I closed my eyes as I was about to jump, about to end it all.
“Aubry, what are you doing?”
My whole body tensed up as I heard the voice.
I had been so close.
“Aubry.”
It wasn’t the deep, smooth voice that my dreams mocked me with.
No, it wasn’t Aiden.
I thought about ignoring the person, and just jumping. However, instead, I turned around, very slowly.
“Brandon,” I said slowly. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing, Aubry?” he demanded again.
“N-Nothing,” I answered too quickly, making him know for sure that I was up to something. “W-What are you doing? Shouldn’t you hate me and not talk to me or something?”
“I don’t hate you,” he stated simply as he took a cautious step closer to me. “I want to understand, Aubry. You told Aiden when we found out about everything that you could explain, so explain it to me. Please? I want to understand everything. I want to help you!”
It was too late for that, though. No one could help me. I was a lost cause, and the world would have been better off without me. I just needed to be gone.
“B, just go. I’m fine,” I dismissed as I turned back to my drop.
“No! You don’t look fine,” he said defensively. “Frankly, you look like you’re about to commit suicide,” he said bluntly.
“W-What?” I was caught off guard.
“You told Aiden that you could explain. Please, Aub, explain it to me. You need someone to help you, so let me help you.”
I shook my head as tears dripped down my cheeks. “Like Aiden said before, it doesn’t matter why I did what I did. It only matters that I did it. It just matters how selfish I was. Explaining it won’t take away any of the pain that I caused.”
“Aubry.” He breathed out shakily. “Aiden is an idiot. He’s extremely hurt right now, and people say dumb shit when they’re hurt. You can’t take the things that he said seriously. He said those things out of anger and hurt. Aub, you are the least selfish person that I know. If you resorted to something as horrible as selling drugs, then I know that what caused you to do it must have been absolutely horrendous.” He sighed when I looked away from him trying to calm my tears.
“Aubry, just let me help you!”
He sounded so sincere in his words, but he couldn’t help me. I was too far gone for help. I was beyond help. He shouldn’t have even wanted to help me. Not after everything that I’d done.
I turned to him slowly. “Why? I mean, you have literally no reason to even want to help me. Literally everyone you love hates me. Briana, Aiden, Dana, Tommy, Cece, even Robert. I hurt everyone.” More tears streamed as I thought about my used-to-be family.
“Why? Why would you want to help me? Why would you jeopardize all of those relationships with the people you love for someone who basically killed a man that you saw as a father figure? Why would you help me?” I shook my head violently. “I won’t let you do that! I’m not worth you fighting with Bri, or Aiden, or anyone else. They need you more. They deserve you more.” I sobbed.
“I’m like a nuclear bomb, I destroy everything and everyone in my path. You deserve better than me.”
I just wanted to jump. I should have just jumped.
“First of all,” he began as he closed the distance between us and grabbed my hand to hold me in my place. “No one hates you. Cece still doesn’t understand why you left. She asks for you every single day. Dana just wants you to come home, she misses you. Bri is trying to get over her anger and hurt. She is so worried about you. Aiden is so confused, and he’s acting like a lunatic, but he’s still so in love with you. Tom is just trying to help and support Aiden. However, he asks me about you all the time. He wants to see you.” He took a long pause and a deep breath.
“And Robert, Pawpaw asked me to look out for you and to make sure that you’re okay. He told me that you’d need someone to remind you that you are a fighter. So here I am, Aub! You are a fighter! So, please . . . fight! Fight for yourself, Aubry. Fight for you . . . You are a fighter.” He took a breath and stared at me.
I was speechless.
“As for Aiden and Bri getting mad at me? Honestly, screw them. I don’t care. They are the ones in the wrong. They’ll realize it soon enough, and then they’ll thank me for looking out for you.”
I shook my head at him. That wasn’t what I wanted for him or them. They deserved B in their lives.
