It’s a bitter moment when you realize the best and sweetest parts of you are gone. My hollow eyes in the rearview mirror are a firm reminder of that. Have I ever been happy? Maybe when I was a kid. So, I put my sad eyes back where they belong, on the empty road ahead.

In the midst of feeling sorry for myself, I think I missed the turn. Whatever.

The navigator says the highway entrance is zero-point-five miles away. But the on-ramp is a thick red string attached to a blinking light that reads: accident.

“Guess I’m gonna be late for the party,” I mumble to myself.

The navigator blinks: Alternate route found, and I press to proceed. Cortège Rd next Right.

Incoming call. My sister’s number appears on the display. 

“Hey,” I say.

“Where are you?” she asks.

“I’m on my way. The nav’ says ten minutes.”

“Why the hell do you need a navigator to get to Mom’s?”

“Because, Karen,” I bark back. “I’m coming from a new therapist and wanted to make sure I took the quickest route.”

“Why do you need therapy today?”

“You know exactly why.”

“I know, what your brother did is—”

“Our brother,” I correct her.

“Excuse me?”

“You said, your brother, but in fact he’s, our brother.”

I turn onto Cortège Road and the trees canopy over me, like they’re reaching towards one another.  

“Thank you, Ryan,” she says, “for making that important clarification. I know this is hard, but today’s Mom’s day and she was the greatest single mother we could’ve asked for. So, guess what? We’re giving her a nice little surprise party and you can suck-it-up for a couple hours.”  

“I said I would be there, and I will. But…” I take a breath and push the words out. “He can’t bring her… he just can’t.” 

“Jennifer will not be there, I promise,” my sister says, with mom’s firm tone.

Ahead of me, the trees thin out and narrow beams of sunshine push through, illuminating a twisted web of uneven cracks on the road ahead. Is that what my heart looks like? 

“Are you still there?” she asks. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I’m here,” I say, and ease off the gas.

The front tires clear the damaged pavement and I sigh in relief. But from beneath me comes a crumbling and breaking sound—like a dump truck unloading gravel. My car lurches forward and down—the rear wheels spinning freely.

I’m falling!

Bang! A sheet of white explodes, smacking into my nose. 

“What the hell?” I’m at a forward angle with the airbag pressed against my face, smothering me.

“Are you okay?” my sister yells. “What happened?”

I push the airbag off me, coughing to catch my breath. “I’m gonna be late,” I say and hang up, pocket my phone, and unbuckle the seat belt. Most of my car is underground, in a sinkhole with the rear tires precariously perched on the ledge above. It could fall deeper, topple over, or stay where it is. I kick the door outward and jump.

After landing on my ass, I stand and brush the dirt off my Dockers and hold up my hand to shade my sad eyes from the glaring sun.

No! The front of the car is crushed like a broken nose. It doesn’t look like I’m gonna be there when everyone yells, SURPRISE!  

I try to pull myself out a couple times, but the top of the hole is about three feet too high. Maybe if I had something to stand on. The rolling luggage I bought for my trip with Jennifer—the love of my life until I caught her screwing my brother—is in the back seat. If I prop it up against the side of the hole, maybe I can climb out. 

Carefully, I open the back passenger side door with one hand, grab the suitcase handle with the other, and pull.

What the hell? The suitcase is brand new, with the plastic packing still on, but feels like it’s filled with bricks.

I give it my best yank and it falls into the mud below. The car creaks, shifting slightly, and I run, colliding with the side of the sinkhole.

 I drag the suitcase away from the sideways car, rip the plastic off, and pull the zipper around the edge—opening the bag. Why is there a bunch of random crap in here?

The first thing to catch my attention is the Sex in the City DVD set, the same one I bought Jennifer for her birthday.

“How the hell’d this get in here?” I mumble, pick up the box shaking my head. Like a good boyfriend, I’ve seen every episode and can’t count how many times Jennifer told me she’s just like Charlotte and how she didn’t really care for the Samantha character. Isn’t that ironic?

