It had been three days, three awful, nightmarish days since it had happened, since Bradley had been snatched out of their lives. Everything had seemed to move in slow motion during those days. Ashley wouldn’t leave Nick, wouldn’t leave the refuge that he provided for her or the temporary comfort that his arms brought. She hadn’t been out of his sight for three days. If she awoke from sleep and couldn’t find Nick a terrible fear seemed to overtake her and he could hear her call out his name from whatever room of the house he was in. They spent the days together as well as the nights, Nick seeking as much comfort from her as he was giving to her.
Preston hadn’t been able to leave New York until the morning of the funeral. He had called Nick’s house several times and Ashley spoke to him only for a few moments each time, quickly handing the phone back to Nick when her tears would start again. Nick wished Preston would stay in New York. He had loathed the tone that Ashley’s fiancé used when talking to him and he’d prefer it if Preston didn’t call at all. His calls weren’t doing Ashley any good and Nick didn’t see their point.
On the morning of the funeral, Nick walked through the kitchen towards the stairs as he unsuccessfully attempted to knot his tie. No matter how old he got, Nick could never get his ties to look right. Maybe it was because he didn’t wear them that often, but whatever the cause, they always wound up looking out of proportion. He approached the bottom of the stairs and called, “Brown Eyes, are you about ready? The limo’s been out front for about five minutes.”
“I’ll be right down,” Ashley called from Nick’s bedroom. She was so close to him, but the sound in her voice was so far away. Everything about her was distant now and Nick didn’t know how to reach the part of her that had retreated from reality. She appeared at the top of the stairs dressed in the simple short black dress and suit jacket that Laurel had brought over the day before along with a few more articles of Ashley’s clothing. Her chestnut hair fell softly about her face and the deep brown pools of her eyes mirrored all of the pain that Nick knew she was harboring in her heart. “Ready?’ Nick spoke softly as she made her way down the stairs to meet him. Ashley nodded, her gaze averting from Nick’s eyes to his tie. She reached out automatically and untied it. Nick lifted his chin so she could have better access and in a matter of seconds she had it neatly knotted and lying flat against his chest. Ashley buttoned his suit jacket over it and patted his chest gently.
“You never could knot your tie. Even when wardrobe people dress you, you have to mess with it and then somebody has to come back and fix it again,” she recalled quietly.
Nick picked her hand up off of his chest and kissed it softly, “How’d you get so good at it anyways?”
“I had to teach my brother,” her eyes clouded over and her voice got even softer than it had been before.
“Come here,” Nick whispered, pulling her against him and tangling his fingers in her hair, “You can say his name, you know? We can’t forget what it sounds like.”
She nodded against his chest and then pulled away, wiping at her eyes, “We should go. You said the limo’s been waiting.”
“Yep,” Nick glanced at his watch, “The service doesn’t start for another hour but we’ve got a half hour drive ahead of us.”
Ashley let Nick lead her to the front door and outside to where the limo was waiting. She sat close next to him in the limo, her head resting against his shoulder. Neither of them spoke and Ashley watched the scenery whisk by the limo’s tinted black windows. Her mind played through the exhausting and agonizing pain of the last few days. She hadn’t seen or spoken to her parents since that night. Nick had taken phone calls from her father who informed them when the memorial service and burial were going to be held. Nick had taken Preston’s phone calls as well. Had handed the pone to her when she could find her voice and made excuses for her when there was no voice to be found.
Ashley would see Preston at the funeral for the first time since it had happened. Preston would expect her to stay with him and not Nick. She would go from Nick’s warm embrace to Preston’s awkward hugs. She would miss looking into Nick’s eyes every morning when she woke up and would hate the emptiness that the bed at Preston’s house would provide. She didn’t really care though because nothing was worth caring about. Whether Ashley was with Preston or Nick was futile now. Her brother was gone and she would never get him back.
Every time Ashley closed her eyes she could see Bradley. Visions of him would swim through her mind’s eye, as she would desperately try to wipe them away. They would attack at her conscience and eat at her heart until she thought she would die from the agony that they brought. They were once cherished memories, ones that Ashley thought she would never want to forget, but were hurting her more now than she ever could have imagined. Now they were all that she had left. She would dream at night and wake up, her face covered in tears and her body enfolded safely in Nick’s arms. The feel of Nick covering her hand with his and squeezing it softly interrupted Ashley’s thoughts. She glanced up to meet his eyes as he traced her cheek gently with his other hand. The look in his eyes spoke more than a thousand words. He placed a gentle kiss against the top of her head and wrapped an arm securely around her shoulders. A memory flooded back to Ashley as she looked at him.
