After Marco was buried, Nick became my ward, my world. All of a sudden, a teenage boy was sleeping down the hall. It was very disorienting, but I thought I’d done okay. I didn’t think I’d made things so unbearable that he’d throw himself from a random roof. But I guess I did make things that bad, because now he’s dead and all I have is a craft room and a ton of acquaintances with God on their tongues. The only people who didn’t treat me like an iceberg ready to break apart tonight were that lady in my kitchen and that doctor from the Hamptons. I bet it wouldn’t have scared him if I’d referenced oblivion instead of angels. He’s probably not afraid of the truth, so he probably didn’t need my protection. A person can waste a lot of time and energy trying to protect people from imaginary danger. A person can invent a lot of problems that way.

If I wasn’t so selfish—if I hadn’t been so focused on preparing myself for temporary loneliness, never considering the permanent kind, never considering this Terrible Ache—then this would still be Nick’s room, and it would be filled with priceless artifacts from the Era of Nick. I could’ve curled up in his bed and breathed into his pillow, and the smell of it would have reminded me of him, and I could have had a nice, cathartic cry like they do in the movies. Loud and snotty. That won’t happen, though, because there’s a Singer sewing machine where his bed should be, and here’s the kicker: I still can’t sew for shit.

Glitter, needles, brushes, glue. If I had a sledgehammer handy, I’d bash these knickknacks to bits, but all I have is a cute little jewelry hammer and a mallet for leatherwork, so instead I go to my own bed down the hall and grab a pillow and comforter to drag back to the fucking craft room, where I make a nest on the floor, swaddle myself, and lay my head down. I run my finger along a seam on the hardwood, and I try to remember what Nick smelled like, and I cry for Nick, for my sister, for my brother-in-law, for myself and my parents, who never knew what they were missing, but God, they missed so much—and for all the terrible choices I must have made to leave Nick with no will to live.

And for what?

All that time, trying to do the right thing, and in the end, I did the worst thing. I failed my family. I’d give anything to go back and do it better, to do it right. Barring that, I’d give anything to rewind and undo, or barring that, to disappear.