Here Comes the Sun

My mind was set on the fact that I was an utterly horrible person. I could never forgive myself for what had happened with Max. I couldn’t bear to even think of it all anymore. I was hysterical all the time, ever since Joe had told me what Max had been doing. I was filled with such regret and guilt that I had done nothing for him. In our childhood, I had behaved exactly like my mother had – I had just sat back and watched.

“Please stop being so hard on yourself,” Nick begged me as I hid under the hotel covers, crying, “You didn’t do anything.”

“Exactly, Nick,” I said thickly, wrapping myself tighter in the thick fabric, “I didn’t do a thing and now Max is dead.”

“Kara,” he sighed, trying to pry open my hands and pull back the covers, “Let me see you.”

“No.”

“Come on, Kara.” He tugged harder, but not as hard as I knew he could have. He didn’t want to hurt me.

“No,” I cried, “I don’t deserve to be looked at.”

He groaned. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m being reasonable.” I sniffed. “I’m punishing myself.”

“I really don’t see how this is reasonable.”

After a moment of silence, I felt the weight on the bed shift and figured he had given up on me. That made me cry harder, knowing that I deserved it. But then somehow, he found a gap and came under the covers, removing me from my tight cocoon.

I took one look at his sincere face and the tears poured down faster. “I don’t deserve you. I’m a horrible person.”

He pulled me on top of him like a child. I struggled against him helplessly. Next to his strength, I was nothing.

“Don’t you ever say that again,” he said sweetly, stroking my hair with one hand and my back with the other.

“I killed my brother.”

He held me tighter. “No, you didn’t.”

“I never helped him. Ever. I didn’t do anything when he was getting beaten.” I recalled the many times he had been hit with my father’s leather belt and I had remained in my bedroom, playing with my dolls and ignoring the everyday screaming.

“You were just a baby. What could you have done?”

Hot tears were beginning to stain his shirt, but he didn’t seem to care.

“I didn’t get him help with the drugs or drinking.”

He sighed deeply. “When it comes to things like that, you can’t help a person who doesn’t want to be helped. He didn’t accept that he had a problem. It was normal for him. But then he realized it later and got help, remember?”

“I never called. I never went to see him.”

“Kara, he wouldn’t have answered the phone even if you tried. Listen, baby, look at me.”

I quickly wiped my face before turning my head around, resting my chin on his chest. I peered at him through red, swollen eyes. He must have thought I look atrocious. But he still looked at me and smiled, wiping the tears off my cheeks with both hands.

“Do you remember what you said to me that night on your front porch? All those months ago?” He paused and his smile grew bigger. “Back when I thought I would never get to do this…” He reached down and kissed me softly.

“I remember,” I said. It had been one of the happiest days of my life – reunited with Nick. I smiled at the memory. But then I remembered the look on his face and my smile was wiped off.

The ghost.

“I was so convinced that it was all my fault,” he said, “That if I had walked you home that day, everything would have been okay. I hated myself for it. I hated myself for allowing you to get hurt like that. Sometimes, even now, I still do…”

I watched as his eyes turned dark.

“But you told me that nothing could have been done. It wasn’t my fault and you held me and told me not to think that for even a second. And that’s what Max would be doing if he was here right now.”

He pushed a curl away from my face and tucked it behind my ear.

“You loved him, Kara. He knew that. And that’s more than enough.”

I took a deep breath and lost myself in his words. He was right. I was blaming myself for fate, just like he had done. Over time, he had realized it wasn’t his fault. Even then, part of him still believed it was, but at least he was out of pain. It would take more time. Months, even years. It would take me time as well. I knew the pain would eventually numb and I would stop feeling guilty. But until then, I was trusting Nick. That part was easy.

But finding out the truth behind it all? That part’s hard.

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The next day was the start of a busy week. The three of us and Big Rob went down to the local police department where most of Max’s cases were held. Joe had found a number of the cases online – they were all on his record, completely free to the public eye. Normally, not just any average Joe (no pun intended) was allowed to look in the files. But with me being his sister and Big Rob seeming so scary, we were allowed in. We had noticed that Seattle cops were quite hungry for fame. The paparazzi were hunting us down like animals, following us around every corner. The cops and everyone who lived there loved the attention. I guessed it just gave the city good exposure.

