The Beauty That Remains: Chapters 1–8

My mother’s dress is impeccable, but her blue eyes are sad, and my dad has had his head bent the whole time, like a world without you is one he doesn’t want to see.

It’s been weeks, but they won’t stop showing the last picture he ever posted. So he’s always in his uniform. Forever on the field. Immortalized with his helmet in one hand, the ball in the other.

...it seems like there should be a protocol in place for things like this. It should be his graduation picture or something more dignified.

I could tell right away that Aden was everything I needed after the Unraveling Lovely fiasco—everything that everyone in my old band wasn’t.

...the promise of oblivion almost close enough to touch...

“You knew that kid, right? He went to your school?” Aden asks, as if proximity is all it takes. As if closeness is what makes people close.

I holler a few more hellos, but I want to find the rest of the BAMF contingent (aka my real friends), like, now.

This venue is teens only, which means no drinking and definitely no smoking, but I’ve never really let those rules stop me before.

He tips his head in my direction like I’m royalty, and the weathered metal of the vintage rings he’s always wearing glint dully under the stage lights.

She’d point out the lyrics of the bridge (something I never notice) or that the bass line is subtle but necessary.

So a few years ago, when we started going to shows and seeing how outnumbered we were, Sasha wanted kids like us to have a place where they could unabashedly love the music they love and not feel weird about it.

I pushed my way out of the room because I knew Mom was too distraught to stop me, and I could feel the tension building in my limbs.

I’m not the twin who was an Anglophile—who drank tea and read British literature for fun and watched BBC documentaries with her every Friday night.

I turn on her TV and queue up our favorite show, Intervention.

Faye is supposed to be in front—walking backward telling a story, or facing forward, like we’re a ship and she’s at the helm.

I stare at the back of your brother’s head, his hair tousled and so, so black, and I play the message again.

They say that dead people who have unfinished business with the living become ghosts. That their spirits linger here, or in limbo somewhere, and that they can’t rest in peace until they’ve done whatever it is that they needed to do.

The cursor blinks defiantly inside the search bar, and my thumbs hover over the keyboard for only a second.

Rohan is tall and narrow, with wiry guitarist arms and lengthy runner legs, and I’m built pretty much just like him: long-limbed, boyish, and flat (just about everywhere).

He musses his hair.

“You’ve never asked me to do anything for BAMF before. If I remember correctly, you said it would be a ‘conflict of interest.’” He’s right, I did say that. And it would be since he has a new band on the scene, and BAMF prides itself on its objectivity.

I think she feels like the big flavors, harsh spices, and strong scents will fortify me with the kind of resilience I need to get through this—losing you.

I look up at the wall, and I can’t stop staring at my own pale reflection in the gilded mirror she has hanging up right behind her head.

When I had this weird epiphany, it freaked me out pretty badly; that someone’s name could just disappear like that.

...now that I’ve been given a directive to talk to people close to Bram, I feel a little more justified being as obsessed with him as I am.