In an instant.

(A memoir)

We turned the corner, our group of four, escaping the excitement of the late-night festivities, a silver van speeding past us in the opposite direction. We would be back tomorrow when the fireworks would be in full bloom, screaming laughter echoing throughout the downtown neighborhood and the liquor flowing freely. I’d never been to the Freedom Festival; it was a last-minute decision to go, and my cousin Jacob, with his infinite charm, had a way of convincing me to do things I would never normally do.

It was full of sweaty bodies, random fireworks, water balloon fights to ward off the nighttime humidity, and music rippling through the air with such magnitude that the words were impossible to decipher. Girls flocked towards Jacob, they always did, there was something about his sky-blue shirt that extenuated his sun-soaked skin; the confident gait he had as he walked and the resounding laugh, a sound he so uniquely produced that I’d never heard it anywhere else. He had chocolate brown hair that matched his eyes and a single diamond studded left ear; I never understood the fad, but girls went wild over it.

While he flirted and danced, I awkwardly stood by my aunt Carol, Jacob’s mother, an adventurous woman who always donned whatever she had in her closet whether it matched or not and added a dash of purple eyeliner to spice things up. She gave Jacob the world, they went on all of the trip’s money could buy, he went to the best private school; he was her miracle child, and she could never say no to him, which was how she ended up here too. Next to me was my Aunt Peggy, she wore glasses that were a little too small for her pudgy face, her hair was spaghetti straight and perfect. She was always immaculate, thinking she was better than the rest of us, always on the next diet that she never stuck to but telling us we needed to take better care of our bodies, even though she looked like a large upside-down triangle. She liked to think she was hip with the times, and every now and then, she made eye contact with Jacob and would raise her hand with a rock and roll sign and scream “Yeah!” at the top of her lungs.

The most uncomfortable thing wasn’t the sweaty bodies, the loud music, or the fact that I didn’t dance with anyone. It was that as I stood by my aunts, they did not talk to me once. My mom married into the family, and I had a different father, making it so we never belonged in their tight group. They looked at me with suspicion and scrutiny, like I was a vortex waiting to bring them into the dark past that we had. My mother and I survived a lot of things. I needed help, and my Stepdad gave me that and loved me the way a parent should. Peggy and Carol couldn’t accept it; that was their problem, but Jacob always made me feel like I belonged. He could read me like no one else could, which is why we left when we did; awkwardness was etched onto my face.

“Alright, Stacy, what did you think?” Jacob asked.

I sucked on my teeth, “It was…yeah, no. Definitely not my thing.” I laughed, and he nudged my shoulder playfully.

“You could have at least tried to have fun” Carol scoffed, rolling her purple-filled eyes.

“Ma,” Jacob started, “She did. She sniped like seven people with water balloons.”

“Try dancing tomorrow,” Peggy offered, “Meet a boy. Jacob doesn’t need to babysit you.”

I grit my teeth at her comment and felt Jacob grab my hand and give it a squeeze. With a deep inhale, I watched a silver van drive down the street, and as it turned towards the right, the glaring taillight disappearing into the darkness, I let out my breath.

“You could try it too, Auntie Peg,” I replied in a sickeningly sweet tone that made me want to throw up. Jacob snorted, and even Carol cleared her throat. Stacy one. Peggy none.

We continued walking, only a few blocks away from Jacob’s childhood home. I remembered playing hide and seek there, I would hide, and he would not come and find me. A few hours later I would come out thinking I won; he’d give me a cookie saying I was too good at the game. I found out the truth later, stung at first, but eventually forgave him because the amount of Oreo’s I had gotten over the years was definitely worth it.

The noise from the Freedom Festival was much faded by now, only an echo in the distance and slowly being replaced by the hum of crickets and the shuffle of our feet. A crunch of tires behind us and lights gathered our attention, it was the silver van again. Slower this time, until it was right next to us. I turned, thinking the driver needed help with directions. The sliding door screeched like an angry crow and everything changed.

There was one shot. Then two. Then three. Jacob grabbed me, fingers digging into my arms violently, turning around, his eyes facing me with fear, and I felt his body jolt as four more shots went off. His face contorted, the creamy tan of his skin quickly turned to an ashen grey before he crumpled to the ground like a piece of paper thrown to a trash bin. One more shot went off, and I felt a searing pain slice through my leg, sending me buckling down next to Jacob. The van screeched off, leaving smoke and the smell of burnt tires and blood in its wake; followed by a fragment of second where there was no sound that was then replaced by sudden screams.

I looked up, Peggy was on her knees, clutching her head with monstrous wails coming out of her throat. Carol was several feet away on the phone, her face emotionless, and no one was helping Jacob. I took off my shirt, I gathered it into a ball and dragged myself to a straddling position over him; grunting in agony as my leg resisted the movement; my muscle protesting as blood leaked from me.

“Jacob,” I say, more like a plea than his name, “Where were you hit?”

He tried to talk, a choked gurgle came out of his mouth followed by a startling cough, splattering liquid all over my face. I applied pressure everywhere I could, his once blue shirt turning purple from the burgundy red life that spilled from him. His body convulsing furiously, threatening to jilt me off of him; every movement sending a splintering pain down my leg.

His eyes looked around, glancing at the stars, peering into my face; observing the blood that was pooling around us. “It doesn’t burn.” He choked out.

“Why did you do that?” I cried. “You stepped in front of me. Why?”