I look down again. My college football helmet is next to my little brother’s saxophone case. Neither was there a moment ago.

What the hell is going on?

I pick both up. I played division two, was the best strong safety that school ever had, so the helmet is covered with stickers from interceptions and wins.

My brother’s sax-case is also covered with stickers like Talking Heads, Weezer, The Cure, and all that stupid crap he listened to in high school.

“If you didn’t waste so much time listening to music and reading books, you might actually get laid.” This was the caring guidance I generously gave my younger brother. It wasn’t enough to just say that and be a jerk. No. I decided to go the extra mile. He had an enormous crush on a girl named Amber Hemmings. So, of course, I made it my business to start screwing her, brought her into my social circle, made myself the center of her world, then …dumped her.

How could I have done that?

Now things have changed. Women love my brother. He can sense what they need, what makes them happy, and gives it to them. That’s the beauty of Kyle. He lifts people up and never asks for anything in return.

Next, I see my old boxing gloves and a first-place amateur trophy. The trophy is also way too big for the suitcase. But somehow, it’s here. Boxing was part of my endless quest to prove my masculinity, but I quit when Jennifer said, being aggressive doesn’t impress her or turn her on. She needed a decent man, someone capable of intimacy and kindness.

In other words, she wanted me to be something I’m not.

“So, what’d she do then?” I mumble.

“She found a more caring and sensitive version of yourself.” The air around me seems to whisper back. Who’s doing this to me? Is there a new hidden camera show called, ‘Guess What, You’re an Asshole?’  

I step away from the bag, close my eyes, wishing to never open them again, and wait for more tears, but none come. Maybe there’s nothing left inside of me.

When my eyes open, the midday sun glares down on me like an angry parent. Then, after some blinking and adjusting, my brother’s first computer sticks out of the open suitcase, a huge IBM desktop. They don’t make them like this anymore. He got the computer on his tenth birthday, started yelling, jumping around, and tearing up. We all looked at each other like, ‘What the hell’s wrong with this kid?’

Twenty minutes later, he disappeared into his room, spending the better part of the next decade in his own world, or more accurately, worlds he created. Then, to our parent’s dismay, he refused to go to college, claiming a fine arts curriculum would stifle his creativity and strip him of his originality.

After that he moved to New York with no backup plan, struggled for years, and no amount of rejection phased him. He eventually became a famous author and play writer.

“Playwright,” I mumble, correcting myself.

I look down again shaking my head. The bag that was supposed to be empty is overflowing with copies of my little brother’s first novel. It’s about a lonely kid who’s fifteen and his only friend is an imaginary robot. But the story is told from the point of view of the imaginary robot. Kyle had critics baffled, one even said he was ‘reinventing literature.’ The villain is a jock, who’s the biggest dick at his high school. Who could that character be based on? I resented him, but I deserved it. I was exactly that big of a dick.

Now Kyle lives in the city and has created his dream job, while I have a job that’s tolerable, a new therapist, a broken heart, and never had the guts to move away from our hometown. The trip I bought this suitcase for would’ve been the first time I left Rhode Island in ten years.

Underneath the books, there’s more stuff that’s strangely familiar. A photo album my brother and sister made and my old baseball glove. These visiting relics are covered in a thick layer of black-gray dust; like they’ve been smeared with charcoal. On the cover of the photo album is a family picture of our last Christmas before Mom and Dad split up. What’s that on my face? I pick up the binder and brush off the dust. It’s…a smile. 

After that, there’s two pictures for each holiday. One of us with Mom, and one with Dad. They shuttled us between them and fought over us like hostages. The next few pages are photos of us with Dad and his assorted girlfriends.

