Losing Hope

something with them? Well, I’m not picking them up. And I’m not hanging all your shirts back up, either.
    Anyway. I’m in your closet. On the floor. I just don’t really know what I want to say to you right now, or what I want to ask you. Of course the only question on everyone else’s mind right now is “Why did she do it?” But I’m not going to ask you why you did it for two reasons.
    1) You can’t answer me. You’re dead.
    2) I don’t know if I really care why you did it. There isn’t anything about your life that would give you a good enough reason to do what you did. And you probably already know that if you can see Mom right now. She’s completely devastated.
    You know, I never really knew what it meant to actually be devastated. I thought we were devastated after we lost Hope. What happened to her was definitely tragic for us, but the way we felt was nothing compared to how you’ve made Mom feel. She’s so incredibly devastated; she gives the word a whole new meaning. I wish the use of the word could be restricted to situations like this. It’s absurd that people are allowed to use it to describe anything other than how a mother feels when she loses her child. Because that’s the only situation in this entire world worthy of the term.
    Dammit, I miss you so much. I’m so sorry I let you down. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to see what was really going on behind your eyes every time you told me you were fine.
    So, yeah. Why, Les? Why did you do it?
    H

Chapter Two-and-three-quarters
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    Les,
    Well, congratulations. You’re pretty popular. Not only did you fill the parking lot of the funeral home with cars, but you also filled the lot next door and both churches down the street. That’s a lot of cars.
    I held it together, though; mostly for Mom’s sake. Dad looked almost as bad as Mom. The whole funeral was really weird. It made me wonder, had you died in a car wreck or from something more mainstream, would people’s reactions have been different? If you hadn’t purposely overdosed (that’s the term Mom prefers), then I think people might have been a little less weird. It was like they were scared of us, or maybe they thought purposely overdosing was contagious. They discussed it like we weren’t even in the same room. So many stares and whispers and pitiful smiles. I just wanted to grab Mom and pull her out of there and protect her from the fact that I knew she was reliving your death with every hug and every tear and every smile.
    Of course I couldn’t help but think everyone was acting like they were because they blamed us in a way. I could tell what they were thinking.
    How could a family not know this would happen?
    How could they not see the signs?
    What kind of mother is she?
    What kind of brother doesn’t notice how depressed his own twin sister is?
    Luckily, once your funeral began, everyone’s focus was momentarily taken off us and placed on the slideshow. There were a lot of pictures of you and me. You were happy in all of them. There were a lot of pictures of you and your friends, and you were happy in all of those, too. Pictures of you with Mom and Dad before the divorce; pictures of you with Mom and Brian after she remarried; pictures of you with Dad and Pamela after he remarried.
    But it wasn’t until the very last picture came up on the screen that it hit me. It was the picture of you and me in front of our old house. The one that was taken about six months after Hope went missing? You still had the bracelet on that matched the one you gave her the day she was taken. I noticed you stopped wearing it a couple of years ago, but I’ve never asked about it. I know you don’t really like to talk about her.
    Anyway, back to the picture. I had my arm around your neck and we were both laughing and smiling at the camera. It’s the same smile you flashed in all the other pictures. It got me to thinking about how every picture I’ve ever seen of you; you have that same exact, identical smile. There isn’t a single picture of you with a frown on your face. Or a scowl. Or a blank expression. It’s like you spent your whole life trying to keep up this false appearance. For whom, I don’t know. Maybe you were scared that a camera would permanently capture an honest feeling of yours. Because let’s face it, you weren’t happy all the time. All those nights you cried yourself to sleep? All those nights you needed me to hold you while you cried, but you refused to tell me