Storyletter 3

Dear reader,

Tis the season to be scary with Halloween right around the corner. For those of you who didn’t know, Halloween is a holiday on the 31st of October named for Sir Cuthbert Halloween, a chocolate maker from Liverpool who was thought to be the fattest vampire in British history. Unsurprisingly, the holiday celebrating candy consumption and scary monsters was named after him.

This year, approaching a holiday all about what you fear has made me ask myself what scares me. Pretty quickly I realized what my most prevalent fear is: not living up to my potential and living a lesser life than I could.

But the motivation to strive to be the best version of myself doesn’t come from that fear, it comes from the knowledge that I can get to where I want to be while loving what I do and becoming a little better every day. Speaking of what I love to do:

JOURNEY JOURNAL

Seventy-seven literary agents have now had my query letter and excerpts from Hailey’s Horizon shot across their bows. Twenty-seven have fired back cannonballs inscribed with formal rejections that narrowly missed my main-ego-mast and have been caught by my trusty first mate Unwavering Optimism and tucked securely away in my ship’s magazine for later reference.

Fifty agencies are yet to raise any kind of flag, which I can only assume is because they are too dumbfounded by the quality of my writing to find their way to their cannons to give me a reply.

While I wait for the sound of cannon fire, here’s the finale of Storyletter’s first short story:

STORY SNACK 

Hilltop

Part 3 of 3

Opening his mouth to reply, Cole’s mind stalled. His brother had just called for the two of them to speak plainly. Cole knew if a meteor had struck the hilltop at that moment, it would be less of a surprise than what had just been said. 

“I–I–” he stuttered, then he took a deep breath, trying to collect himself. Peter sat still as a stone in the night. “I thought you’d leave right off if I talked about it too soon.”

“And yet, you didn’t want to talk about anything else much.” Peter spoke softly, his words knife-sharp within woolen sheathes. “It’s like you’re stuck in limbo, not going in either direction. Get on with it.”

Cole had never heard such resignation in his brother’s voice before; he sounded almost defeated. The bombastic mask Peter had worn all this time had vanished in an instant. Now his older brother sat before him, bare faced. 

He had expected to shout, to curse, to tear into his brother when the telling moment arrived. But here in the dark, with Peter looking at him expectantly, patiently waiting for his evisceration, Cole couldn’t speak.

Six years of impotent rage and desperation had brought him to this hilltop, and now all he felt was grief. A burning grief for everything Peter had done wrong, for who he could have been if only this or that, and for the little boy that once idolized his big brother.

Where had that little boy gone? Where had that idol of a big brother gone? Dead. 

Now Cole stood, smoking in the dark, staring hot eyed at Peter, who looked back out of hollow, shining eyes.

“I said get on–”

“You left us.”

The words, rehearsed uncounted times in his head as a scream of righteous fury, emerged as a murmur. Peter stiffened.

“You left us all. You left your wife, you left your kids, you left mom and dad…you left me, Peter. I knew you had problems, but I always thought you could deal with them. No, I knew you could deal with them. You know why? You were my big brother…you could do any–”

Cole clamped his mouth shut as his voice broke on the last word.

“Anything,” he said finally. “And then you ran, just like that.” Cole snapped his fingers in the dark. “I didn’t believe it when I heard, I knew it couldn’t be right. Not you, not my brother.” 

Raising his dwindling cigarette to his lips, Cole took a last deep drag, breathing gray smoke into the black air.

“Then, when I realized you’d really gone, I was sure I knew where you went. Where you always went when you couldn’t handle something.”

Glancing around, Cole’s eyes swept over the blackened hilltop. Then his eyes returned to his brother’s shadowy form, slumped on the stone, listening. He had not appeared to move at all since Cole had begun to speak.

“I found you here, remember? I was so pleased with myself, God–” Cole laughed the kind of laugh no happy person can make. “I was so sure it would be all right, that I’d bring you back. You wouldn’t say no to your little brother, of course you wouldn’t…’

‘I was so angry when you said you were really leaving. I’d never yelled at you before…ever. I barely remember what I said, but it must have been bad.”

