Every Bright and Broken Thing

Chapter Nine - Liam

The alarm on my phone jars me awake Thursday morning. Slapping at my phone until it turns off, I roll over in bed and stare up at the ceiling. My curtains are drawn shut, but a little beam light filters through.

Yawning, I kick the blanket off of me. I pull myself up and pause for a second before standing to my feet. Weighing on me is the immense responsibility of the fact that I have another day to face. I wish I was more optimistic, but I was born a chronic pessimist. I wake up every day, both my heart and head racing with anxiety, wondering how I'm going to move forward. Move on. Let go. Better yet, wondering if any of that is even possible.

What would you do, Mom?

I wish she was here. She'd know what to do. She'd have the answer. She always did. But it hurts to know that if she were here she would be devastated to see what has become of her family. To see that our home is not a home anymore and that it's almost always empty – Ezra, Dad, and I scattered to the four winds of grief. To see that there's too much distance in between who we are and who we used to be.

Grief – a creature of many faces – is always, every day changing into something different. Some days, it's like subtle sadness that kind of lingers behind my eyes. Others, it's the heaviest of weights pressing down on my shoulder and my whole body can feel it, because every part of me ends up aching and sore. Today, though, it's more like a quiet pressure that slowly builds inside my head. Almost as if my head were a balloon and the grief was the helium. And soon, if it's not contained, I might fly away and float off into the atmosphere with no way to come back down until I touch the hot light of the sun and inevitably burst. And the thing is, if that happened, I don't think I would mind it all that much.

My phone dings. I tap the screen and see that Theo texted the group chat: Guys, I have HUGE news. Let's meet after school.

Me: Lemme guess. You finally got a girl to go out with you?

Theo: Haha. Very funny. We all know I have no trouble with the ladies. But I'm serious.

Will: OK, then. Where at?

Me: Mountaintop? Stacy works tonight after school.

Jace: Sounds good to me. As long as you two keep your hands to yourselves.

Me: I make no promises.

Theo: Mountaintop it is. 4 o' clock. Be there.

I set my phone down on my nightstand and, as I grab my towel and start to get ready for the day, I wonder what Theo's big news could be.

Mountaintop is always busy after school gets out. It's every student in Summit's favorite hangout and for good reason. Every one of the creamery's ice creams is handmade. But it's not just the ice cream or the unique flavors (like root beer or pomegranate or pumpkin); it's also the smoothies and the hand-brewed lemonades.

Emilia Rivera, the owner – we call her Miss Em – is the best kind of person too. She's incredibly sweet and all the kids in town love her – she even bought some arcade games and a billiards table to put in her shop. Apparently, she came to Colorado from somewhere in Oregon with her husband, Dean. Sometimes I wonder what brought them to Summit. Nobody knows much about them except that Mr. Rivera is our Literature teacher and they go to my dad's church. I go to school with their son Logan too; we have a lot of the same classes. But all I really know about them is that they always have a lot of love to give to our small community. And this place – Mountaintop – brought a little bit of life to this dead-end town.

"So, what's the big news?" I ask, powdering the tip of my billiards stick with blue chalk. Some of it gets on my hands, so I dust them off.

"Not yet. We need to wait for Will," Theo said, bending over the table and taking the first shot. The balls go flying and two solid-colored balls collide in the same corner pocket. "Jace and I are Solids."