The Beauty That Remains

by Ashley Woodfolk

  “Your mother tells me that you’re here to talk about someone you lost pretty suddenly around Christmas. And I wanted to start by saying I’m incredibly sorry for your loss. Would you like to tell me about him?”

  I hate every second of this, but her casual mention of my mom isn’t lost on me. I wonder if she meant it as the thinly veiled threat it came across as. I look right at her.

  “What else did my mom tell you?” I ask, frowning.

  “Just that you seem to be having some trouble dealing with what’s happened.” She smiles. “I’m only here to help, Logan.”

  I let my eyes roam around her office. Then I stand up, walk to the window, and squint at the tiny people eighteen floors and a fancy-ass lobby away from me. I watch a plane disappear into the clouds while I fiddle with the thin strings of my hoodie. I flip up the hood and then yank the strings tight. When I turn back around, the fabric is over my eyes, but I can feel that the shrink is still watching me.

  She probably thinks she’s hot shit with her swanky Manhattan office. I loosen and lower my hood. I run my finger along the windowsill, and I make a big fuss about the city grime and dust that’s there, but you’d never notice it if you were sitting on the leather sofa.

  She writes something down. I stick my hand into my pocket and tap the surface of my useless phone. I sigh, feeling stuck.

  “Well,” I start. “He was my ex. The guy who died.”

  “I see. How long had you two dated?”

  “Nine months,” I say, walking back over to the couch. I pluck a tissue from the tissue box. I rip it up into tiny pieces in my lap. “We got together first semester junior year, and we broke up this past summer.”

  “And why did you break up?” she asks.

  I gnaw on my thumbnail while I try to decide how much to tell her. I’ve never said any of this stuff out loud, and I hate that I have to say it for the first time to a stranger. But I can feel the weight of my phone. It slides around in my pocket as I shift in my seat. I don’t have much of a choice, so I keep talking.

  “He was interested in someone else. A girl. We hadn’t spoken since the day he told me about her.” I hear the poison in my voice when I say the word “girl.” I don’t try to hide the disgust on my face, either.

  “Were you upset that he was interested in someone else or that the someone else was a girl?”

  “I mean, it would have sucked regardless, obviously. I fucking loved him.”

  Gertrude nods. “Of course.”

  “But yeah, I guess it added insult to injury that it was some basic bitch cheerleader and not another guy. How could I even compete with a girl?”

  “You can’t,” she says, shrugging.

  “Exactly,” I say. “If it had been another guy, I could have convinced him I was the better choice. But if he wanted a girl, he couldn’t also want me.”

  Gertrude doesn’t ask “How do you know what he wanted?” But something about her face makes me feel like that’s what she’s thinking. She makes a few notes in her notebook, and I notice that her short hair has a curl to it. I wonder if it would look like Bram’s if she grew it out.

  “Do you want to talk about how he died?”

  I told him I hoped he’d die alone, and then he did, I think.

  But “Suicide” is what I say out loud. “Which makes zero sense. He loved his life. I don’t get how he could just off himself like that. The Bram I knew never would have.”

  I didn’t mean to say his name, but now that it was out, that urge I always feel to say it again and again tricks my brain into talking about him more.

  “Bram was so happy,” I say. “His favorite quote was that cheesy one from Slaughterhouse-Five, you know the one I mean?”

  “ ‘Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt’?” Gertrude asks.

  I point at her. “Yes. He said that all the time. He was a hopeless romantic if I ever saw one. He was one of the happiest people I knew.”

  My eyes get a little blurry.

  Gertrude straightens her glasses but doesn’t say anything for a while, like she knows (or hopes) I’m working something out in my head. But I can tell she’s dying to know what I’m thinking. I look up at the wall, and I can’t stop staring at my own pale reflection in the gilded mirror she has hanging up right behind her head. There are shadows under my eyes, and even my freckles look a little faded. I pull the hood back on, but it doesn’t really help.

