Under_The_Whispering_Door_by_TJ_Klune

broke their entire world apart. Bleeding in the brain, the doctor said. A
rupture. A fissure. Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.
Brain damage.
Brain damage.
Brain damage.
Cameron said, “But you can help him, right? You can fix him, right? You
can make him better, right?” He screamed and screamed, hands on his
shoulders, hands on his arms, holding him, keeping him from lunging at the
doctor, who backed away slowly.
They took Zach into surgery immediately.
He died on the operating table.
Cameron wore his finest suit to the funeral.
He made sure Zach had the same.
A choir sang a hymn of light and wonder, of God and His divine plan, and
Wallace screamed in his head, but not as himself. As Cameron, shrieking
silently for this all to be a dream, that it couldn’t be real. Wake up! Cameron
bellowed in his head. Please, wake up!
The priest spoke of pain and grief, that we can never understand why
someone so full of life could be taken so soon, but that God never gave us
more than what he thought we could handle.
Everyone cried.
Cameron didn’t.
Oh, he tried. He tried to force the tears, tried to force himself to feel
anything but the numbing, encroaching cold.
The casket was open.
He couldn’t look at the body that lay inside.
“Are you sure?” a friend asked him. “Don’t you want to go say goodbye
before…” Her words cut off in a wet choke.
Cameron stood next to a hole in the ground as the same priest droned on
and on about God and His plans and the mysterious, unknowing world. He
watched as Zach was lowered into that hole, and still he felt nothing but cold.
It was all he knew, and no matter what Wallace did, no matter how hard he
tried, he couldn’t chase the cold away.
People stayed the night with him. For weeks on end, he wasn’t alone.
They said, “Cameron, you need to eat.”
They said, “Cameron, you need to shower.”