His throat and gut begin to ache. He can’t go any closer, can’t move.
Because Shaun is standing there.
Ré’s heart becomes a fist, becomes a flannel shirt dripping blood. Tears sting his eyes. He wants to wake up, but he thinks this might not be a dream. It might be a memory. The part he can’t recall. The part he cut off so it wouldn’t rot the rest.
Something grazes his arm, and Ré jumps. It touches his other side, nudging him toward the blue light.
Shaun is backlit, his long hair a golden halo over broad shoulders. He’s wearing his leather jacket, hands at his sides, feet a little apart. He looks ready to fight, but Ré won’t fight him. Can’t fight him. Never again.
“Réal,” he drawls out slow, his voice honey-gold and friendly. “What’s up, bro?”
Ré can’t see his face in the shadows, but his memory of it flickers in the dark—the broken jaw, teeth knocked out, eyes of pale-blue wax. “Shaun?” Ré says, but his voice breaks. He teeters on his legs like they’re new. “Is this real? Am I dreaming?”
Shaun laughs, lifting his shoulders lightly. “You tell me, man.”
Ré blinks at him, tears catching in his voice. “Shaun, I am so sorry. I never wanted this to happen.”
“Nah,” Shaun says, “we’re cool, Ré.” He runs a hand through his long hair, pulling it back. Ré can see the line of his jaw where the arc light touches it. It makes the same shape it always did, not broken at all, his teeth all where they should be, the shoes still on his feet.
Ré asks, “Are you okay? Are you…alive?”
Shaun thinks about it a long time, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t know,” he says. “Are you?”
Ré breathes out, heart dropping through his chest. He doesn’t know either. Can’t tell if he’s alive—if this is a dream, a memory, or some kind of purgatory, a place where his sins still live. He says, “Shaun, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want any of this to happen. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. You gotta believe me.”
Shaun stares at him, saying nothing. Ré can almost see his sea-blue eyes working in the darkness. The weight of them pressing down so hard Ré can hardly breathe.
Then Shaun steps forward. Réal braces for the blow, for what he’s earned. He squeezes his eyes shut. Shaun puts his hand on Ré’s shoulder, making him flinch. “Ré,” he says, voice close and low. “It’s okay, man. Let it go.” He gives Ré’s shoulder a squeeze.
Ré’s eyes flutter open, confused.
In the distance, a train whistle howls. It sounds mournful, lonesome, but Ré can hear along the tracks that it’s coming fast. He swallows at the lump in his throat. He puts his hand down over Shaun’s. “I love you, brother,” he says, voice shaking.
Shaun grins, his bottom lip sliding up to touch his perfect teeth. He squeezes Ré’s shoulder again.
The train whistle blows closer. Shaun looks toward it, his focus drawn away, and Ré can see now that he is bleeding from a deep cut on his temple, that the side of his face, his hair, is painted sticky red. Suddenly Ré can smell the stink of alcohol on him, a heavy, sweet, sweating smell, like he’s been drinking for hours. Ré is confused—the smell wasn’t there a second ago. “Shaun?” he says.
But Shaun has turned toward the tracks. Ré sees a shape lying in the ties. A skateboard. Shaun is heading for it, stumbling, arms held out for balance. Even in the dark, Ré can see that Shaun is trashed. He’s muttering to himself as he staggers back over the rails.
This isn’t the Shaun he’s just been talking to, not sure if he’s alive or dead.
It’s the real Shaun, from that night.
Around the bend to Ré’s right, the brilliant white light of a freight train appears.
“Shaun!” he shouts. “Get out of there!”
But Shaun doesn’t hear. He trips over the rails, swearing, and staggers ahead.
Ré is stunned. He’s never seen his best friend so graceless, so literally falling-down drunk. He’s seen Shaun wasted before, acting like an idiot, having a laugh. He’s never seen him acting like his mother—so trashed he doesn’t seem to know where he is.
Shaun is so focused on the skateboard, he doesn’t notice the train, or maybe he doesn’t care. Playing chicken. Invincible. Ré’s seen him do it before, laughing his damn head off. But this is no joke. Shaun can barely stand up.
“Shaun!” Réal screams, almost pissing himself, eyes darting from him to the massive black engine, the distance between them diminishing too fast. His heart falls through his shoes, his fists balled tight as hammers.
Shaun seems to wake up too late. He staggers back as the train bears down, dumb surprise all over his face. The engine hits the skateboard first, exploding it into a thousand pieces, and then it hits Shaun and does the same, throwing his body all the way back to the corrugated fence, a hundred yards away.
Ré squeezes his eyes shut, and his knees melt out from under him.
Hit by the night train to Belleville.
Not eaten. Not Black Chuck.
Ré buries his face in his hands.
Shaun was family. His pale fraternal twin. He used to cross these tracks to Ré’s every time he had a need for getting lost, like whenever his mom was home. Shaun and Ré knew these tracks, like the veins under their skin. They’d never once come close to real danger, even when they were little and their legs could only take them so fast.
But seeing him drunk like that—it was like Alex telling him Shaun was prospecting for Satan’s Own. Ré didn’t know that guy. That wasn’t his brother.
Réal feels the distance between them all now, him and Shaun and Alex. Even Sunny, even Evie. He feels a void opening, feels himself falling in: they can never go back. Nights laughing in Nan’s front room. Fireworks from the Grains. High school. Who they used to be.