“Do you remember when Bradley was just a baby, when he was about six months old and my parents were away?”
Nick nodded.
“I remember you coming over to our house to play and I told my nanny that you and I would watch Bradley and that she didn’t have to worry about him. We decided to play house: you were the daddy and I was the mommy and my brother was our baby. We were having so much fun and then Bradley needed his diaper changed…”
“And you told me that I had to do it because that’s what daddies did, but I had never changed a diaper before,” a smile formed on Nick’s face. “Right and when you opened up that diaper we found out that Bradley had really done a number in it.”
“The smell was so bad I thought I was going to throw up. His whole butt was covered in shit.”
“I handed you a diaper and told you that it was still your job and while you were trying to hold him still to fold up the old diaper he squirmed away from you and…”
“Got poop all over the white carpet,” Nick laughed, finishing the sentence for her.
“That wasn’t the worst part though. Remember, he went to the bathroom again while we were trying to figure out what to do? I’ll never forget the look on your face. You said that you weren’t going to have kids if they went to the bathroom,” Ashley laughed and instantly covered her mouth, her eyes filling with tears.
Nick pried her hand away from her mouth, “Just because Bradley’s gone doesn’t mean we can’t laugh anymore. He would want us to laugh; you know he would. It was a happy memory and there are still more happy memories that we’ll have even though Bradley’s not here. You can’t stop laughing, Brown Eyes. You can’t stop living.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Nick. I just want to forget. I just want to get this over with,” her voice grew low. Her mind drifted back to the memory though, “Do you still not want to have kids, Nicky?”
“I want a whole houseful of kids now. Poop and all,” Nick answered honestly.
Ashley averted her gaze out the window to where they were beginning to approach the church. She spoke so softly that Nick could barely hear her,
“Preston doesn’t want to have babies.”
“You didn’t tell me that. When did he tell you this?” Nick put his finger under her chin and forced her to meet his eyes.
“I don’t know. Maybe a couple of weeks ago.”
Nick felt rage swell inside of him, “You’ve always wanted kids, Ashley. Ever since we were little kids you’ve talked about it. Don’t let him take that away from you.”
“Look at what happened to my brother, Nick. I don’t want that to happen to any of my children. I don’t want to experience this pain again. I’ll be fine without having babies,” Ashley lied. The limo came to a stop in front of the church. Ashley saw her fiancé standing on the steps waiting for her as people filed in, “There’s Preston.”
Before Nick could respond, the driver had come around to open the door and Ashley put one leg out and then the other as she climbed from the long black limousine. Preston met her immediately and took her up into his arms. “Darling, I came straight from the airport. It was the most horrible flight. I had to sit in coach because it was the only flight that I could get this morning,” Preston kissed her forehead and pulled back, holding her at arms’ length to look at her, “You look ragged. Haven’t you had any sleep?”
Ashley looked up at him, at the man she was supposed to marry in two weeks, and saw no compassion in his eyes, no tenderness or love or even grief over the loss of her brother, “Not very much, Preston. My brother died three days ago. That’s why we’re here at this church.”
“You don’t think I recognize that fact? You don’t need to get smart with me, damn it. Just because you’ve lost your brother you don’t have the right to sass me,” Preston admonished.
Ashley’s eyes turned downward, “I’m sorry. You’re right. I just haven’t had much sleep and I’m irritable.”
“Yes, well, I think that living with Nick for three days would do that to you,” Preston stated coolly, picking an imaginary piece of lint off of his designer tie.
Ashley glanced over and looked at Nick standing at the top of the church’s steps with Howie. She looked at his tie, remembered the imperfection of it before she’d knotted it for him. She glanced back down to Preston’s tie and searched for flaws but found none. It was the same with Preston’s vices, with his own imperfections. None could be read on the outside because his appearance gave away nothing. Ashley would never be able to help him with his weaknesses, would never be able to balance out his negatives with her own positives.
Nick, on the other hand, hid nothing. Ashley loved Nick, loved him even with his crooked tie, even with his imperfections and his faults. She met his eyes and his mouth curved up in a half smile. Nick righted all of her wrongs, strengthened all of her weaknesses. Ashley would never be able to pay him back for the role he had played in her life. True, Nick couldn’t cook- he couldn’t even make toast- his dogs peed all over his house, he tended to forget things, he was gone nine months out of the year, he wasn’t the best housekeeper, and was kind of a reckless driver, but when he smiled at her, when he looked into her eyes, when his arms found their way around her, everything was perfect.