“Look, you hurt them. However, it’s not unfixable. Pretty much everyone has already forgiven you. Even Aiden and Bri, they just don’t realize it yet because they’re hurt and betrayed.”
I looked at him, unconvinced.
“Seriously! I mean, Aiden is still completely obsessed with you. You’re all he ever thinks about.” He paused again and shook his head. “Aubry, Jeremy dying was the worst part of both of their lives. They both branded that event as the start of everything bad. They both needed someone to blame, so they blamed the drugs and the dealer when they should have mostly blamed their dad. Neither of them ever grieved properly, so their hurt is fresh, but Aub, they don’t hate you. No one hates you. They still love you.”
I scoffed as I tried to turn back to the edge, but he jerked me back even more.
“And you forgot an important person on that list of people that I love . . . you. I love you, Aubry. Yeah, maybe it’s just a friendly kind of love, but it’s love, nonetheless. If you kill yourself, you’ll break me. You’ll break all of us. I love you, Aub. We all do! Please, just fight through all of this BS that you’ve been put in. Let me help you through it. You don’t have to be alone anymore. Just let me help you.”
Tears were streaming down my face, and I couldn’t stop them. “I’m tired of fighting, B. I’m tired. That’s what my whole life has been—a fight, a struggle. I should have never even been born. I shouldn’t be here alive. I hurt everyone that I come into contact with. I implode everything I am a part of. I don’t want to do that anymore. I am beyond help, B. Just let me go.”
“A-Aubry, no!” he said loudly and gripped me even tighter when I pulled away. “I-If you won’t listen to me for yourself or for me, then listen to me for Aiden’s sake. I wasn’t lying before; he really is obsessed with you. He still loves you!” He shook me slightly. “If you kill yourself, I’m afraid of what he might do. I’m afraid that if you die, he might off himself too!”
That thought stopped me in terror.
“Aubry, you don’t deserve this. You deserve love. Let me love you. Let me help you! Let me fight for you. You have been fighting all alone for far too long. Let me fight with you. Don’t shut me out while holding it all in. Let me help!”
I sighed as I felt myself giving in. I wasn’t strong enough to fight him. He said that he’d help me, and that was what I needed . . . help.
“Let me share some of your burdens before they crush you completely. Let someone into your dark world. Let me help you. Let me be that shoulder to cry on and ear to talk to. I won’t judge you, Aub. I’ll only love you,” he pleaded as I let him slowly pull me away from the ledge.
As I stared at Brandon, I could see all of my potential. I could see everything that I could be if I simply just stayed. I saw it all if I lived to fight another day and let him help me.
I needed help. I needed someone to help me out of the darkness that was my mind. I needed someone to show me how to help myself. I needed someone to help me live.
“Aubry, it’s okay to not be okay sometimes. It’s okay to need help.”
I could feel tears cascading down my cheeks, and the breath getting knocked out of me.
I wasn’t okay. I really wasn’t, and I needed help. I had to let him help me.
“Okay, please help me. I’m not okay. I’m not okay,” I whispered brokenly.
He brought me into a tight hug and breathed out a sigh of relief.
“I will, Aub. I promise that I will help you.”
Chapter Forty-N
ine
Brother
Aubry
I sat in the front seat of Brandon’s car as I stared at my reflection in the car’s vanity mirror. I sat there silently, studying myself as I waited for Brandon to exit the salon. He was still talking to his mother in there, surely about me.
Linda, Brandon’s mom, was a very sweet lady. She reminded me a lot of Dana. She had been the one to fix my messed-up hair for me, free of charge. She was extremely sweet to me, and didn’t say a single word about how horribly I had cut my own hair. She simply just fixed it with an understanding smile towards me.
My hair was fixed, it was cut into a “long bob” as she called it. I liked it, I looked almost like a new person, but I wasn’t. I was still plagued by the pain in my chest and darkness in my head. I couldn’t imagine that I’d ever be okay again.