Shortly after Dad walked out, baseball season started, and that’s where I directed all my energy. At every practice, every game, I was the first person there and the last person to leave. Whether we won or lost, afterward it was back to the batting cages. My high school coach said he’d never seen any athlete work so hard, and Kyle looked at me in wonder, like I was a superhero. I thought for sure Dad would notice and maybe ask me to come live with him for a while. Nope. The best he could do was come out to a couple of games.

That’s when I came up with Plan B: sleeping around. Yes, I strung women along to get validation from my father. My new therapist helped me unpack that earlier today. After Dad walked out, Amber Hemmings, the girl I started screwing to spite my brother, was the only one who knew how bad I was hurting, and besides Mom, the only person who gave a shit. Amber was beautiful in every way imaginable, and more than willing to do everything a girl can do to keep a young guy happy. But none of it was enough. I needed my dad. More than anything, I needed my dad.

I really don’t want to look down again, but my emotional wellness is a bad car accident you can’t keep your eyes off. Of course, there’s something else waiting for me. A shiny pink package from Victoria’s secret, the last present I bought Jennifer. She rolled her eyes and said, “It’d be nice if you got me a present that’s actually for me? I’m not in this relationship to be your personal stripper.” 

 I need to get out of this hole. I can’t be here anymore. But of course, something else appears, something hurtful from my past, a tiny black box, the engagement ring I bought Jennifer after our third date. She was the woman I was determined to spend the rest of my life with. I was sure of it. She was special. But I obviously didn’t make her feel special. It pains me to admit this, but being a selfish prick is all I know.

I bend down and pick up the little black box. If I saw the actual ring, I’d lose it. I cock my arm back and throw it. The small box disappears in the sunlight, and I wait for it to come down, and connect with something when it lands. But that doesn’t happen. It’s simply gone.

I push my eyes shut, afraid to open them. With any luck, there’ll be a loaded gun waiting for me.

Nope. An enormous sigh rushes out of me. The bottomless suitcase is finally empty. It’s like a clown car for my emotional baggage. I look at all the crap I’ve pulled out and consider how it contributed to the hole I’ve spent a lifetime digging for myself.

But can I get out of the hole I’m in right now? And yes, I mean that literally?

I start with the biggest item, the suitcase itself. On top of that, I put my brother’s old computer, with the monitor, a bunch of his debut novels, his saxophone case, and finally the photo album. It looks stable enough, so I make sure my shoes are tied, and carefully climb the stairway of my baby brother’s treasures out of my own personal sinkhole. I would love to call him, apologize for everything, and congratulate him, but he’s screwing my girlfriend, so I have every right to be furious with him.

I take out my phone and faintly see my reflection on the screen. I still look like crap, but not as bad as I did this morning. I remember reading somewhere, “Pain is temporary. Whether it’s a broken leg or a broken heart, it will subside. No, it won’t be easy, but you will get through it.”

Actually, my little brother wrote that.

I take a breath and type a text message:

Although I doubt you were intentional in your actions, you’ve both hurt me more than I could ever express. With that being said, I deserved it. I’m tempted to spend all my energy hating both of you, but instead, I’ve decided to take a long hard look in the mirror, work on myself, and deal with my emotional baggage. I won’t be able to see either of you for a long time, possibly never. But despite everything and how shitty I currently feel, I’ll still always love you both.

Jennifer, I want to apologize for everything I did to ruin our relationship. Falling in love with you was the happiest time of my life.

Ryan.

I press send.

It didn’t occur to me before, but when I fell into this hole, what I needed was an actual friend. That one person who’d drop everything and come help me.

So, what now? I look back at where I came from—the dense trees, the tunnel of shadows, and the cracks in the road that gave way beneath me, leaving me alone in a muddy sinkhole. I can go back there, or I can go in the other direction.

I turn around and raise my hand to block the glaring sun, but the midday brightness has mellowed. The road in front of me is smooth and even, while tiny blossoms of hope are budding on the branches above me. As I take my first step a warm breeze swirls around me, welcoming me like a kind forgiving hug.

– Brian Hogan