But it was getting on my nerves.

“Well, here are all the files under Maxwell Anthony Chanel,” said the man in charge, Officer Timothy, setting down a box of manila folders that looked pretty heavy. “It’s a shame, really. He was a real good kid. None of these cases are against him. He was just tryin’ to do some good around here. Not sure why, but he was always real passionate about it. Fightin’ to catch the guy. Too bad it never worked out for ‘im.”

He took a deep breath and looked at me.

“Is your name Kara, by any chance?” he asked with raised eyebrows.

“Yes,” I nodded.

He smiled. “He talked about ya all the time. Showed me a picture once. You sure have grown. Your brother was a great guy. I hope he’s at peace wherever he is.”

“Thank you,” I said, “That means a lot.”

“Any time, miss.”

“Um, Sir?” Nick asked the officer.

“Please, call me Tim.”

“Right. Tim, I was just wondering…You said he was trying to catch someone?”

“Yeah,” Tim nodded, “he was. I never looked into it much though. He’d show up every other week with a new guy and a new file, plottin’ somethin’ against him. At first, I thought he was just pushin’ my buttons. But it takes some cash to file, so I knew he was serious about it. Dunno why though. If I could go back in time, I’d ask him…” He looked down to hide his sadness.

Nick nodded. “And why didn’t it ever work out for him?”

“I’m not so sure, kid. Like I said, I wasn’t too involved. But I know one thing: He was the only one fightin’. And to win cases like the ones he was filin’, you need a lot of people on your side. You need witnesses and statements from people who agree with you. He had none of that. He tried to get his old lady to testify for one of them – I think it was the most recent – but I dunno, she never showed.”

“He tried to get my mother to come?” I asked, surprised.

Tim nodded. “I told you he was real passionate. But here, you can look into any of these.” He motioned to the box sitting at his feet. “Every file’s in there. The language is pretty excelled, but I’m sure you’ll get the main jist of it all. You’re smart kids. Anyway, good luck. Let me know if you need anythin’.”

Tim shook everybody’s hand firmly before turning around and walking out. The boys and I peeked into the box, getting on our hands and knees to skim the files.

“This is going to take forever,” Joe groaned.

“Well,” Nick sighed, “we better get started, then.”

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Hours went by and we had checked nearly every file. Usually, each manila folder consisted of two pages – one had all of Max’s information, like his name and address, and the other had the information of the person he was filing against. Most of them contained background checks, retraining orders, things like that. About a third of the ones we’d checked so far involved drug lords. And they seemed dangerous – like life and death dangerous. I had noticed that filing these cases had become a sort of obsession for Max. He was filing almost every week, spending up to a hundred dollars just for one case. He was consumed with it to a point where he had just picked people that made him paranoid. It didn’t look healthy to me at all.

But what bothered me most is that he had been doing it all mostly for me.

The last few piles of folders were all profiling registered sex offenders in the New Jersey area – more specifically, right around our old neighborhood. Officer Tim had told me those had been transferred to Seattle when Max moved. He had been fighting those cases for the longest. The very last folder at the bottom of the box was left and it was a relief to finally pick it up and know that after that one, we could finally go home and rest.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

The folder was giant. It was thick with almost fifty pages, all on one person. I flipped it open and skipped through Max’s page, already familiar with his information. The page after it was what caught my eye and stopped my heart.

The boy Max was filing against. His name was Taylor Johnson – my former best friend, Mikenna’s, older brother. He was seventeen years old, still living in Jersey. He had been the star of the football team, president of the SGA, and valedictorian at his graduation. He was the ideal kid. I always had such good memories with him. In fact, I’d had a crush on him all during middle school.

But when my eyes scrolled down to his picture at the bottom of the page, I froze.

Those eyes.

I felt my knees weaken and my legs give out, causing me to collapse onto the floor. I held my chest as my breathing quickened. I hadn’t remembered it for months, but he made me. His eyes took me back to December.

He did it.