Here Comes the Sun

I couldn’t feel my legs. Was I dreaming? Was it another nightmare? I shut my eyes tight, trying to wake up.

“Are you there?” My mother’s voice was still as cold as I remembered it was, yet she sounded lost. I almost felt sorry for her.

“Yeah,” I managed to say, “I’m still here.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

I gulped. “Yes.”

There was a long pause. I wasn’t sure what to think. My brother was only twenty-two. How could he be dead? We had drifted apart over time, but he was still my brother. We’d had some good times.

“How?” I asked. She was frustrated with my one-word responses.

“He was shot.” Her voice broke. Suddenly, she was crying.

“By who?”

“I-I don’t know… My baby is gone.”

I couldn’t feel pity for her – not after what she had done to me. But for a moment, I put myself in her shoes. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to lose a child – to lose Layla. I couldn’t even fathom the pain.

A mother’s pain was indescribable.

“Mom, where are you?”

I heard her sniffle. She kept switching between sweet and sour. I couldn’t tell if she was being nice to me or not.

“In the hospital. He’s right in front of me, Kara…” She began to sob.

I felt tears well up in my eyes, picturing him laying there cold and lifeless.

“In Washington?” I asked, remembering the note she’d left me on the fridge that day.

“Yes.”

“I’m coming, Mom. I’ll be there soon.”

She let out a menacing laugh. “Don’t be silly. There are no flights from Jersey to Washington that are so quick. You have no money anyway. Have some common sense.”

I tried to ignore the acid in her voice.

“I’m in Los Angeles.”

She had nothing to say after that.

“If you don’t want me to come…”

“No. I don’t,” she said simply.

“What?”

“I don’t want you to come.”

I felt nothing. I was expecting her to say that.

“He’s my brother,” I said coldly, “I’m not coming for you. I’m coming for him.”

“You will not bring that boy here.”

“That’s what this is about? Look, I--”

“No. Don’t come.”

And she hung up.

I threw the phone angrily on the floor and took my head in my hands.

Max was gone – dead. Someone had murdered him. For what reason? I was dying to know. I had to find out. I suddenly felt this boiling anger inside me, anger towards whoever had done it. I didn’t know why. I hadn’t spoken to him in years. But he was blood, and blood is thicker than water.

“What’s going on?” I heard Nick ask me. He sat beside me and took my hands. “Kara, look at me. What’s wrong?”

I peered at him through my tears. “It was my mom.”

His eyes turned dark. “You were right,” he whispered.

“Nick, Max is dead.”

He let out a sigh and looked down.

“Nick, we have to go. We have to go to Washington. He was shot! He was murdered! He was--”

I began to shake with sobs and Nick took me into his arms.

“He was so young…”

“I know,” he whispered, “I know.”

“Who could have done it?”

He took a deep breath before speaking. “Baby… He was into really bad stuff. Drugs, drinking, dealing. Remember? Things like this happen.”

My sobs grew stronger.

“Do you really want to go?” Nick asked me after some time.

I nodded.

“Alright. I’ll call Big Rob to take you in the jet.”

I looked up at him. “You’re not coming?”

He laughed without humor. “I don’t think your mom will be too fond of me being there.”

I sat up. “Excuse my French, but… Fuck her.”

He burst out laughing.

“Really, Nick. You’re coming. I need you to come.”

He looked into my eyes for a long time, debating my words. “Okay.” He nodded. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Call my mom and dad. They’ll flip out if they come home and we’re not here.”

“Alright.” I began to stand.

“And one more thing…”

He stood to meet my gaze, touching the side of my face.

“Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

It seemed like Nick was always the one comforting me, easing my nerves. I wished things would just be normal for once.

I nodded and walked out, my legs shaking the entire time.

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I gripped Nick’s hand tightly against the armrest, shutting my eyes tight and hiding my face under the airline blanket.

“I hate takeoff,” I muttered.

Nick chuckled and kissed the top of my head. We were on the Jonas jet with Joe (try saying that five times fast), who was waving his hands in the air like he was on a rollercoaster.

“It’s such a rush, KC! Why would you hate it?” he screamed.

I groaned. “Tell your brother I love him but he needs to shut up,” I whispered to Nick, who laughed again.

The jet shook and my stomach churned as the last wheel left the ground. In about three hours, we would land in Washington and I would have to face my mother again.
But I tried not to think about it. Instead, I escaped into Nick’s heartbeat and lost myself. I never usually slept on planes, but I actually fell asleep against his shoulder. I thought about a lot of things. I thought about Layla at home with the rest of the family. I missed her so much. I’d never been away from her for such a long time. My arms felt empty without her in them, but it brought me comfort to know that she was in good hands. Mr. and Mrs. Jonas had offered without thinking twice. She even wanted to come along. But I needed them with Layla and I wasn’t going to risk taking her to Washington. God knows what my mother would do if she saw her.

