The Truth Does Not Exist

Curiosity is a funny thing. It’s a part of human nature, in fact a part of all nature, and it drives people to do crazy things. Humans are born with an instinctive desire and desperate need to know, to acquire knowledge no matter the cost. And it was this instinct that had led Jace to the roof of his home in the middle of the night, crouched by the edge, gazing off into the darkness below him. It was as if a black hole lay at the edge of the tarred roof, and it was calling to him. Just do it, it cooed. Come to me, it called to him.

He wanted to do it. He wanted to feel it. He wanted to know, no, he needed to know. He needed to experience firsthand what his brother had felt.

But, even as the black hole called to him from the night below, he couldn’t do it. He was cheating. Ryan had not jumped to his death, he had swallowed it. Jace would not be feeling what Ryan had felt if he listened to the black hole, and he needed to know what Ryan had felt. But, alas, it seemed that Jace was not destined to know what Ryan had felt, for Ryan had swallowed the last of their father’s prescription pain medication and there was nothing left in the house strong enough to do the job.

Even in death Ryan was haunting Jace, taunting him with the fact that Jace would never be worthy to know what Ryan knew.

Their parents had left Ryan’s room alone, unable to bear the pain of seeing some of the last evidence that he had ever existed. Jace, on the other hand, needed to see the remains. Like ruins found from ancient times, Jace needed to see what his brother had left behind to piece together the facts. Well, what little facts there were. Which, in reality, were next to none. The only fact Jace knew was that Ryan was gone, gone forever. Since Ryan had died Jace spent most of his time either crouched on the roof, contemplating following his brother into the unknown, or sitting in Ryan’s room wondering about what had made his brother do it.

And then there was the rest of Jace’s time. He could have spent it with his friends before the world as they knew it came to an explosive finish. He could have spent it avoiding the parents that could not seem to be bothered to pay any attention to him in the wake of their, now clearly apparent, favorite son’s death. He could have spent it doing everything he’d put on his bucket list in sophomore year with a bunch of his buddies (whom he was now conveniently ignoring as they prepared for the end of the world).

But Jace didn’t do any of this.

Instead he spent the rest of his time with Mac.

“Don’t you dare jump on me now, you useless shit.” a familiar voice grunted with effort from behind Jace.

“If I’m such a useless shit then why does it matter if I jump?” Jace asked, not even bothering to look up as Mac took his usual seat at the edge of the roof beside him.

Habitually cautious and naturally fearful, Mac, on instinct, never sat as close to the edge as Jace did. Rather, he allowed himself a buffer of air about a foot long between himself and the black abyss that called to Jace.

Malcolm Xavier James had been a family friend to both Ryan and Jace since they were little kids. The irony in the name, Malcolm X, for the whitest, and coincidentally most racist, kid in the entire school all three boys attended was lost on no one. In an effort to curb the jokes, Mac tried to hide his middle name for years; lying about it, telling people he either had no middle name when asked or making up a random one. Eventually, however, the lies caught up to him and one day kids began to figure out that Mac could not possibly have fifty different middle names. And then there was the fateful day where Mac pissed Ryan off, no one could really remember what, exactly, Mac had done to Ryan, they had always been pains in each other’s asses, but it resulted in Ryan telling the entire grade at recess in the sixth grade what his middle name was. Malcolm X, a.k.a. Mac. Mac put up with the jokes for about a week, a feat that Jace gave him credit for, before he decided that he would no longer be Malcolm but Mac. He refused to respond to anyone unless they called him Mac, and eventually everyone caught on and the fiasco was all but forgotten; turned into one of those collective memories of elementary school shared between the entire school.

Though Mac was a year younger than Jace, and Mac and Ryan had practically been in the same classes their entire life (with the exception of fourth grade), Mac and Jace had always been closer than Mac and Ryan. Not to say that their friendship was very strong, it was still an obligatory relationship more than anything, but still, Mac and Jace had always been good at putting up with each other. Jace chalked it up to his ability to pretend to be listening to people complain when he was really thinking about what he would be eating for dinner. Mac liked to complain, a lot, and Jace was one of the only people Mac knew that would sit and not interrupt one of his rants.

“Yeah, well you’re my useless shit so don’t bail on me now.” Mac muttered. “Jesus fucking Christ, man, it’s freezing out here. And you really ought to just take the screen out of that window if you’re going to expect me to come out here with you practically every night. I mean it’s hard enough climbing out onto this goddamn roof, but to expect me to squeeze through that fucking screen too? You’re an ass. Are you even listening to me?”

“I always listen to you Mac, I’m practically hanging on every word, can’t you tell?” Jace answered sarcastically, but his response was half-hearted and the despondent tone successfully shut Mac up, if only for a moment.

“You wouldn’t actually do it though…right?” Mac finally said warily, hesitant, as if he would trigger something in Jace that could not be taken back.

“Would it matter if I did?” Jace retorted, anger and hurt clear in his voice as his eyes snapped up to meet Mac’s gaze.

Mac ran a hand through his shaggy brown hair. “Yeah, actually it would.”

Jace held the eye contact for a moment, fuming with rage, before finally he looked away, defeated.

“I wouldn’t do it, not like this anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mac demanded.

Jace sighed, not answering for a couple of minutes. The silence stretched for so long that Mac resigned himself to never knowing what was running through Jace’s head, something he had mostly accepted long ago. But finally, after even the night’s calls to him were quieted by their silence, he answered.

“It’s not how he did it.”

“I don’t follow.” Mac said quietly.

“He didn’t jump, so I can’t either,” Jace said angrily. “If I want to know why then I need to do it the way he did it. But I can’t, so I won’t.”

Mac sucked in a breath.

“Maybe he did leave a note, and we just haven’t found it yet. Maybe there was a reason for it. Or maybe it was an accident, he didn’t mean to ki- do it.” Mac’s voice faded away pathetically. He couldn’t say the words killed himself aloud. Couldn’t make that one final acknowledgement of what had happened.

Jace barked out a laugh. Short, harsh.

“It seemed pretty deliberate from what I saw.” Jace sneered.

“Well maybe we just didn’t find-“

“I’ve torn his room apart,” Jace interrupted. “There’s no note.”

They fell into silence again. Mac worrying about Jace, and Jace fuming over what his brother had done.

“Didn’t even have the decency to leave a fucking note,” he muttered, more to the air than to Mac.

“I guess something happened that we didn’t know about.” Mac said.

Jace sighed. “No shit.”

They fell into silence again, both now wondering what could have possibly caused Ryan to want to die.

“I just want to know.” Jace finally said, sighing.

“Me too, man,” Mac replied quietly, nodding to himself. “But I guess it’s not up to us to know. I guess Ryan will be the only one who ever knows.”

And then it clicked. Jace stared at Mac. In order to know they would have to be Ryan. And in order to be Ryan they would have to experience everything Ryan had experienced. The truth could be discovered if only they felt, first-hand, what Ryan had felt, especially in the last few weeks of his life.

“So then we’ll just be him.” Jace said.

And for the first time since Ryan had died, Jace smiled.