Slow Burn

"it's your fucking nightmare"

Sleep had decided not to grace me with its presence that night. For hours, I lie awake on my bed, rolling Jimmy’s words over in my head. Unanswerable questions floated through my head, explanations came and went, but at the end none of them stuck. Jimmy was my brother, I knew when he was drunk or high just by his voice, and that voice on the phone, it was clean. His words were from his uninfluenced mind, and as I realized this, it freaked me out even more.

When the morning had finally came, and my tired and aching body pulled itself from the cold sheets of my bed, I picked up my cell phone in high hopes of a good morning from my brother. The screen was blank. Heart racing in my chest, I slipped my phone into the pocket of my old high school sweat pants, and stumbled my way into the small kitchen down the hall.

“It’s only eleven here”, I whispered to myself as I pulled the cabinet doors open and pulled out a box of Kashi cereal. “Maybe he’s not up yet. It’s only eight o’clock. No, he’s still asleep. Maybe around one he’ll text me good morning”, my mumbling stopped as my arms pulled the fridge open to reveal the vacant spot where the small container of milk is usually kept.

Jerking my head back and slamming the fridge shut, I placed both of my hands on my face and sighed heavily. Usually the small things like this wouldn’t bother me, but after a long night of staring at my ceiling and picturing my brother, my only family in a coffin, getting lowered into a six foot hole, I was quite on edge.

Not caring about my outer appearance, I slipped my feet into my all black moccasins pulled my long brown hair into a messy bun, and grabbed my keys and wallet off of the kitchen table. Heading toward the front door, I checked my phone one more time, and when the screen signaled there was no new text message, I took a deep breath, opened the front door, and told myself again that there was a three hour difference, that my brother was asleep; that’s it.

Through the hallways and down the emergency stairs, I was never one for being trapped in a steel box moving with little cables, my mind brought Jimmy’s words from last night into my head, and started to analyze them, over and over again.

"I feel fine, but I have this weird feeling, like something's going to happen to me.” What in the world could he possibly mean? A weird feeling, like he was going to get sick, like he was going to drink too much and get a killer hangover, or a feeling like… it would be the last time talking to me, the last time he’d see the light of day, his friends, his home and…

I quickly pulled myself out of my thoughts as I pushed the door open and walked into the lobby of the building, no one around except the man that would open the doors for you. He was sitting down in a small folding chair near the door, and as he noticed me, a small grunt left his throat and he stood himself up.

“It’s a shitty day today, Ms. Sullivan”, he informed me motioning to the pouring rain just outside of the doors. “Be careful”, nodding to him although his words didn’t fully register in my brain, I walked through the open door, mumbling him a thank you, and then walked out into the sidewalk, allowing the pouring rain to soak through every layer of clothes I had on as I started my block and a half walk to the convenience store.

Despite the fact that my clothes were soaking wet and a cold wind was blowing through the city streets, sending me into a fit of shivers, I still found it in me to look up at the huge buildings lining the streets, and smile. Ever since I was younger, I had wanted to move to New York City, live in an apartment building, and be able to look out on the New York skyline whenever I pleased, lit up and shimmering like a line of crooked teeth in the midnight sky.

With a heavy sigh, I diverted my eyes to the sidewalk ahead of me. The thought of what I had to abandon to come here filled my head and sent me into a fog accompanied with nausea and a slight pulse behind me eyes. Not only did I have to abandon my brother, but I also ruined the relationship between my best friends and me.

Without warning, the memory of what happened the night I told them all filled my head, making the light pulse behind my eyes increase tenfold.

It was a chilly night in the backyard of the Sullivan home. The breeze rolling off of the ocean waves dropped the temperature into a cool sixty degrees, making it the perfect night for a small bonfire on the beach, along with the huge news of my free ride to my dream school in my dream city. All of the guys knew how much it meant to me; how baldy I wanted to go, I knew they would be happy for me.

