decadence and peace in our collective creativity that’s never been part of my life’s framework.
“James, it’s amazing. I go to sleep feeling accomplished. I wake up feeling capable. I’m not saying it’s because of him, but being with someone that I align so easily with has taken my art to the next level. And I’m…dreaming of art school again. Even though I shouldn’t. Oh, if you could see Cameron, you’d understand. She’s seriously the cutest baby ever. Not that what she looks like matters, of course. She could be green and covered in scales and I’d think she was beautiful. Oh, she’d just love you. And you’d love her. The way you loved me.” I hate that he’s never going to hold her.
She’ll never know the healing magic of his hugs.
Or his wisdom.
Except for whatever I manage to remember and share with her.
“God, I want you back. I would do anything to have you back. Did I trade you for Carter? I’m so afraid that I can’t have more than one good thing at a time. I know it’s silly. But it’s always been true,” These fears, all heavy and constant on my heart, spill uselessly from my lips and fall on the deaf, dead ears of the no one.
I turn away from the sky, press my face to the ground. And tears, which in the last year have gone from rainbows to raindrops - rare to abundant – soak the grass that grows above the place where my brother and parts of my heart are buried.
I don’t know how long I’ve been lying there when my phone buzzes with a text from Dina.
“Happy Birthday beautiful.”
I get up. The sun is starting to set and I’m hungry and tired.
My phone buzzes again.
“Hope you’re doing something to celebrate. I’m sorry I couldn’t get away to visit. I’ll call you later.”
I turn my phone off. I won’t ever celebrate this day again. It would feel like dancing on James’ grave.
When I get back to his house, for the first time in a week, Carter isn’t there waiting for me.
I tell myself it’s for the best, even though the thought of being alone tonight makes my stomach hurt. I sit down at my drafting table and try to work on my sketch. But, without Carter here, I grow restless and put down my pencil after a few minutes spent erasing everything I managed to put on paper.
I walk out to the back porch.
I gaze out at the gigantic garden maze we called The Labyrinth when we were kids. It’s modeled after Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. I spent hours getting lost in the hedgerows. There was a spot inside that got really good light in the afternoon. It was our happy place. I haven’t been there in so long. I wonder if I could find it.
Somehow, it looks bigger than I remember. But, as the setting sun gives way to the bruised purple velvet sky of the approaching twilight, I’m drawn to the dark escape of it.
I want to find that place within it where I was happy. Today, when I am so alone and my loss feels like a bottomless lagoon, I need to find it.
I slip my shoes off and step onto the grass and relish the way it pricks the soles of my feet as I make my way into the labyrinth garden. I run my hands along the ivy covered walls until I find the light switch.
The dark green bushes that line the entrance of the path are wrapped in strings of flickering fairy lights that make them look like miniature constellations. I pass through enclosed archways that are lit with chandeliers and find myself awash in twinkling lights that dance on my skin.
I reach an opening that’s cut into a wall of hedges that form a ten feet tall ringed enclosure right at the center of the gardens and my heart starts to beat a little fast.
This is it.
No one else ever came while we were here. Well, except for me and James. We decided that the person who built the maze put it here for anyone clever enough to find this center to enjoy. A pang of longing fills me as I think about James.
I step inside and gasp at the sight that greets me.
We only came here during the day when we were kids. I can see now though, that I missed the real magic of this place.
The dark reveals what seems like thousands of tiny blue and