Best Friend's Brother Read Online Free PDF Page B

was startled and disoriented. I sat up and looked
around and once again I had to remember that Emma was dead. It was always the
worst time of day. I looked at my mom then, surprised to see that she was
dressed and she’d done her hair. Besides the day of the funeral, it was the
first day she’d done any of that since Emma died.
    “Hey, Mom. Yeah…I’m okay. Are you okay?”
    She actually smiled. It was a genuine smile and it
made me remember how pretty she was. She reached over and touched my face and
said, “Yeah baby. I’m doing okay today. I made you some breakfast. Why don’t
you come out and eat it while it’s hot.”
    It suddenly felt strange to me for my mother to be
herself again…almost. I got up and washed my face and went out to find she’d
made me boiled eggs and turkey bacon and she had even juiced some vegetables
for me and made me a drink. “Wow Mom, you didn’t have to do all of this.”
    “I know, but I needed to. You’ve been taking care of
us all week. It’s time for me to remember that I’m still a mother.” I went over
and hugged her. She hugged me back tight and said, “Things aren’t ever going to
be the same, Ian…I’m sorry. But I’ll do my best to make sure they’re not always
so weird.”
    I laughed and said, “Weird is what we do best around
here anyways, isn’t it?”
    She poked me in the ribs and dried the tears that
had started to spill again. “Eat your breakfast,” was all she said. I ate and
watched her go through the motions of her day. I knew she was trying and that
warmed my heart and made me feel sad at the same time. After breakfast I went
for a run. When I got back, Mom had left a note for me that said Uncle Brian
picked her up and she’d gone to Aunt Karen’s . My aunt
probably worried that she’d wither away without someone to nag her into eating.
That was good, now if we could just get my dad to take care of himself too. Mom’s
note said she called dad already and she would be back in the morning. The
house was even quieter then, just knowing I was alone with Emma’s memories.
After I showered I finally sat down and called Alexa. I couldn’t stop thinking
about her.
    “Hi Alexa, it’s Ian.”
    “Hi. How are you?”
    “I’m hanging in there. What about you?”
    “I’m okay,” she said. She sounded sad still. “It
comes in waves, you know. I start doing something normal and then I feel guilty
because I think, “How can I just be going on with my life when Emma’s not here
anymore?” It’s all just so weird.”
    “I feel you,” I told her. I told her about going to
the gym and leaving before I did my work out and about feeling like I should
cancel my fight.
    “No, don’t do that. Emma used to brag about you and your
fights all the time. She thought it was really cool that you did that. I don’t
think she would want you to cancel it.”
    “That’s what my aunt said. She really bragged about
me?”
    Alexa laughed. I liked the sound of it. “Yeah, she
said you were really good. She also said that you were a little bit crazy and
getting your head knocked around probably didn’t help that any.”
    I laughed too. That sounded like my sister. “I was
looking at some of her pictures last night. I found the album that she made
that was all of the two of you. You had to be around a lot when you guys were
kids. Why don’t I remember that?”
    “Maybe I’m just not that memorable,” she said.
    “I doubt that’s it,” I told her, honestly. So far, I
was finding her very memorable. “Maybe I was just too wrapped up in my own
stuff to watch my little sister grow up.”
    “Don’t do that, Ian. Don’t beat yourself up. She
loved you. She knew that if she ever needed you, all she had to do was call.”
    “Well, I’m glad she knew that, but I wish I would
have done things differently.”
    “We all do,” Alexa said. “I was supposed to go out
with her that night. I wonder sometimes if things would have been different if
I had