  Sometimes when I look into a mirror for too long, I start to look like someone else.

  She keeps watching me, so I stare back and say, “Isn’t it weird that eventually, someone will say your name for the very last time, and then it will never be said again?”

  This occurred to me when I was high last week, and it’s only made my obsession with Bram’s name worse.

  Gertrude kind of frowns, but she looks interested. “What do you mean?” she asks.

  “Think about it,” I say, leaning forward. “It might not be for twenty or thirty or fifty years, but eventually, your mom will say it for the last time, or your friends, or me.” I look at her, and she’s still watching me, wondering what I’ll say next.

  When I had this weird epiphany, it freaked me out pretty badly; that someone’s name could just disappear like that. So every day since, I’ve whispered or shouted or said “Bram” out loud whenever I’m alone, thinking about him. I’m sure Trudy would have a field day with that if she knew about it.

  “Yes,” she says. “I guess that’s true. Are you worried about that happening to Bram?” she asks.

  Duh, I think.

  I sit back and shrug. I know he’s gone, but I won’t let his name disappear. I don’t say that to Gertrude, though.

  “Have you found anything that helps?”

  Before the chain of thoughts that fills my head—drinkingsmokinghookingup—even split into individual ideas, she puts up a hand and says, “And I don’t mean any of the self-destructive behaviors that landed you in this office.”

  I think about it. I let my mind drift back over the last month. I’ve felt like shit so often since he died that the few moments I’ve felt okay that aren’t drinkingsmokinghookingup bubble to the surface almost immediately.

  Aden helps a little, even when we’re not kissing, because he’s so annoying about the band stuff. He keeps me focused, I guess. And then, for some weird reason, the phone call with Ms. Lassiter pops into my head. Even though it was hard, it was kind of a relief talking to someone who knew and loved Bram—someone I didn’t have to hide my real feelings from.

  “I talked to Bram’s mom,” I tell Gertrude. “She’s the only person who I’ve told how I really feel about everything. She told me some stuff about him, too. How he’d changed.”

  Gertrude says, “Did that help?”

  When I nod, Gertrude takes her glasses off and chews on the earpiece.

  “Maybe talking to other people who were close to Bram near the end of his life will help give you perspective on where he was emotionally when he died. Maybe if you understand how he was feeling, you can feel better. Talking to Ms. Lassiter seems to have given you the beginning of what might lead to closure, a place where you feel safe enough to share. Grief is tricky, and it’s something that will never go away. But I think getting what you’re feeling out in the open is part of the first step toward finding peace.”

  I nod again, like I agree, but she doesn’t know that I practically wished this on him. She doesn’t know how much I hate myself because of what I said, and that no degree of talking can fix me when I don’t trust my own voice. She didn’t hear Ms. Lassiter say He’s been different since this summer. I don’t know if I deserve closure; I definitely don’t deserve to forget or move on. But I like the idea of talking to people who were close to him. Maybe they can help me figure out what happened—how he went from the Bram I knew to a stranger who wante
d to die. And if I can figure that out, maybe for the first time in months, I can write a song that isn’t about him.

  * * *

  —

  As soon as I get home, I log on to my mom’s computer. She locked mine in a drawer but left hers out in the open, like I don’t know her super-obvious password (it’s my birthday) and like incognito windows don’t exist.

  Like I do every day, I lie to myself. I sit down and swear that I won’t look at Bram’s profile, pictures, or videos. I read some news. I try working on the song, but everything I come up with is crap. I check out a word generator to try to think of a name for the new band. I even do some homework. But I know I’m fighting a losing battle.

  I haven’t watched Bram’s sex tape since people started giving him so much crap about it online, but now that I’ve been given a directive to talk to people close to Bram, I feel a little more justified being as obsessed with him as I am. I decide to skip his profile, pictures, and the videos on his channel. I go looking for the sex tape instead.