Ashley’s attention averted back to Preston, who was still speaking to her. This was the man she was going to marry. She would give up Nick to spend the rest of her life with Preston, because it hurt too much to love someone and have them taken away or leave or die, like her brother did. Ashley would resign herself to living a life with Preston without children, without the risk of being hurt again.
She was snapped out of her thoughts by Preston’s harsh tones, “Are you hearing anything that I’m saying?”
“What? I’m sorry. I was just thinking. Maybe we should head on into the church.”
Nick had already made his way inside and was standing with Brian, Howie, Kristen, and Leighanne by the time Ashley made it into the sanctuary. Leighanne saw her and rushed forward wrapping her up in a hug. Brian’s wife pulled away and looked at her closely, “How are you doing, sweetie?”
“She’s fine,” Preston interjected, “and if she’s not, she’ll get over it. It’s life.”
Leighanne was immediately taken aback by his comment. She glanced at the rest of them who were staring at Preston with their mouths hanging open. Nick felt himself seethe with anger. No one spoke. Ashley hung her head and looked at the ground.
Unfazed, Preston spoke, “We should go find your parents, darling. It was nice seeing all of you.”
They all watched Preston lead her away, none of them missing the tears that slipped from her eyes and down her cheeks. The only one that didn’t notice was her fiancé.
Kristen was the first one to find his voice again, “How can one person be that heartless?”
“Who’s heartless?” Kevin asked as he, Claudia, A.J., and Amanda joined them.
“Who do you think?” Brian nodded in to where Preston and Ashley stood with Mr. and Mrs. Kelly. He related Preston’s words to their friends that had just walked up.
“Is she still going to go through with the wedding?” A.J. inquired. They all looked to Nick expectantly.
Nick shrugged his shoulders, an unreadable look in his eyes, “I don’t know. She would barely even talk to him on the phone over the past three days.”
“I for one don’t think she’s in any condition to get married in two weeks,” Claudia declared.
“She’s not,” Nick’s voice was so quiet they barely heard him. The look on Nick’s friends’ faces grew sympathetic. His unspoken concern and care for her screamed out in his every action and word.
“How’s she held up these past few days, Nicky?” Howie asked. Nick’s eyes looked up towards the ceiling as he spoke, “She doesn’t eat, she can’t sleep and when she does she has these horrible nightmares. She wouldn’t let me leave her sight even for a few minutes, but she won’t talk to me about it. She won’t tell me what I can do or what I can’t do to help her and that’s all I want. I want to help her. Why doesn’t she see that? Why won’t she let me? Why? Why does she turn to him and not to me?” His eyes frantically searched the people surrounding him, looking for an answer that none of them had. Organ music swelled throughout the church and people around them began to take seats.
“Come on, Frack. Let’s sit down. Things will work out. You’ve got to have faith that they will,” Brian steered his best friend towards a pew a couple of rows back from Ashley.
The funeral was the most painful and gut-wrenching experience of Nick’s life. He’d never known he could feel so much grief over one person. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to the front of the sanctuary to look in the casket at Bradley. He’d caught sight of the mahogany casket as they’d made their way into the church and had felt as if he might be sick. It was so small. It wasn’t right that caskets could even be made that small because the dead that went in them had barely even lived. Nick glanced around the church his eyes falling on the rows filled with kids that he assumed were in Bradley’s class at school. They looked so out of place and it broke Nick’s heart to see them experience something like this at such a young age. He couldn’t see Mr. and Mrs. Kelly’s faces, but saw Mrs. Kelly’s back shaking softly as she cried.
The service seemed to go on for hours, but in reality was only forty-five minutes. Nick didn’t think he could take much more and knew, as he watched Ashley from behind that she wouldn’t be handle this for much longer either. He wished that he were the one sitting next to her and consoling her. Not Preston, who really wasn’t doing much consoling in the first place. More organ music echoed throughout the church as the service ended. Nick immediately stood and without talking to his friends, started directly up the center aisle walking against the flow of people that were making their way out of the church. Not a face that he passed was absent of tears. Nick’s eyes focused on where he was walking to and when he stopped a couple of feet before it. He stared at the casket, knowing that he couldn’t leave the church without saying goodbye one last time. Slowly, Nick stepped up to where Ashley’s little brother lay. He closed his eyes and looked down, gradually opening them, praying with everything inside of him that he wouldn’t see Bradley in the casket. The inevitable occurred, though. Death was final and no matter what Nick prayed, Bradley couldn’t be brought back to them.