With a long breath, Cole dropped his cigarette butt to the grass and ground it out. He hardly knew why he was saying this, but the words kept coming. “I forget who started it. Doesn’t really matter. Your first fight’s usually with your brother I’ve been told since…it didn’t feel very usual.”

Far away on a black horizon, the newly risen moon shone silver, casting a ghostly sheen over the hilltop. In the dimness, Cole could see that Peter was still looking up at him. His unshaven face was set, emotionless. But his eyes glimmered in the gloom with emotions Cole had never seen in them before.

Cole opened his mouth to continue, but before he could, Peter spoke, sounding as though he were groping for the words one at a time.

“You went for me first.” Slowly straightening up in his sitting position, the taller man inhaled deeply. “When I told you I had already bought a plane ticket, you went for me, swinging. Couldn’t believe it…couldn’t believe it. Hot Cole–” Peter let out a bark of laughter that choked off into a violent grunt. In the waxing moonlight, Cole saw his brother’s jaw muscles had gone taught, his lips pressed tightly together.

Averting his eyes, Cole’s head was suddenly filled with images six years in the past. Green grass on the hilltop under a midafternoon sun. Peter’s clean-shaven face, that grin hitched onto a face contorted with desperation. Then the remembered feeling of blind rage, and his older brother’s look of astonishment as he flew at him.

“Yeah,” Cole said heavily. “I went for you first, I remember. I wanted to forget.”

“Why did you want to forget?”

Peter sounded genuinely curious. Cole faced his brother. Not speaking for several seconds, he finally opened his mouth.

“Wanna know why I’m really here, Peter? It’s not to try and bring you home. God no. Them–” he gestured down the hill towards the quiet city in the distance. 

“They’ve all moved on. Gotten on with their lives, started new ones, whichever. They wouldn’t want to see you even if they could. You’re dead to them.”

Stiffening, Peter began to say something, but Cole raised a hand.

“Shut up. You do not say a goddamn word.” His voice shook slightly but did not break.  “Let me finish.”

After a silent beat, Peter subsided back into his seated position. Cole took a deep breath.

“I’m the only one who hasn’t moved on. For six years I’ve been stuck in the past with you, pretending I haven’t been. I’ve gotten pretty good at it, you know…no one suspects a thing. I’ve gotten so good at pretending to be all right.’

‘But I haven’t been all right since the last time I saw you. A day hasn’t gone by when I haven’t replayed every word, every miniscule part of that fight. Why?”

Cole’s head pounded; his body reverberated with his words. He was finally saying it.

“Because–” he let out a mirthless chuckle. “Because, even though I know you were a complete loser and always ran away from your problems, even though I knew you couldn’t keep at anything once it got hard, let alone being a father. Even with all that, with all that reason for leaving everything, I know what pushed you over the edge wasn’t any of it.’

‘It was me.”

In the dark, Peter looked like a statue. Completely still, his carved stone face watched Cole out of marble eyes.

“You’d stormed off countless times before, and always slithered your way back. That was just an especially big tantrum, that day. You needed something dramatic to make you deign to return to us. So, you came here, to this place full of good memories. And you waited for me, because you knew I would know where to find you. God knows how much time we used to spend up here together.’

“I think you wanted your little brother to run up to you and ask you to come back. Beg you to come back. You thought I was the last person on earth who looked up to you, who idolized you. You needed a taste of that, a glimpse of the way that little kid saw you, to give you the strength to go back to everything you’d screwed up.’

“But when you told me you were really leaving, I said all those things. Screamed all those things…then I came at you, like you were just another nobody who deserved to get punched…not my big brother. That was it. I was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I broke you.”

An ear-splitting silence hung after Cole’s final word. He stood, and Peter sat, neither one moving or making a sound. 

At last, Peter sighed. Then shrugged. Standing up, he arched his back, then straightened up. Looking at Cole, he spoke evenly. “So…what? Did you make me come all this way just to tell me something I already knew?”

“No,” Cole said slowly. He stared up into his brother’s unshaven face, every line of it identical to the face half a decade gone. “I asked you to come so you could do something for me.”

“And what exactly could I do for you?”

“I need you to lie to me,” Cole said clearly.

Peter’s eyebrows contracted in confusion. “What?”