I thought of Max and prayed for him, imagining him in the clouds – in Heaven. I knew he had suffered a lot in his life. Why else would he do such things? Wherever he was, he was out of pain and that calmed me. I made a promise to him that I would find out the truth. I would find out who did this to him and get revenge.

The truth, like the sun, always rises.

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I found myself running down the cold hallway, reeking of bleach. Nick and Joe were close on my tail. My emotions were racing.

I’d never been in a morgue before.

Nick caught up to me and I felt him take my hand. I stopped sprinting when a woman came into view. She was wearing a grey suit and black pumps, and she was on the phone. Her hair was cropped short and her makeup was spot-on.

She was exactly how I remembered.

I waited until she turned around and my grip on Nick’s hand tightened. Joe came to stand beside me.

“Kara?” she asked as she put down the phone. She took a step toward me with a warm smile on her face, but once she saw the boys she completely transformed, her cold hard shell taking over her once again.

“Mom,” I simply stated.

I walked around her, looking down, and stepped into the room she was waiting outside of.

It was freezing.

I wrapped my arms around my torso in an attempt to keep warm.

“Excuse me, who are you?” asked a man with a clipboard wearing a white lab coat.

“Kara Chanel,” I said as my teeth chattered against each other, “I’m here to see my brother.”

The man said nothing as he walked over to the wall and unhooked one of the metal drawers, unveiling a big black bag.

Nick’s grip on my hand tightened. Max was in there.

The man unzipped the bag and I finally saw his face, pale and completely colorless. His lips were almost purple from the cold and I was overcome with a hollow, empty feeling in my chest.

“Max,” I whispered softly. I stretched my free hand out to touch his forehead. His skin was hard, like marble. I wasn’t sure if my shivering was from the cold or from seeing him laying there dead and frozen. I couldn’t believe it.

“I don’t even remember the last time we saw each other. I didn’t get to say goodbye.” I whimpered and felt Joe place his hand on my lower back, resting his head on my shoulder. He and Max had been good friends at some point.

Max’s face had changed so much. He still had the same straight brown hair, the same shade as mine. It was cropped short and spiked in different directions. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I remembered they were a beautiful green color. He got the gene from my dad’s side. Last time I had seen him, they had been completely bloodshot. He had pierced one of his ears and had a tattoo on his neck. I squinted my eyes to make out what it said.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, “The tattoo. It spells out my initials.”

I stared at the letters KC printed neatly in script against his skin and smiled.

“You were his baby sister, love,” Nick whispered, barely audible, “He loved you. I know that much.”

Nick became rigid beside me. I knew he was afraid – all three of us were. We had never seen a dead body before. We shouldn’t have had to. Max should have still been living.
I stared at his lifeless body and cried, memories flooding my mind from when we were kids. He would take care of me when Mom was at work and cry with me when she’d get home and fight with Dad, their loud screams filling the entire house.

Max had been MIA for years. I only knew of his drinking and drugs through whatever my mother had told me. But honestly, I wasn’t surprised when I found out. He had always lived a hard life. Our father used to beat him constantly, even for the smallest reason. Max told me it simmered down a bit after I was born, but it would still happen when I wasn’t around. Dad would call him filthy names and make him bleed, and Mom would just leave the room when her little son needed her the most. I couldn’t even imagine doing such a thing to Layla. No wonder Max was such a mess.

As the past was replayed in my memory, I was suddenly furious. I had blocked everything out for so long. I squeezed Nick’s hand slightly too hard and stormed out of the room, into the hallway.

"It’s because of you,” I spat with as much acid dripping from my words as possible, “It’s all your fault!”

My mother spun around and looked me in the eye, lowering the cell phone that was always glued to her ear. I heard Joe and Nick walk over to stand behind me.

“You would just let that bastard beat your son,” I yelled, “You think I don’t remember? You would just sit back and watch. He was only a child! A child who just needed his mother! And when he got into all this shit, drugs and drinking and whatnot, what did you do? Nothing. You did nothing. You never even tried to get him help or even sit down and talk to him. You know why? Because you’re a selfish bitch. You left him and you left me, right when we needed you the most.”

Hot tears were rolling down my face. I was sobbing.

“I needed you. I needed you so much. And you just left me. Now you sit and cry because ‘your baby’s gone.’ Well, guess what. You never deserved that baby. You let him get treated like shit. And it’s because of you that he’s gone. Do you hear me? It’s all your fault!”

I sobbed hard, slowly sinking down to the floor as my legs gave way.

“It’s all your fault…” I whispered one last time as Nick’s arms wrapped around me, stopping me from touching the cold, tile floor. He pulled me back up and I caught a glimpse of my mother’s face, her dark eyes staring me down. I shut my eyes tight. Her face suddenly reminded me of The Exorcist, and I cringed.

Nick and Joe took me away and soon I found myself in a small waiting room, sitting between them on a couch. I leaned into Nick’s embrace and felt warmth as he pulled me close.

The three of us had no words for that moment. We just sat there, crying quietly in each others’ arms.

Max was gone.

And we had to find out why.