  The day it first showed up I watched it over and over, trying to figure out who the other dude in the video was. I didn’t watch it right after Bram died because the cops were still investigating everything, and after they questioned me, I was paranoid as fuck. Now that they know what really happened, and I know I’m not on some kind of watch list or anything, I can watch it again. If I can figure out who the guy in the video is, maybe I can talk to him about Bram.

  The sex tape was originally on Bram’s channel, and he deleted it as soon as he realized it was there. But by then, thanks to his mild Internet celebrity, dozens of people had already downloaded it, taken screenshots, uploaded it elsewhere, and shared it all over the place. I heard more than one person say that I’d released it because I was bitter and wanted to ruin Bram and Yara’s relationship. That rumor died pretty fast because, even though it’s dark in the video, it’s obvious that the other guy isn’t a ginger. Lots of people said it could have been recorded before Yara even came to our school. I just hope it was recorded after he’d already dumped me. But who knows.

  It’s been yanked from every respectable site, but nothing ever really dies on the Internet. I know a few shady sites that have probably reposted it.

  It only takes about fifteen minutes to find it. And then, there he is. The first frame of the video is Bram’s face really close to the screen, like he was just using the laptop normally and the webcam came online without him knowing that it had turned on. His eyes are so green that they seem electric, and his lash line is so dark that it almost looks as if he’s wearing makeup. His hair is short, so you can’t tell that it has that crazy curl, and it’s sticking up a bit in the front. When he smiles, my eyes blur with tears. He just looks so much like himself: young and beautiful and alive.

  I can hear another guy’s voice in the background, but it’s muffled. Bram laughs at something the guy says before standing up. He’s already naked and so hot that I close my eyes for a second, slowing the thoughts his body brings to my mind. I’d forgotten how tall he was—he’s towering over the other guy, whose back is to the camera. At nearly six foot four, Bram was even taller than me.

  They don’t really waste much time, and though I can never make out the face of the second guy, I can see all of Bram. His broad shoulders, the trail of hair below his belly button, the two dimples in the small of his back, just above the tight curve of his ass. I watch the video again and again, until I’m remembering what it was like to be with him.

  The jealousy hits me like a shot of whiskey—I’m burning from the inside out. The feeling that he’s mine has never fully gone away. There’s no angle where the other guy’s face is showing, and I already knew that, but I got myself all riled up anyway. I kill the browser and close the laptop. I walk away, trying to calm myself back down.

  I leave my room and go into my dad’s study. I don’t admit to myself that I’m looking for booze, but I’m looking for booze. I put on one of his records and stare longingly at his liquor cabinet, but there’s nothing I can do about the locked glass door. I contemplate putting my fist through it, but it seems like a bad plan.

  I get drunk on music instead. I sit in my dad’s big leather chair and put my feet up while the first track plays. I pace while humming to the next few, hoping inspiration for my own music hits. When it doesn’t, I stare through his window and outright sing the last song. I leave his office, but I let the record restart—music playing to an empty room.

  Luckily for me, my parents are out for the evening, but that means they’re calling the house phone every goddamn half hour to make sure I don’t go anywhere. It could be worse. They could be here hovering, like I’m a four-year-old with scissors, the way they did all weekend after my mom found the bourbon in my room.

  Back at my mom’s computer, I go to Bram’s channel and watch a video where he sneaks up on his mom a bunch of times in a row and shouts “Boo!” She spills soda all over herself the first time and nearly smashes a vase the second. By the third time, I thought she would have wised up, but she almost rips a page out of the book she’s reading.

  It goes on and on (he gets her eight times), and as I smile at his antics, I scroll down through the comments. There are a few of the clickbaity memorial posts, like RIP, I was here the day he died and Live fast. Die young. And Yara posted an entire goddamn poem. But since this video went up a while back, it’s mostly still populated by normal comments.

