up. He opened to the page he and Amanda had stopped on, but somehow felt like that wasn't what he was after. Holding the place with the leather strap that held the book closed, he opened the front cover at page one and started flickering through the pages.
He caught glimpses of Brian's private life as he flicked, not fully reading anything, but his eyes lighting on keywords and phrases. There was a lot about Leighanne and Baylee in there, obviously, but there was also Bible verses and song lyrics that Brian had never shared with them. Nick paused on a page that he'd written a poem on.
The poem had no title and no date. Nick glanced at the entry prior to the poem, and saw it was dated two weeks before he'd been diagnosed, and the entry after it was the day before he'd been diagnosed. Somewhere in between, Brian had written this poem:
I keep the world.
I could give so much and yet
I hold too tight.
I am self-centered.
I focus only on me.
I could save the world and yet
I am scared to move.
I know nothing.
I have stood for no truth.
I preach and plead, and yet
I demonstrate nothing.
I am fake.
I promise prayer.
I wait for God to move hearts that
I could touch instead.
I am doing it now.
I am being selfish right now.
I complain about my self-centeredness and yet
I have started each sentence with "I".
"You weren't selfish Brian," Nick mumbled, running his fingers across the words on the page. He gnawed his lips, staring down at the last couple words of the poem. He shook his head. Brian didn't seriously believe he was selfish, did he? Nick wondered, almost angry with him for thinking such a thing.
If he was still alive, Nick would've called him and yelled at him.
"You aren't selfish, you dumbass," Nick would've shouted. "Don't you remember the night we gave out all those sandwiches and blankets? Don't you remember the time you paid rent for six months for that random woman on the street? Don't you remember buying prescriptions for old people all day at a pharmacy after you saw an old woman cry that she couldn't get her medicine? Don't you remember all the times you rescued me from my home when I lived with my parents? All the times you fed me and gave me a bed? Don't you remember the fan that you paid for their daughter's heart operation because they had no insurance? Don't you remember all the charity work you've done? All the prayers you've answered? All the times you stood up for someone or hugged someone or just stopped, when you had no energy left, to sign autographs for fans because ten minutes out of your life would be one of their greatest memories?"
Nick sighed and looked up at the stars as they sparkled overhead. "Brian, you were anything but selfish," he muttered again into the darkness. He leaned down and picked at the toe of his shoe. "The most frustrating part, Bri," he said to the emptiness around him, "Is that I can't even tell you that you're stupid for thinking you're selfish. I can't even assure you that you aren't." A piece of the rubber came off the shoe and he dropped it into the sand and swished the sand around under his fingertips.
Snow was collecting around him. It was getting colder. He stood up and tucked the journal under his arm and stared out at the water.
The sun was starting to rise, forming a golden glow on the horizon, as though he were staring at the gates of Heaven.
The craziest idea overcame him, pouring from a memory... Quickly, Nick unbuttoned and shimmied out of his jacket, wrapping Brian's journal inside to protect it from the snow, and kicked off his sneakers and socks, leaving them discarded by the boardwalk.
Nick ran, barefoot, in pajama pants and an unmatching top, to the very edge of the water, and stared out across the dark blue ocean, squinting into the horizon. He laughed, remembering the first time Brian had seen the ocean.
"I lived in Kentucky," he said, "My whole life I've lived in Kentucky. I've never been to the ocean."
"So what? Don't they got oceans in Kentucky?" Geography had never been Nick's strong point.
Brian shook his head, "No, actually, they don't."
Nick had blinked in shock and horror. "What kind of place is that?!" he yelled, "C'mon dude, you gotta see the ocean! Let's go!"
So they'd gone to the beach. Brian and Nick had run across the sand to the ocean, and stood with the tide licking their toes and stared out across it. Brian's face had been paled with awe and shock and surprise. "It's big," he whispered.
"I think it goes on forever," said Nick, who'd never been across it at that point.
"It certainly looks it," said Brian.
"Like in the Chronicles of Narnia," Nick said, "In the end of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when the mouse goes to die."
Brian nodded, he remembered the scene well. Reepicheep had been one of his favorite characters of the series, and he'd cried as a child reading about Reepicheep's voyage to Aslan's shores... He squinted. "Reepicheep sailed to Heaven," he said, "Not just to die, but to Heaven."
Nick looked at Brian. "Really?" he asked.
Brian nodded, "In Narnia... Heaven is only across the ocean."
Nick stared out at the water, imagining he could almost see it from there. Though he knew the glow he was staring at was only from the slow ascent of the sun, far in the distance, he felt a warmth come over him that made him smile through the tears on his face.
