A year has passed. Twelve months, three hundred and sixty-five days — and yet it seems to me that it was this morning.
I stand in front of his stone and I don't know what to say. I always knew what I would say to Ryan. Even when we argued, even when I was so angry I couldn't look at him—the words were always there. And now? Now there is a stone between us and I have nothing.
I place the flowers I brought—white roses, because he loved them—slowly by the base. My hands are cold even though it's September and the sun is still warm. This kind of coldness comes from within, it doesn't go away just because the day is nice.
Ryan Michael Torres. I wish I could say that these letters are just letters. That a stone is just a stone. But every time I read them, something inside me tightens as if I were reading them for the first time. I was hoping it would be a mistake when I heard the news a year ago, that it would be different and that it wouldn't actually be my brother. But it is mine.
I knelt down in pain. The grass is damp with the morning dew and I feel a cool touch through my pants, but I don't care. I cupped the edge of the stone with my palms and closed my eyes.
"A year has passed," I whisper. "I thought it would get easier. Everyone says it gets easier but they're lying. I've learned to pretend better, that's all."
The wind blew through the trees and blew my words away before they got anywhere.
"I miss your voice. I miss how you always knew when I was sick before I knew it. I miss your stupid music at five in the morning and how you always left cups everywhere." My voice cracks halfway through that sentence. "I miss everything. Even those stupid cups."
I didn't cry at the funeral. I stood straight in a black dress that I don't remember buying and watched people pass by the coffin in which lay the only person in this world who mattered to me, and he also left me. I was completely empty inside, like a room from which all the furniture had been removed. Only the walls remain.
I only cried here. Only in front of him. Because he's the only one I didn't have to be 'good' in front of.
The tears come quietly, without warning, and as always, I quickly wipe them away. A habit.
✦ ✦ ✦
I don't know how long I stayed. Longer than I planned — that's always the case. I come with the intention of staying fifteen minutes and then spend hours talking to a piece of stone as if I was waiting for it to answer me. That he just pops out of nowhere and hugs me tightly while saying that he's right there with me, that this is all just a bad dream. But it's not, and I know it well.
The sun was starting to set when I finally got up. My knees hurt. I looked at him one last time. "Take care," I say. "Wherever you are."
I turned to leave.
And then I saw him.
A man was standing leaning against a black car parked on the path that runs along the fence of the cemetery. A dark suit, perfectly tailored. Hands in pockets. He wasn't looking at me—but there was something about the way he stood and looked off into the distance.
I didn't recognize him right away.
Then his eyes fell on me.
It was Damien Voss.
It's been almost four years since I last saw him. He was different then — younger, less cold.... Then he actually looked like a living man full of dreams, desired company and joy, and now.... The sharp features that had always been there are now something else. Something that left no room for the warmth that used to be there, somewhere behind the eyes, the moment he would smile.
Now the eyes were as cold as a November morning and they looked at me as if assessing me. My legs carried me forward even though my brain didn't give the order. I stopped two meters from him.
"What are you doing here?"
My voice came out flatter than I expected. Good.
He didn't answer right away.
He separated from the car slowly, without haste, as if he had all the time in the world. He took a step closer and stopped. He looked at me the way you look at something you've been looking for, for a long time—not with tenderness, but with attention. It's like he's making sure that what he's seeing is real.
"Mia," he said.
Just my name. But there was so much in that one voice—something I couldn't name and didn't want to try.
"I'm not asking you my name. I'm asking you what you're doing here." A hint of something—perhaps appreciation, perhaps nothing—passed through his expression.
"I came to talk."
"There's nothing to talk about. You're nothing to me."
"I wasn't," he said in a low voice with a slightly sad face, looking away from me again into the distance. "I am now, but that will soon change."
Something about the way he said it stopped me in my tracks. I was confused. It's as if he's saying something that was decided a long time ago, only I wasn't informed.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He pulled out a folded document from his inner pocket and handed it to me. I didn't want him to take it—as if I knew something would change as soon as I looked at that paper. But my hands were faster. I unfolded the paper.
It took me a while to understand what I was reading. The words were legal, formal, written in small print. But the meaning was clear.
Ryan Torres.
Debt.
The amount hit me like a slap in the face.
And the signature.
Ryan's signature, which I would have recognized even in my sleep.
"Ryan owed money," Damien said from behind me. He said it indifferently, without emotion, as if he were reading the weather forecast. "The contract was clear. If the debt is not paid within the deadline, the debt is transferred to the closest family member."
I turned around. "Transmitting?" I heard myself — how my voice remained quiet, calm, even though something started to burn inside. "What does that mean? You don't expect me to pay for all this do you?!"
He looked me straight in the eyes. "That mean that from today you are mine Mia. Like it or not, you are mine until this debt is repaid."
Silence fell between us like a knife.
Somewhere far away, a car passed on the road. The wind moved the branches of the tree above Ryan's grave and a white petal fell from the rose I had brought. She fell slowly, in a spiral, and landed on the wet grass.
I looked at Damien and felt something I couldn't name—it wasn't just anger, it wasn't just fear. It was a mixture of everything and there was a voice whispering that this couldn't be real.
But he was standing before me, in a black suit, with a document bearing Ryan's signature, and his eyes were cold and sure. And I knew it was real.
"Ryan's debt is not my responsibility."
"By contract — it is."
"I can't accept that contract. He signed it, not me."
"He signed it as your guardian. You were nineteen when the contract was signed. It's all legal." A little break. "Mia."
I froze the way he said my name. Like it belongs to him.
"You know who you were to me?" I asked. My voice was quieter than I wanted—but sharper. "Ryan's friend. The man who brought him into 'this world'. Who left him behind.He's dead because of you." My voice breaks on the last word and I hate myself for it. "And now you come here, on the anniversary of his murder, to tell me this? That you put him on paper, you whom he looked upon as his own brother?" My tears came by themselves, it was stronger than me. "You disgust me."
Something passed through his expression. Fast—so fast I'm not sure I saw it.
"The car is parked here." His voice was flat again, cold, closed. "I'll drive you."
"I'm not going anywhere with you."
"You didn't understand." He took another step towards me and put his fist around my neck pulling me towards him. He was close enough now that I could feel his breath and see the exact color of his eyes—dark gray, like the sky before a storm. "It's not a question. The document you hold in your hands is legally binding. You can call a lawyer, you can call the police, but at the end of the day — the result will be the same."
I watched him. He was looking at me.
"I hate you," I said quietly.
"I know, and I'm fine with that," he replied and headed for the car.
I stood and looked after him and then I turned and looked at Ryan's grave. A white petal on wet grass. And then — hating myself for it, hating him even more — I went after him.
✦