I abruptly shut the mirror and shook my head at the thoughts. I shouldn’t have listened to Brandon. I should have just jumped, then I would be dead, and not haunted by the dark events of my life. The darkness of me.
I was about to get out of the car and run away. I wanted to run back to the cliff and actually jump off. Before I could, Brandon came strolling out of the salon with a lazy smile on his face. I wished that I could be as carefree as him. I wished that I could be happy.
I wanted to be happy again. I was so happy when I was with Aiden. He took the darkness out of my life and showed me light. I needed light. I wanted him.
Brandon opened the car door and looked at me as he got inside the vehicle. I stared back at him as my tears were about to spill over onto my cheeks. I had my hand on the doorknob and was hunched over with my backpack in my hand. I sighed as I painfully sat back straight into the seat, wiping at my tears.
“You were gonna run,” Brandon said with a sad look on his face. “Aubry, I’m trying to help you. Don’t run from this anymore. You can’t outrun it. It’s going to catch up to you and swallow you whole, like it almost did today.” He sighed as he looked terrified.
“If I hadn’t found you at just the right time, you’d be dead. Aub, that scares the hell out of me. You can’t die, y-you just can’t!” His eyes were tear-lined.
I suddenly felt really guilty. He kept telling me how upset everyone would be if I killed myself, but I didn’t really believe him. As I sat there and saw him about to cry because of me, I felt extremely guilt-ridden. I was going to hurt him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered slowly. “I just . . . I’m just—” I didn’t really have an explanation.
“I know, I just wish you’d understand and believe me. You deserve the whole world!” he said with conviction as he grabbed my hand in his.
I cleared my throat and looked around awkwardly. Just then, something crossed my mind.
“Why were you up there anyways? Did Aiden show you that place as well? Was it just a coincidence?”
He looked at me for a couple of moments and sighed. “I was in the square today . . . I was going to surprise Bri with Rizzo’s pizza. But then . . . I saw you walking. You looked, you looked broken. You looked like you gave up on everything, and you were walking with a purpose. Well, that kind of unnerved me, so I followed you.”
“What? But why? I mean, I was just walking.”
“You cut your hair,” he said softly as he touched my, fixed, short hair. “ . . . and it was obviously an at-home job.”
“Okay? So what?” I asked with even more confusion.
He sighed and lifted my hand that was in his. He quickly rolled my sleeve up. “And you started cutting,” he said shortly.
I immediately yanked my hand away from him.
He sighed. “I saw them during your past fights, your sleeves ride up when you fight, though if I hadn’t of been paying such close attention to you, I would have overlooked it. I was just so worried.”
He looked at me sadly as more tears formed in his eyes. “And then when I saw you walking today, I don’t know. You just had this way about you. It was almost like a calmness. It was like you didn’t care about anything all of the sudden. That scared me.”
A few tears leaked out of his eyes. “I knew something was up, so I followed you. I mean, you were exhibiting three of the top suicide risk behaviors. I was worried, and followed you,” he concluded.
“So, you had a feeling that I was going to kill myself and then followed me.” I scoffed at myself. “Am I that predictable?” I asked incredulously.
“No! I’m just observant and well-versed on the subject.”
“You’re well versed on . . . suicide?” I asked while looking at him with my head tilting to the side.
He nodded and looked away sadly. “I . . . I learned a lot about it when I was afraid that Briana was going to kill herself after her attack,” he answered solemnly.
I was shocked as he spoke. I mean, he had a good reason to be worried about her. It made sense.
He sighed and looked back up at me. “She was different after that. I mean, obviously for obvious reasons, but she was just so different. It was scary.” He shook his head shortly. “I was afraid that she was going to try it eventually with how depressed she was, so I read up on the warning signs. That way, if I saw them, I’d try to stop her.” He paused and sighed again.