Nick stared at the little boy in the casket, taking in his every feature. This wasn’t the little boy that had begged to play Dreamcast and eat pizza at midnight. Nick didn’t know who it was, but it certainly couldn’t be the little boy that had been so alive and vibrant less than a week ago. Nick felt someone walk up beside. Without looking over, he knew it was Ashley by the scent of her delicate perfume. She groped for his hand as her eyes took in the sight before them. Nick squeezed her hand tightly, finding it to be as cold as his own. Neither of them spoke, both unbelieving and unwilling to admit that this was all very real. They were oblivious to the eyes of their friends and family standing behind them, watching intently. Ashley’s weak whisper finally broke the silence that had developed between them, “Tell me it’s not him, Nicky. Say that it’s not Bradley.” Nick felt something break down inside of him at her desperate request. Sobs took over his body as he crushed her in his arms. Ashley returned Nick’s embrace feeling all hope seep out of her and tears shake her slight frame. She gripped the lapels of his suit coat in her fists as their anguish poured out against each other.
Behind them, tears formed in the eyes of everyone watching. Leighanne reached for Brian, feeling her heart break.
“Why is this happening? Why is nothing right for either of them?” Leighanne whispered looking up at Brian to find his eyes filled with tears.
Brian wrapped his arms around her, “I don’t know, baby. God’s got a plan and He’s doing it all for a reason that none of us know.”
They turned back to the scene before them. Brian held his breath as he watched Preston step forward to touch his fiancé’s shoulder. Slowly, Ashley pulled away from Nick, not able to meet her best friend’s eyes. Nick turned away, as Preston led Ashley away from the casket. The Kelly’s and Vanderbilt’s filed out of the church along with Preston and Ashley. Kevin walked slowly up to the altar where Nick was now standing by himself. Placing a hand in the middle of the younger man’s, Kevin spoke, “Come on, pal. We better get to the cemetery.”
Nick didn’t speak, just followed his friends silently out of the church. Twenty minutes later they stood on the green lawn of the cemetery, all of them bathed in the brilliant Florida sunshine. They watched as the casket was carried across to the burial plot. There had never been a more silent moment in all of their lives. No one spoke as the casket was placed over the hole that had already been dug in the earth. The minister’s voice eventually filled the void of sound with a prayer. Before Nick knew it everything was over. It had taken drastically less time than the service at the church. People began to slowly make their way back to their cars, including Mr. and Mrs. Kelly.
Something held Nick back, as if he were rooted to the ground he was standing on. He watched as Ashley stood over the casket once more. She brought a white rose to her lips and kissed it softly before placing it gently on top of the lid. Preston took her arm to pull her away, but Nick saw her resist. He saw the look of indignation on Preston’s face as he attempted to lead her away once more. Again, she jerked away from his touch. Not giving up, Preston tried once more, only to hear a cry rise up out of Ashley’s throat. Nick could hear her words, “I won’t leave him!”
“He’s dead! You have to face that!” Preston’s words were cold and hard. Nick forced his feet to move and he made his way to where they were standing. Ashley met his eyes, tears cascading down her cheeks, “I can’t leave him, Nicky. I won’t.”
Nick reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand, “Shhh. You’re not leaving him, Brown Eyes. He’s in Heaven and some day you’ll see him again. He’s the one that’s waiting on you now.”
Ashley gripped his arms, “But they’re going to put him in the ground, Nick. Where it’s dark. Do you remember when he was afraid of the dark? I can’t leave him alone. I can’t let them put him in the dark by himself.” Nick’s heart ached.
“This is ridiculous. Come on. We have to go,” Preston grabbed her arm roughly and began to pull her away from the casket.
In resistance, Ashley fell to the ground. Nick jerked Preston’s hand away from Ashley and dropped down beside her. Pressing his forehead to hers, Nick whispered, “It’s okay. Bradley is okay. He’s where nothing can hurt him. There’s no darkness where he’s at. I promise you.”
Ashley spoke through her tears, “Cross your heart?”
“Cross my heart,” Nick began to rise, but picked her up in his arms as he
did so. Ignoring Preston’s protests, Nick walked past him and towards
Brian’s car holding Ashley up against him. She felt so light in his arms,
so fragile. He wasn’t going to let anyone hurt Ashley anymore either.
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