Page 27
Gabriela
I t’s been exactly five months and six days since my brother drew his last breath, and I was forced to move on like he wanted.
I shed a lot of tears before I was able to walk into the house we had picked out together in Montana. One of the very last things left of him, something I will forever hold on to. We painted the kitchen walls together that first week. He hated the color halfway through and said, “Fuck it—leave it. Ugly is honest.” I never changed it.
The other is this studio, opening on the six-month anniversary of his death. The scent of fresh paint still lingers in the air, mixed with lavender and something faintly metallic like dried blood you’ve tried to scrub from your skin. I wanted a place for people to heal. To create. That was the message I took from all this tragedy.
From something terrible, I created something new. The Garden of Thorns. This studio isn’t just for them. It’s for me, too. For the version of me that still needs saving. The version of me who still needs her brother. There were nights I woke up screaming his name, clawing at the sheets like I could pull him back from wherever he went. I stopped looking in mirrors. I couldn’t stand the eyes that looked back at me—they were mine, but they weren’t mine anymore.
Grief is the most complicated process. You go from rage, to tears, to rage again. But today, I choose to heal.... to move on and truly let him go. I wonder if he knows, if from where ever he is, he can see. I smile as I look at the envelope that’s been haunting me, begging me to tear it open and read the contents, but I knew I wasn’t ready then.
Fuck, I’m still not ready now.
I take a seat behind the desk, resting my elbows on the surface. I stare at the envelope, the same one that’s sat untouched since the cops returned it from evidence. It’s just paper, ink, and memory, yet it weighs more than anything in this room. The world views Byron as a victim. Their story became the most fucked version of Romeo and Juliet , and I was angry at him for leaving me, for choosing him .
Until I was forced to face the truth.
In their own way, they destroyed each other. Because I refuse to believe all those portraits, all that chase from Ren, wasn’t anything but this twisted form of twisted love. That—I can accept. That, like me, Ren loved him in his own fucked-up way. That Byron’s pain wasn’t all for nothing. That there was love there, even if it was born in blood.
A single tear slides down my cheek as I look at the urns that remain side by side, sitting on a floating shelf. One white. The other as black as his soul. They died together, reaching toward each other. I feel it’s fitting they remain side by side. It took me a long time to get there, to want what destroyed us besides what I adored the most, but in the end, my brother chose love, and I learned that I didn’t need to understand their dynamic—not sure I ever can. But he died reaching for him and that has to mean something… so I kept it as a reminder that not even the greatest darkness can overcome the light.
The studio is quiet. Sunlight slips across the floor, touching the easels. The bare walls still waiting for art. This was supposed to be my place of healing. His legacy. But some days it feels like I’m just surviving between ghosts. I used to be the strong one. The steady one. The girl who fixed everything and never cried in public. And now… now I talk to ashes and sleep with the lights on.
My vision blurs.
After postponing the letter, dodging it, fearing it, pretending it didn’t exist on the day of the grand opening of his legacy, I exhale a shaky breath. My hands tremble as I rip open the white envelope. For a second, I almost stop. My fingers hover over the seal like I can still walk away. Like I can delay the collapse one more time.
But I don’t .
The smell of my brother remains frozen in time, and my lips tremble as I bring the paper to my nose, inhaling the familiar scent of weed and linen.
“By,” I sob out weakly, careful not to wet the letter as I open it.