Jimmy and I had decided to throw the ‘party’ at nine. The sky would be dark, the stars would be out, and the beach would be cleared of any people giving us the go ahead to start the fire, set up the beach chairs, and be as obnoxious as we wanted to, which was good because most of the guys, if not all of them were huge fans of a cold can of beer with their bonfire on the beach.

When nine rolled around, and the fire was already burning quite nicely in the back yard, Matt pulled up with the rest of the guys in his car. As I stayed in the backyard, tucking a few pieces of hair away from my face and trying to contain my excitement until everyone was seated and drinking, I watched the huge flames dancing in the wind. I thought about how the only fire in New York would be on the television or in a nicely drawn picture, but even knowing that I was going to leave behind nights like these, happiness was still rushing through my veins.

Everyone was settled in the backyard. Brian, Matt, Johnny, and Jimmy were starting their second beer, and Zacky and I were just starting to toast some marshmallows when Brian, my best friend, after my brother, stood up and looked right at me, sending me a smirk.

“Now, I’m not one to complain about drinking beer around a fire on the beach, but I came here for a fucking reason, Kimberly, and I would like to know what exactly that reason is!” He chuckled as Matt pulled him back into his seat, slapping him in the back of the head for being a ‘fool’. After a round of laughter went through the guys, they all turned to me, their eyes begging me to stand up and tell them the ‘secret’ I had been holding out on all of them, even Jimmy since last Monday.

Inhaling the ocean breeze deeply, I stood up from my chair and watched as all of the boys around me smiled and looked up at me with wide, interested eyes. “So, all of you know what I have been thinking about for a long time now”, their smiles grew, “My dream to be an artist and all?” All of the boys nodded eagerly. “Well, I sent in an application to the School of Visual Arts, in New York and...” The beach fell silent. Even the normal relaxing crash of waves had been lifted from the air. The only noise was the small cracking of the wood in the fire. “I got accepted in, with a full four year ride!” The smile on my face was huge, and as I observed all of the boys around me, my heart sunk.

“That’s fucking amazing, Kimbers!” Jimmy screamed as he jumped up from his seat, his can of beer flying from his hand and landing somewhere behind him in the sand. As he looked over at me a huge smile on his face, arms opened for a hug, I turned away from him looking at the other four boys, disappointment dripping from their features.

“You’re leaving?” Matt’s voice was low and irritated.

“All the way across the fucking states, Kim?” Brian asked his hand crushing the can of beer in its grasp. As some of the liquid oozed from the opening, he dropped it and stood up. “What about all of us, huh? You’re just going to leave us for some high class, art school all the way in Manhattan?”

Tears pushing against the back of my eyes, I took a deep breath and looked up at him, right into his deep brown eyes. “I’ve wanted to go to this school since I was eleven, Brian, you know that?”

“So! I’ve wanted to do tons of shit since I was eleven, but you don’t see me dropping my friends, do you?”

“It’s a free ride, how could I turn it down?”

“Because you’ll be leaving everyone who fucking cares about you behind!” He screamed, pure anger coloring the red on his cheeks. “We love you, Kimberly, how could you just fuck us over like this?” The other boys stood up, arms folded against their chests. As I watched all of them and their stern expressions, my heart shattered.

“I’m not fucking you over!” I screamed at him, my hands balling into fists. Since when does following my dreams fall into the same category as fucking my friends over?

“Yeah, you are”, he walked up to me and looked right into my eyes, his bright brown eyes dark. “You’re picking some high class fucking art school, filled with a bunch of little snobby bitches from Manhattan over your best fucking friends! If that’s not fucking us over, I don’t know what is!” With one last stare, he looked away from me and walked out of the circle for the fire pit. On his way back to the car, he ran a shaky hand through his hair, and then punched the side of the house.