  I see one comment from Nico, this kid who was sort of my friend until a few months ago. We’d go to shows together and swap music recommendations whenever we bumped into each other in the halls at school. But when I heard he hooked up with Bram at a party over Thanksgiving weekend, it really pissed me off. It’s so dumb because Bram and I had been broken up for months. But my heart is a fucking drama queen, so I haven’t really talked to Nico since.

  His comment was posted two months before Bram died, so you know it’s one of the real ones. It says You can scare me anytime, and it makes me want to punch something. Instead, I click over to Nico’s channel, planning to leave a few nasty comments.

  But I’m stopped in my tracks because all of Nico’s uploads are videos of him sitting behind a drum set. He’s doing a bunch of drum solos, and in most of the videos he’s performing on corners and in subway stations, the full drum set right on the pavement or platforms. The craziest part? He’s damn good. “Shit,” I mutter, impressed, wondering why he never mentioned to me that he was a musician too.

  The house phone rings, and I literally jump and slam the computer shut, as if I hear my parents coming through the front door. When I pick up the phone, it is my dad, so I wasn’t completely wrong.

  “I’m home. I went to therapy. I have no booze. Anything else?” I say before he even says hello. I obviously don’t mention the computer.

  “Well…good,” my dad says, sounding kind of flustered. He’s not the disciplinarian in the family. I hear my mom asking him questions about me, and I roll my eyes.

  “Hello, Logan, sweetie.” She must have taken the phone from him. “How’d it go?”

  “Not bad,” I say, thinking of Gertrude. “Can we talk about it later? I’m kind of in the middle of some homework.”

  “Right, well. I’m glad. Go ahead and get that work done. We’ll be home around ten.”

  When I hang up, I look through my phone to see if I still have Nico’s number. I almost never delete anything, but he hooked up with Bram, so I can totally imagine myself deleting him at some point when I was pissed or drunk. Or both. But I find the number. And since the only thing I can do with my phone is text (or talk), I shoot him a message.

  Seen any good shows lately?

  Who is this?

  Logan.

  Long time, he texts back.

  I feel like I should apologize for giving him the cold shoulder or something, but before I can, I guess he decides there
are no hard feelings all on his own.

  Rohan’s new band is pretty badass.

  Something swells inside my chest at the mention of Rohan’s name. I fucked up big-time when we made it to Battle of the Bands, and I never really apologized—I just stayed away. I wonder if he hates me.

  I’m actually going to a show of theirs this Friday, Nico sends. Wanna come?

  I’m grounded, my phone barely works, and my parents are circling me like fucking vultures. So this seems to be a bad idea all around.

  But Aden won’t get off my back about the band. Plus, I’m supposed to be grieving or whatever. Nico is a drummer. And he knows Bram.

  Sure, I send, thinking maybe I can kill two birds with one stone.

  BAMF // SASHA’S SENSES REVIEW…SOUND/WAVE/LENGTH

  Looks like: a beach party

  Tastes like: bubble gum

  Sounds like: earworms waiting to happen (aka the whole album is catchy af)

  3/5

  I ace my chemistry test. Mr. Tucker is surprised as he hands back our papers. “Nice work, Ms. Malone,” he says, looking at me, as if I’m an impostor or something. He taps my paper with the remaining stack in his hand. “I hope this kind of work continues the rest of the semester.”

  I nod, and I’m so proud, I hold my breath so I don’t start screaming right there. Studying was painful. I kept getting distracted by the pictures everyone was posting from the show, so actually reviewing the notes took freaking forever, but if this feeling is the payoff, and if it makes Mom less stressed, maybe pulling my grades up is worth the trouble.

  I want to show this test to Mom right away, so I snap a photo of it to send to her. Aced my chemistry test, I include. When class gets out, I run down the hall looking for Rohan. I bump into Callie instead.

  “Cal, look!” I say. I show her my test, but all she does is shrug. She’s wearing a shirt that’s falling off one of her shoulders, and that’s the one she lifts, her bare skin sparkling because I guess she’s wearing bronzer.