Chapter 10 - Part 2

                                    

                                          
She gave him a sad smile and moved to hug his waist. His arms reluctantly wrapped around her to return it as he rested his chin on the top of her head. She wanted to be able to take his pain away from him, but it wasn't possible when she was struggling with the weight of her own.
After about a minute, she had an idea.
"Maybe there is a better way to do this," she said, pulling him from the room by his hand. He followed her lead back to the living room and she made him sit on the sofa. She also took the bottle and set it down on the table before disappearing into the kitchen briefly and returning with two tumblers.
She poured some whiskey into the tumblers and handed him one. He watched quietly as she sat down in front of the TV cabinet and began to search for something. She found the DVD she had been looking for and put it on.
It began to play, and she retreated to sit beside Myles and collect her own tumbler from the coffee table.
The room was silent except for the voices coming from the screen. She lifted the glass to her lips and took a sip as the video from the last vacation the brothers had shared played across the screen. In silence, they sat side by side, transfixed with the memory of a time not yet tainted by loss. 
The waves crashed on the beach as Dylan contemplated surfing for the first time. Her heart ached at the sight of the indecision in his young features.
"Man, I'm not sure this is a good idea," he said nervously at the person who was filming.
"Come on, little bro," Karsyn said, coming into the view to the side. He was holding a surfboard over his swimming trunks. "It's not that difficult."
Dylan threw him a glare but followed his confident older brother into the sea.
She gave Myles a sidelong look and watched him tip the glass back.
Karsyn had made it effortlessly on the surfboard and was already paddling out, but Dylan was struggling to get on his own board—when a wave swept over him, taking him with it. The board bobbed on the surface of the water, and only when the water withdrew did Dylan come spluttering to the surface.
"No way." He was insistent as he made his way back to the shore with the board. Disgusted, he threw it down on the sand and stalked off in a huff.
She smiled. It was so Dylan to get mad because sometimes things didn't come as easy as it did to others. He had been a perfectionist.
"He refused to try again," Myles murmured softly. "We ended up going back to the house not long after that."
She hadn't gone with them that day. Instead, she had spent the afternoon at the vacation house with their father, playing cards.
A few more clips from the vacation played, before one of her and Karsyn appeared on the screen. It made her heart sore to see him press a flirty kiss to her lips. It felt like a lifetime ago.
"Get a room, you two," Myles quipped before the video moved to him sitting beside her with a grossed-out look on his face.
She remembered they had been playing cards. She had been on a winning streak—none of the boys had been able to beat her, no matter how dirty they played.
"It's a good thing we hadn't been playing strip poker, or we would have been down to our birthday suits." 
She laughed. He was right. 
There was a close-up of Dylan smiling into the camera and he waved before it ended. The screen went dark. In some way, it replicated the suddenness of Dylan being alive and then being gone.