it was water I was looking at, but it didn’t look like water. It looked like Jell-O. I touched it and swore it felt rubbery and gelatinous like Jell-O too.
Regrettably, I couldn’t think of Jell-O without thinking of the day Sam died, and I tried to push “Eject” on that memory before I got sucked down into it. The last thing I wanted to do on this trip was to take a wrong turn. Or worse, to bring October down with me.
I tried to walk away from her because I didn’t want her to feel my darkening thoughts, but she was following too close behind, holding onto my arm, imploring me not to leave her alone and whispering that everything looked weird.
I turned around, leaned against a downed tree, and asked October to stay where she was. She stood in place like I’d requested, but in this case she didn’t have to touch me to know something was wrong.
“What?” she said, her face changing from amazed to concerned in an instant.
I’d never spoken to her about Sam, but I was on the ride now, and the walls of impassivity I usually hid behind were crumbling.
“The Jell-O,” I said, rubbing my face.
“Jell-O?”
“It was my fault.”
She tilted her head to the side, and after a good twenty seconds of squinting at my face, she said, “What was your fault?”
“My brother.” I started rambling, beginning with how Ingrid and I had been at Tam High to watch Sam’s swim meet. “He swam freestyle and butterfly and was good enough that his coach thought he’d be able to get a scholarship if he wanted one.”
October’s eyebrows rose as if they’d been animated, and the air around her face started to look pink and hazy, like there was a summery filter over it.
“Sam had this prerace ritual of eating raw strawberry Jell-O. He would rip open the packet, lick his finger, dip it in the powder and then lick it off, over and over, until his tongue and teeth were red and he was, as Ingrid used to say, bouncing off the walls.”
October reached out for my hand, but I shook my head, pressed my palms hard into my temples.
“Joe—”
“No, just let me talk. Before we left the house that day, Ingrid handed me a packet of Jell-O and asked me to bring it to the meet. I was on the couch playing Mario Kart and set the Jell-O to the side. And then I forgot about it.”
I moved my palms to my eye sockets, pressed harder, and saw thick swirls of dark green and purple, like paint being splattered on a black canvas. When I lowered my hands, I was sure October had taken a step forward. She seemed too close.
“About thirty minutes before Sam’s first event, he rushed over and asked for his Jell-O, but I didn’t have it. And he was so pissed at me. He huffed and cursed and stomped his feet. And you know what Ingrid said to him? She said, ‘Calm down, sweetheart. It’s not the end of the world.’ But it was. For him, it was.”
October’s face was melting into so much waxy softness I had to look above her head to get away from it, and the same dark swirls that had been behind my eyes were now in the sky.
“Joe, what happened?”
“Ingrid gave Sam ten dollars and told him to run to the Safeway across the street to get his Jell-O. Naturally, I begged her to let me go too, because I was twelve and Sam was sixteen, and I wanted to do everything my big brother did. Ingrid told Sam to take me with him, and to get me a snack. I remember I had to stop to tie my shoe and Sam huffed and said, ‘Come on, Joey. You’re such a frickin’ turtle.’”
October was still wide-eyed. Her body was twirling side to side as her hands went to her hair, and she began twisting her locks in circles around her fingers.
“I followed after Sam fast as I could, yelling about how I wanted him to get me a Dr Pepper and some Doritos, but he was sprinting by then, not paying any attention. And he was a considerable distance ahead of me when he darted into the street without looking to his left or right.” I could feel the tears starting to roll down my face, and they felt automatic, as if someone had flipped a switch and turned on my sorrow. “The driver