Silence covered the rest of the boys. Jimmy stood across from me, eyes locked on the chair that used to hold Brian. A blank expression on his face, he looked up at the guys. Once a loud crack rang from the fire, Johnny sighed heavily and walked away from us, kicking his chair and dropping his beer in the process. After him, Zacky turned to me and went o say something, but instead rolled his eyes and stormed off.

Finally there was Matt. Out of all the guys, I always knew him as the clear minded one. He usually understood things, saw things from other people’s perspectives, so when he was left, I thought I would at least have his support. “I thought… You said you would manage the band, Kim”, he whispered hazel eyes fixed on me. “That’s what we all thought tonight. We thought you were going to take that over, manage the band, the merchandising, you said… you said you wanted to.”

“Matt, this is a free ride to the school of my dreams. This scholarship costs-“

“Your friends, that’s what your fucking scholarship costs. I’m glad to know that your scholarship is more important than us. Have a great life without us, Kimberly.” With that, the last of my friends slipped passed me. A few minutes later, the loud bass from Matt’s car filled the air, and as it faded, the tears I was holding back rushed down my face.

I had just lost all of my friends because of my selfishness.

Setting foot into the store, I was welcomed by a huge gust of warm air and a headache with an intensity that I had never felt before. Looking into the well-lit store, I squinted, the lights hurting my eyes, and sighed heavily. As I stumbled through the aisles, grabbing a bottle of Excedrin and a gallon of milk, a wave of nausea washed over me followed by a knotting feeling in my stomach.

Pulling myself over to the register, I set the two things on the counter and opened my wallet, pulling out a twenty. As the man behind the counter glared at me for disturbing his word search, he rang up the two things, mumbled the price and took my twenty; I felt my phone start to vibrate in my pocket.

A new feeling of urgency rushing through my veins, I quickly grabbed my change, shoved my wallet and keys into the bag and ran out of the store. When I was back in the pouring city rain, I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and glanced at the screen. Taking notice to the 714 area code, I quickly hit send and held the phone up to my ear. Heart beating roughly in my chest, I struggled for an inhale, and once my lungs had some air in them, I heard a soft voice from the other end of the phone.

“Kimberly?” It wasn’t Jimmy, my heart stopped beating, my legs stopped moving and as the rain poured down from the sky, I stood in the middle of the almost empty sidewalk, staring blankly at the city skyline ahead of me; my dream. “It’s Zacky”

Something was wrong. “What happened to him”, were the only words I could manage to spit out. My body went numb. The wind beating down on my soaking wet body had no effect as I waited, holding my breath, for Zacky to say anything from the other end of the phone.

“We found him in his place this morning”, his voice was emotionless. “He’s dead, Kimberly.”

The numb feeling quickly wore off. My body rocked with shivers, tears ran down my face mixing with the rain, the horrible headache came back stronger than before, and my throat felt like it was catching on fire and spreading that fire into my stomach and my nose. As a sob escaped my lips, I stumbled to the concrete wall of the building behind me and fell to the ground, pulling my knees to my chest.

“Tell me you’re lying; Zacky”, I cried into the phone my eyes pushing out more tears at one time than I thought was humanly possible. As I awaited his response, I looked up at the sky. The sun was nowhere to be found, the clouds were almost black, and looking both ways, there was no clear skies relatively close. “Tell me you’re fucking lying!”

“I’m not lying to you, Kimberly!” he screamed back at me, tears in his voice. “Jimmy’s fucking dead, alright. I’m… I’m so fucking sorry Kim, I-“

My fingers quickly pressed the icon on my phone to end the call before he could finish. Once the normal screen showed up, a smiling picture of Jimmy and me from when we were younger, another sob left my throat followed by another wave of tears.

He was gone. The one person in my life that cared about me, the only person I had from my family that cared, my brother, my best friend, the only person I felt comfortable telling everything too, my teddy bear, my crutch, the only person that was excited when I got this scholarship, the only person that could make me laugh, the only person I loved, was gone.