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Ezra laughs, but it quickly falls away, replaced by a sad smile. “He loved you, you know. He always talked about you, and he didn’t give a shit if it gave me a hard time or not. Every time you passed an exam or had some kind of grand adventure, he’d boast about it to everyone for days.”
I smile. “He was my best friend.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry about how all of that went down, with the funeral and all. We should have fought harder for what Axel would have wanted. You shouldn’t have found out the way you did, and I shouldn’t have allowed the label to turn his funeral into a performance. He deserved better.”
I nod in agreement. “He did.”
“And you do too,” he says, a heaviness in his eyes.
My brows furrow, and I put my noodles down as I hold his stare. “What are you talking about?”
“Axel’s death. You deserve to know how it happened.”
My stare hardens. “I do know how it happened,” I say, so sure of myself. “It was when you were on the jet coming back from Australia, right? I was talking to him on the phone, and I’d slipped up and almost told him about Dad, and he was angry because I kept shrugging it off and wouldn’t tell him what was going on. That’s when he overdosed, right? He figured out what had happened to me and was trying to numb the pain. It’s all because of me. It’s my fault. I opened my mouth and now my brother’s dead, and all this time I’ve blamed you, but it’s me. I killed my brother.”
“No,” he rushes out, moving in beside me. “This is what I’m trying to tell you. It wasn’t an overdose at all. The media got ahold of the toxicology report, made their own assumptions, and ran with it. Yes, Axel had taken drugs the night before, but not enough that he was struggling. He was fine on the jet.”
“What are you talking about? I saw the toxicology report. He was strung out on something.”
He shakes his head. “He wasn’t, Rae,” he says, that heaviness still right there, warning me that whatever he’s about to say, I’m not going to like it. “After he spoke to you on the phone, he told me he was going to visit you. He said you were having a hard time and all you needed was to see him in person. He wanted to know what was eating you up, make you smile, and then he was going to head back in time for the European leg of the tour.”
“No. He never came to see me.”
“I know,” he says. “We touched down in LA, and then he went home to pack some things, and on the drive back to the airport, there was an accident. His driver swerved off the road and he was killed on impact.”
“What?” I breathe, shaking my head as I stare at Ezra like a complete stranger. “No. That’s not it. That couldn’t be it.”
Killed on impact. Just like my mother.
“I’m sorry, Rae.”
“He was going to see me?”
He nods.
“Holy fuck,” I breathe, getting to my feet as the tears roll down my cheeks. “So either way, he died because of me? Because I almost told him about Dad? Because I opened my fucking mouth when I vowed to never tell either of you. I did this. He’s dead because of me.”
“No,” Ezra rushes out, moving in front of me and taking my hands. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew that beautiful brain of yours would lead you down this path, but you can’t look at it this way. You didn’t kill your brother by sharing part of your life with him. It’s just like saying he killed himself for caring about you. It’s not true, and I don’t want to hear you saying that shit. He would hate it. Axel was run off the road by an animal who darted out into the middle of the street. It was a tragic accident that has no place falling on your shoulders. You hear me, Raleigh? This is not on you.”
He crushes me to his chest, holding me tight as the grief washes over me.
No matter how I look at it, animal on the road or not, I did this.
I slipped up in a moment of anger and said something I shouldn’t have.
He was in that car because of me.
My brother is dead, and it’s all on me.
28
Raleigh
Soft strumming of an acoustic guitar fills the night, and I open my eyes to Ezra’s bedroom, the clock on the wall telling me it’s only three in the morning. I peer down the bed, following the soft music to find him sitting on the ground at the end of the bed, just like he always used to do.
He stops playing to jot something down in a notepad, and a smile pulls at my lips. He’s writing.
Pride fills my chest. Dylan mentioned one night while on tour that Ezra hadn’t written over the past two years. He couldn’t find his muse, but now that I’m back in his life, the words are flowing once again.
