ECHO
The air was cool and crisp. The way it should be on an autumn day in North Carolina. Most people would be at the pumpkin patch with their friends. Normally, she would too. Normality is something Anakin hasn’t had in a long time. 7 months. 7 months to the day that her world stopped.
The park bench she sat on was old and rough. The peeling white paint noticeable. She held a lukewarm pumpkin spice latte in her hand. Part of her wondered why she even bought it. She hated pumpkin-spiced flavored things. But HE didn’t, and she knew that. Anything to feel closer to him. Anakin’s mind was stuck in a loop. Somewhere she’d wish it’d stop going. Him. Brooks.
Brooks had been a friend who slowly became family. The two were basically siblings. She missed his laugh. She missed his smile. She missed his jokes. She missed his hugs. She missed his presence. She missed his existence. She missed something that was gone. Something she’d never get back. Brooks was gone. He had died.
Getting the call on that random Thursday morning on that eerily cold February day isn’t easily forgettable for her. The words echo in her memory. “Hey, they found the body. Brooks is gone. He shot himself”. Words like that don’t leave you easily. They haunt you. The words permeated her memory daily. The words ran through her body like bullets. She knew she would never be the same.
“Who found him?” She asked barely above a whisper. Not like that answer to that mattered. She couldn’t change anything. “Ms.Genevieve did. I can only imagine her pain right now.” She sat in silence. Forgetting to respond until her friend continued. “I went and got a reading. Hoping maybe they’d be able to channel where he was. She said a lot, but what really stuck out is something I think you’d want to hear.” She sat up at the sound of her friend’s voice, “Yeah?”
“The lady said that He was sorry and he didn’t mean to do it. He didn’t want us to be sad because of him, and he felt as if he wasn’t good enough. He never lived up to the expectations that were placed upon him, but out of everything, he’s happy he met us. She also said that He’d be visiting us in the form of butterflies. Especially the yellow ones.” As the conversation ended, the words echoed in her brain. Anakin didn’t believe in that type of stuff, but she respected that maybe that’s how her dear friend was coping. She didn’t care much about the butterflies. She wanted her friend back. Yet she got a feeling of relief knowing it was accidental. Knowing that maybe he didn’t suffer after all. Hoping his death was painless.
She blamed herself. She knew he was depressed, but she didn’t know it was that bad. Around Christmas of the prior year, Brooks had gotten distant. He wouldn’t pick up the phone, but he made sure to check in. However, he was snappy and more on edge. One day, he just dropped the bomb on her. They sat in his kitchen, the same one where his mom used to make pancakes on Sunday mornings. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows that made everything look sickly and wrong.
“I’ve been doing coke,” Brooks said with shame and tired eyes. He looked so broken and defeated. His hands shook as he spoke, whether from withdrawal or shame, she couldn’t tell. The Brooks she knew had steady hands—hands that could create anything, fix anything. Now they trembled like autumn leaves.
“I walked in on some guy doing it in the bathroom at work. He asked me if I wanted to try it, and I said no at first.” Brooks’s voice cracked.
“But then I thought—why not? You know. Fuck it, we ball.” The words came out like broken glass, each one cutting him as he spoke them. He stammered out with a chuckle. A fake chuckle because he knew none of this was funny. How could she not have known? I mean, she knew he had been acting weird and figured he was doing something, but she never would’ve guessed coke. Of all things. But then again, how could she know? He hid it so well.
She’d always thought love could save people. That caring enough, trying hard enough, being present enough could pull someone back from the edge. But Brooks was drowning in plain sight, and all her love felt like throwing pebbles into an ocean. It was like an anchor was tied to his feet, and his head bobbed over the waves, no saving him.
She replayed every conversation, every missed call, every time she’d asked, ‘Are you okay?’ and accepted his hollow ‘I’m fine.’ The signs were there—she just hadn’t wanted to see them. Part of her wanted to shake him, scream at him for being so reckless with the life she treasured. Another part wanted to wrap him in her arms and promise everything would be okay—a promise they both knew she couldn’t keep. She caught herself thinking about how his death would affect her, and the guilt of that selfishness made her stomach turn. Even now, even in his darkest moment, she was making it about herself.
Anakin wanted to know the why behind it all. A thousand unanswered questions plagued her mind. She would have done anything for her friend to be okay. Oddly enough, she knew thinking like this was selfish, but couldn’t help it. Brooks was hurting. He didn’t see a way out of his darkness, and it swallowed him. The devil won. Despite that, if anyone was to make it out, Anankin thought for sure it would be Brooks.
After all, he’d looked death in the eyes before. At sixteen, when fake Percocets nearly stole him from the world. His mom had been yelling at him to turn his music down, pounding on his bedroom door, not knowing her son was already unconscious on the other side. She found him blue-lipped and barely breathing; his stereo still blasting rock music while his body fought for life.
He’d survived that night in the ICU, came back from the edge when doctors weren’t sure he would. For years after, he carried himself like someone who’d cheated death—invincible, untouchable. ‘I already used up my close call,’ he’d joke whenever anyone worried about his choices. But addiction doesn’t care about second chances. And depression doesn’t care about status. And the devil lurks when you’re weak.
Maybe that’s why Anakin thought he’d make it through this, too. Brooks was the comeback kid, the one who’d already stared down the reaper and won. But this time felt different. This time, death wasn’t coming fast and violent like an overdose—it was patient, wearing the mask of relief, whispering that the pain could finally stop.
Ms. Genevieve had already lived through finding her son unconscious once. She’d already felt that terror of thinking she was too late, already spent nights in hospital waiting rooms praying for another chance. The universe had given them one miracle. She never imagined she’d need to ask for another.
Death is inevitable. Anakin knew that. Everyone dies eventually, but no one is supposed to die at twenty-one. Twenty-one is supposed to be about beginnings, not endings. Twenty-one years wasn’t enough. It wasn’t even close to enough. The mere thought of His mom, Ms. Genevieve, having to bury her baby was killing her. The same arms that rocked him when he cried as a baby were the ones that cradled his lifeless body to her chest when she found him. She carried him for nine months, raised him for twenty-one years, and now she had watched him be lowered into the ground. This isn’t how it was supposed to end.
The image of his casket burned into Anakin’s memory: a mahogany box with purple flowers laid across. He loved purple; it was his favorite. Though she believed he would’ve chosen yellow flowers like sunflowers. She thought the purple ones gave light to a part of his personality many people didn’t know. Closed casket, of course. Not for the reasons everyone else would think, but because he was always insecure about how he looked. He hated people looking at him.
Brooks died way too soon, and now Anakin blamed herself. Constantly thinking of all the what-ifs. Her thoughts consumed her. So much so that she had started neglecting herself. Anakin couldn’t begin to tell you the last time she ate a full meal or practiced any self-care. She was barely showering and sleeping. All of the things she used to love seemed never to pique her interest anymore. Life seemed dull. Colors seemed less vibrant. Nothing seemed to have a purpose anymore. What was the point of life? She didn’t know anymore.
Things seemed simpler since his passing. Anankin didn’t complicate things anymore. She didn’t see the point; life was too short for that.
