Page 65 of PS: I Hate You
And now I feel like a garbage person. Apparently, that bitch zombie virus is still pumping strong through my veins.
The Perry parents are kind and loving, but this isn’t the first time I’ve thought they put too much responsibility on their eldest son’s shoulders. Dom may be nine years older than Adam and Carter, butthat still means he was onlyninewhen they expected him to start helping out.
If it weren’t for Josh and Rosaline nudging Dom out of his responsible shell, I’m not sure the guy would’ve gotten much of a childhood.
“I’m sorry.” That was easier to say than I thought, so I keep going, sharing my thoughts in a normal volume instead of yelling like before. “That makes sense. And I shouldn’t have shamed you about what you were eating. That was shitty of me. I just…”I’m just projecting my insecurities onto you.But I don’t say that. “I just think you should make choices for yourself now. Do what makes you happy. Eat the food you like. Don’t make yourself hungry.”
Silence falls between us for a stretch, probably because Dom is so shocked that I willingly apologized to him. Maybe he’s wondering if I’m experiencing heatstroke.
“Are you thirsty?” he asks. The question sounds like a peace offering.
I hold out my hand and a moment later he hands me the nozzle.
Once more, the lukewarm liquid hits the spot, and I make the mistake of peeking over the top of my sunglasses in time to spy Dom’s smile. The expression almost looks satisfied.
Probably because he sees this as doing his duty for my brother. Making sure I don’t perish on any of these postmortem missions.
Reminded of Josh’s request, I slip my phone out of my back pocket, and I keep slurping Dom’s water supply as I hold up the phone in selfie mode and snap a quick picture of us.
Happy, Josh? There’s a cactus over my shoulder and we kind of look friend-adjacent in this one. Is that what you wanted?
I keep the snarky comments toward my brother to myself and give Dom back his hose.
“The letter said we should share regrets, too,” I say.
All the stories we told so far were funny ones.
Dom’s smile becomes subdued but doesn’t disappear completely. “He did, didn’t he?”
I nod. “I regret not…” The words I meant to say fade into silence, as if speaking them will reveal how terrible of a sister I was.
My silence lingers past the point of comfort.
“I regret not going with him when he asked.”
Dom’s admission pulls me out of my struggling thoughts. I stare up at him while he gazes out at the expanse of land littered with cacti.
“Going with him where?”
“Anywhere. Everywhere.” Dom rubs a hand over the back of his neck in a rough gesture. I can feel the frustration and regret rolling off him. “He’d invite me on trips all the time. Told me the invitation was open. I never went. Work kept me busy, but I could’ve taken time off. I always thought…”
The pain in his voice guts me because it’s a reflection of my own.
“You always thought there’d be more time.” I finish the statement for him with the same reasoning I used myself whenever I turned down one of my brother’s invites.
The future always seemed to stretch out in an unending road before me. Maybe Josh sensed the end of his life was closer than most others. And that’s why he did as much as he could with the time he had.
More, I guess. If we count the ashes in my bag as him reaching farther than the limits of death.
“Exactly.” Dom does a slow turn, taking in the town that also manages to live on after its demise.
When the silence goes on for longer than it needs to, I worry that Dom has fallen down a mental rabbit hole of despair. The same one I practically live in. It’s a dark place that as few people as possible should have to deal with. Which is why I break the stale air with an inappropriate comment.
“Josh had terrible table manners.”
Maybe it would have been fair to share a regret. To expose my pain the way Dom did.
But I want to laugh again.