“She was good at hiding it, though. She was acting better and less depressed. I thought that she was getting better. How wrong I was, though. If you hadn’t of come along and lit a fire under everyone’s asses, I’m not really sure if Bri would still even be here. You saved her, and by saving her, you saved me. I couldn’t lose her.” His voice cracked as he thought of Bri dying.
“After we all had our family meeting thing when Aiden’s finally realized that he was a needed part of the family, and we all had to help each other. I straight up asked Bri if she was going to kill herself, and she told me, “I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to live”. Those words still haunt me to this day.” He sobbed as he thought about that time. “I just . . . I love Briana. I always have. She has been it for me since I was barely a teenager.”
I was surprised at his words.
“So, I couldn’t let her go on like that. I had to help her. I couldn’t let her keep feeling like that. However, I quickly realized that she needed someone more than just me to hold onto. I love her, but she would never be able to see herself how I, as a lover saw her. She needed someone to love her as . . . as simply just her.”
He sighed. “When someone is close to you as a romantic partner, things get jaded because you love them so much. They are a part of you in inexplicable ways, so it’s easy to get lost in that love . . .” He sighed and looked away. “When Aiden finally began loving her again, it grounded her. It brought her back down to earth and made her remember that people are there. It made her realize that I was there . . .”
“So, that’s how you two fell in love?” I asked slowly. “You helped her recover after she came back down to earth? You showed her how much love can overcome the darkness in her head?”
He smiled a beautiful smile. “I’ve loved her for so long. She was always the brightest part of my day. At first, I fought it. I was too young to be tied down by such strong feelings, I thought.” He laughed bitterly as his words. “And then, I watched Ronnie, and she get close when she was still vulnerable from Jeremy’s death.”
I winced at those words as I tried not to cry. Brandon’s hand just tightened on mine as he soothed me.
“I watched him woo her, and I watched her start to like him. After he did what he did, I knew that I couldn’t act on anything. She no longer trusted guys, and Aiden was going through a meltdown. It wasn’t the right time, I wondered if it was ever going to be the right time, however, when she told me that she didn’t want to live anymore, I wanted to show her how many reasons there were to keep going on, so yeah, that’s how we bonded. I wanted to show her the world, even if it was all just here.”
His smile widened. “We really did bond. She started opening up to me and trusting me. Then, on Christmas, she tried to kiss
me when she was drunk. I wanted to kiss her so badly, but not like that. She was drunk, and I had waited so long for her to be ready that I couldn’t take advantage of her, so, I waited for her, then on New Year’s, everything just fell into place. I love her so much. I always have.”
We stayed silent for a while. I was happy for them, but I couldn’t help the hole in my chest that hearing about them caused me.
I missed Aiden.
Suddenly, Brandon started driving.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but if I take you somewhere high up with a long drop, you won’t try to jump, will you?” he asked cautiously.
I giggled at the messed-up question. My life was so screwed up.
“No, I wouldn’t jump with you there with me . . . I wouldn’t scar you in that way.”
Brandon let out a sigh of relief and continued to drive without answering my question.
***
No words were spoken between us as I stared at the sunset. The lights were beginning to flicker on in the buildings around us and watched all the lights twinkle in contrast of the pink and purple sky. It was a very beautiful moment while standing at the edge of the very tall building.
“I used to work here at this hotel when I was fifteen as a summer job. I discovered the roof one evening, and it has got to be one of my favorite things about this whole town,” Brandon said softly
“Wow,” I said lightly as the last bit of sun was disappearing and the lit-up buildings got even brighter. I took a step closer to the edge just to really breathe it all in. Brandon followed behind me closely, probably still afraid that I was going to jump.
“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” he asked.
I nodded silently.
“We’re so high up that everything else seems so small and trivial. It’s an amazing feeling.”
I agreed with his words.
“Aub, remember that feeling. Everything big can be made small again. Everything that seems bad can be made good. Everything small can end up being the biggest things in your life. You have control of your life, not anyone else. You control you,” he said softly.
Fighting For Life Page 59
