Some Things You Can't Fight

The rain wasn’t falling that day like in all the books and movies; the sun was shining. The sun shone down on all of them, trying to warm them, but no warmth was reaching the core of Milo Canterri that day. No, his insides were ice, it didn’t matter that his body temperature was the average 98.6 degrees; he was cold. Only one week ago he’d been in his brother’s room, talking to him, in sense begging him to continue fighting, though in his manner it was an order.

He looked over at his parents, his mom was holding on tight to his dad; her tears were falling and they seemed to have no end in sight as she let out a whimper every now and again. His dad was looking straight ahead, listening to the pastor as he spoke. He held tight to his wife, fearing to let go, his own tears were falling, but he made no sound. Milo had no tears; he refused to let them fall. No, he wasn’t going to grieve he was going to stay angry. David let him down. He’d promised to be there for him, but he was gone and there was no getting him back.

The pastor was soon done speaking and the casket was soon lowered into the ground. To Milo it didn’t feel right that the ground was warm, that the day had a chance to be happy when his world was gone. His world was a cold stiff being lowered six feet under the earth, never to be seen again. Family friends and external family members had told him too many times since the wake that David would live on in his heart. Milo didn’t want to hear it. To him that was just sentimental garbage people just said when they didn’t know what else to say. David was dead, he was gone and that was the end of it. So what if there were pictures and videos, those were only captured memories, not real life, not the here and now. Milo wanted the here and now and he wanted David to be a part of it.

The ride back to the house was silent. Milo had pulled out his pair of sunglasses and put them on, hoping to block out the light. He closed his eyes, hoping to block out the world. As the sound of the car drifted from his ears, voices and images drifted in.

“You know you’ve gotta get that hair cut sometime or you’ll look like Keith Moon.” David said, ruffling his brothers almost too long black hair.

“Who?” Milo questioned as he knocked his brother’s hand away. They were sitting in the living room, Milo doing his homework, David watching TV.

“Exactly, good too see you getting smarter in other areas than those books.” David said grinning.

“No, I mean, who’s Keith Moon?”

“Geez, little bro, one of the best drummers ever. He’s from the band The Who.” David told him, giving an exaderated sigh at his little brother’s lack of rock knowledge.

“Oh.” Was all Milo said as he returned his focus back to the Algebra homework he had.

“You know, if you really wanted, you could keep the long hair and be a vampire for Halloween, I mean you’re pale enough.” David jabbed after a minute of silence.

“Shut up, David.” Milo said without taking his attention away from his work.

“No, I’m serious. You’ll be the walking dead, searching for blood.” David said in a faked eerie voice. Brought to the point of true annoyance, Milo turned and looked at his brother, wanting to yell at him or something, but when he looked his brother was gone.

“David, where’d you go?” he called out. No response came. Figuring his brother was just trying to scare him or something, he got up and started searching through the house. By the time he’d looked through all of the rooms in the modest house they lived in and didn’t find his brother he was becoming panicked.

“Come on, David, I’m done fooling around.” He called out. Still no response came.

“David.” He called again, but this time much louder. His brother didn’t come; no one came. The room was dark and he was alone. He had to find his brother though, so he ran out of the house and into the night shouting his brother’s name in the streets.

Milo sat up suddenly in his bed, breathing heavily as sweat sparkled on his brow. Looking around he saw he was in his room. He didn’t remember coming there, much less having fallen asleep. He looked at the time on the clock by his bed and saw it was 1:45 in the morning. The last thing he remembered was the sun shining in through the car windows. He slipped out of his bed and walked downstairs, the light of the kitchen was on and he saw his mother sitting at the counter, a cup of tea in her hands. She wasn’t drinking it though, just sort of staring at it.

She looked up, sensing somebody else in the room, and gave a small, sad smile to Milo when she saw him.

“You’ve been asleep since the ride home. Your dad couldn’t wake you up.” She told him.

“Did anyone try to wake me up at all?” he regretted his tone the moment the words left his lips. His tone was angry, bitter, almost as if he was accusing her of something. She didn’t need that right now.

“Yeah, you just slept. Several times we tried to wake you, but you refused to wake up. Once in awhile you would stir, but never really wake up. We started getting worried, worried that…” she didn’t finish her thought, but Milo knew what she was thinking.

“That I’d be like David?” she only nodded. He swallowed hard as he moved from his spot by the entrance of the kitchen to a seat at the counter.

“Mom, what would you have done if it was me instead of him?” he asked after a minute. He didn’t know why he was really asking; he just wanted the answer. He knew his brother was liked more than he was; it was just how it was. David had been more energetic, full of life. He was the one who could brighten a room any day of the week, no matter what. Life had been easy for him.

“Milo, I would’ve been in this exact same seat, drinking the exact same tea. You mean the world to me, just as your brother did.” She told him, looking him straight in the eye. He looked away from her gaze. His hands were in his lap, so she couldn’t touch it, but she touched the closest thing to it, his arm.

“I love you, baby, I always have and I always will. Don’t ever forget that.” She told him firmly, her voice quavering slightly. Her tears were falling again. He looked at her for a second before standing up. She took her hand away.

“I’m going for a walk.” He said, his voice void of emotion.

“It’s two in the morning.” She said.

“I’ll be back.” He said as he went into the hallway and grabbed his jacket. He stepped out of the house and into the cool air of the night. Streetlights shone bright from the highway that was visible from where he lived. The wind blew at him, causing him to pull his jacket tight around his thin frame. It may have been warm in the day, but it was certainly cool in the night. Milo preferred it this way. He walked in the direction of the small park near his house and sat down on the first bench he saw. He didn’t care if cops came and told him he had to go home or that he was breaking some curfew, he just didn’t care anymore. The only thing that mattered in life was finding out was monster killed his brother, he knew it wasn’t a monster like the boogeyman or anything like that, but a monster his brother’s body couldn’t beat. All his life he’d known his brother to beat everything thrown his way, but this, this was too big for his brother. The first tears since hearing of his brother’s death started to fall down Milo’s face, quickly he angrily wiped them away. He wasn’t going to cry, he wouldn’t allow himself to cry. He fought the tears, but they were bigger than him. Sixteen years old and he was crying and there was nothing he could do about it. No matter how hard he fought they were going to fall. After various attempts to stop them, he gave up and just sat there, letting them fall. There were some things in life you can’t fight and while his brother couldn’t fight whatever killed him, he couldn’t fight the tears that fell.