“Lie to me,” Cole repeated. “I need you to tell me it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t me that drove you away in the end. I need you to tell me that fight didn’t matter, and you would’ve left anyway. I need you,” he paused, then found the words. “I need you to free me, Peter. I need you to free me from myself. From you. From this place.” He raised both hands to include the entire hilltop.

Peter stared down at his younger brother, and for once, Cole read emotions clearly on the long face. Confusion, then anger, then resignation. Then, finally, determination settled onto his features, etched out clearly in the moonlight.

“What a self-obsessed man you’ve become, Cole....You brought me here just so I could put your mind to rest…well, I won’t help you become like me. I think I’ve had enough of lying,” Peter said. “You’ll have to free yourself some other way.”

Cole felt as though something large and hard had been rammed into his chest, driving out all the breath, all the life from him. He watched, paralyzed, as Peter turned away.

“I’m leaving,” he said over his shoulder. “I think we’ve caught up just about enough. Goodbye, Cole.”

Burning rage filled Cole. In an instant, seeming from nowhere. A visceral, boiling fury at the injustice of it all, at the futility of everything he’d done, at the cruelty of the man who had turned his back on him.

“No! Say it!” Cole shouted, balling up his fists and throwing himself forward. “Let me go!”

He swung wildly, aiming for the back of Peter’s head. Ducking, his brother dodged to one side, and Cole’s punch hit thin air, his forward momentum sending him reeling across the grass.

His knees slammed into the stone where Peter had been seated and he toppled over it. Light exploded behind his eyes as he hit the ground headfirst, the rest of his body coming down with a dull thud.

Stunned, Cole lay on his back, head throbbing.

“Looks like it took only six years for me to learn to dodge your punches, Hot Cole.” 

Standing above him, Peter looked down at his little brother, an unfathomable look in his eyes. 

Suddenly, his older brother’s face was inches from Cole’s, and they stared at each other for what could have been a long time. 

“I won’t lie to you,” Peter said finally. “I’ll do something much better. I’ll forgive you.”

“For—give?” Cole’s head was throbbing so much he could barely think straight.

“Yes. I forgive you, Cole. For everything. I hope you can forgive me, too.”

Straightening back up, Peter took a deep breath of the night air. “Now it’s time for me to go. No need to get up, Cole.”

Turning, he strolled out of Cole’s blurred line of sight.

With a huge effort, Cole fought his way to a sitting position, looking after his brother. The tall man had only walked a few steps away.

“Peter, what–” Cole searched desperately for words. “Where are you going?”

Turning, Peter grinned at his half-prostrate brother. It was the old grin, the real one, the mischievous, infuriating smile that had lured Cole into so many wild adventures.

“Back to where I came from…gotta plane to catch. Remember what I said. Don’t forget.”

And then he spun and was gone into the darkness.

Holding his head, Cole made his way slowly to his feet, using the tall stone Peter had sat on as a support.

Remember what I said. Don’t forget.

What had he said? Cole’s head was so fuzzy from the fall he could barely remember. Then the words returned to him.

I forgive you, Cole. For everything.

His knees gave way beneath Cole and he sank to the ground, wrapping his arms around the stone for something to hold onto. His shoulders began to shake, and hot tears burned trails down his face.

Peter forgave him. He forgave him for everything. Cole sobbed on his knees in the dark as memories poured through his mind.

The argument a few feet from where he crouched. The razor-edged words, the sudden coming to blows. A struggle, the two of them falling in a jumble of thrashing limbs.

Then, the crack of bone snapping, and the sudden, awful limpness of Peter. Of his entire body.

“Oh god, oh god, Peter,” Cole sobbed, gripping the smooth-sided stone tightly to him. “I’m so sorry, Peter. Oh god, I’m so, so sorry.”

I forgive you, Cole. For everything.

Blinded by tears, Cole couldn’t read the words carved on the tall headstone in the dark, but he knew what they said. They were etched into his memory forever.

PETER THOMAS EDEN

April 3, 1990-August 15, 2015

Beloved Husband, Father and Son

Gone Too Soon

THE END

Look for the next installment of Storyletter in 2 weeks.

Until then, I am,

Yours sincerely,

-Zossima Granger