Blood was pouring out of him, staining my hands, getting underneath my nails, leaking through the American flag shirt I was using, my new shorts he convinced me to get, the pavement. The grass and dirt had started to mix with his blood, creating a dark paste that was coagulating on the side of his face. There was too much blood, every time I blinked more emerged until I couldn’t figure out where the red substance ended, and he began.

I heard footsteps behind me, beating against the road. I turned to see a man with shaggy grey hair running from the caramel-colored house across the street, and he offered me a bundle of oil-stained towels; I took them greedily. I wiped my forehead, smearing blood across my face; Jacob was shaking less, his breath coming out in quick rasps. I grabbed his hand, and he offered me a small squeeze. I glanced up at his face; there was a crooked smile. His eyes stared into mine, the golden flecks dancing, and he looked peaceful, but his hand felt like melted ice between my fingers. I laid the towels on him in layers and applied pressure wherever I could.

“You’re not going to die. We’ve got too much to do—tattoos, our Colorado trip.” I tried to avoid looking at the blood, trying to convince myself that everything was going to be fine.

I could hear the sirens in the distance, my heart pounding with hope. Carol bent down by Jacob, stroking his hair, kissing his forehead, tears dripping onto his face. Mumbling sweet nothings. Peggy’s wails matched the rhythm of the sirens. My leg throbbed, the smell of copper made me want to throw up, and the saliva built up in my mouth, but I maintained my pressure despite my quivering arms until, finally, there was no movement at all, no gasp of breath. I became still.

“Jacob?” I gave him a small shake, his head lolled a bit, and his eyes, still opened, lost their golden sparkle. “No!” I screamed. Clawing at his shirt, shaking him with all my might, tears forming like a riptide through me. I grasped his body to mine, feeling no heartbeat.

The gray-haired stranger who brought me the towels scooped me up from his body as if I weighed nothing. I thrashed, ignoring the rippling sensation going down my thigh and into my shin. I elbowed and screamed till my throat was raw, until the red, white, and blue lights encased us too late. The man cradled me in my sorrow. The paramedics came, and I watched them lift Jacob’s lifeless body away, blood still dripping off of him lazily as if it had nothing better to do.

Everything happened in slow motion after that. Before it was a race against time, now it was as though time stood still. The stranger carried me to an ambulance, I could hear myself crying and them talking but I could not make any sense of it. I caught a shocking glimpse of myself in a round mirror, my silver-blonde hair matted to my face, soaking red, my bra was destroyed by Jacob’s blood, my skin painted in it. I asked myself a million questions. Why hadn’t we stayed a little longer? Why couldn’t I have just had fun? Why did he step in front of me like that? Nine times out of ten I struggled to want to be on this earth, of all the people to die; it should have been me.

It’s been four years now. Four years since I lost one of my best friends and best family members in a drive-by shooting. Sometimes it does not feel real, as I sit here with my cup of coffee and laptop to do my homework for college, I find my mind wandering to what it would be like if he were still here.

Perhaps the most excruciating thing of the entire event was the lack of closure, we never figured out who did it. I tried explaining to the police that Jacob had someone break into his apartment a week before and that it might be related, they never looked further into that. Then they thought it had something to do with the inheritance that he was supposed to get from his grandfather, Peggy was talking about how she oversaw her father’s estates and finances and that after his death most of his money was going to Jacob and his second wife; the second wife wasn’t fond of that. Peggy had a theory that the second wife hired a hitman because if Jacob was dead then she’d get all of the money and could give it to her kids, that lead went nowhere. It was settled that it was most likely a gang initiation event, and that was all there was to it. Still no answers. I know that Carol talks to the police regularly asking if they have any new leads and they say they are still looking but I think they are lying. There is nothing to look for.

Carol and Peggy do not talk to me, in a bizarre twist of fate they blame me for his death. He was shot twice in the front, and three in the back. If he hadn’t blocked me, I would have been shot instead, it was a wrongful idea that it was better me than him. My step dad doesn’t talk to them anymore because of it, the police, paramedics and my family say that I did all I could have done. They forget that I was still shot in the leg and left with a limp while Peggy cried on the sidewalk and Carol called the police. I was left with a constant reminder. At first it was my silver hair, his blood had left it pink and as much as I tried to bleach it out, the color remained until I decided to color my whole head brown. Then, it was the muscle in my leg that had died, and I needed surgery, which left me with a gash in my thigh and a limp for life that would follow me around.

I knew better than to let them guilt me, but it didn’t stop me from drowning in it. The nightmares, remembering how his voice sounded. Jacob had a vibrant electricity about him, and I watched it spark out completely. I flinched at any loud noise and hid from any silver van, always wondering if it was them that killed my cousin and destroyed my leg. I found comfort in bottles and pills, mixing booze in my coffee and going to school. Stealing whatever medication was in my mom’s cabinet. It wasn’t until they found me at the bottom of the stairs with a broken wrist that I decided to go to rehab.

I knew Jacob would have beaten the crap out of me for living this way. I hated the smell of the sterile alcohol pads and some of the people in the facility paced back and forth, their eyes void. I didn’t think I needed to be there as badly as those people; they seemed like they had completely lost their shit and there was no way back. I figured I would be out in a week; it was four weeks later when I returned home.

Now at 23, I sit here at my coffee table, my mom across from me reading a book and my dad watching TV in the living room. I have nightmares still, but I am going to school, I have mustered up the courage to visit the site where the murder happened; we now have a bench put up in Jacob’s honor, and I made a few friends along the way. One friend I made was Daniel, the gray-haired stranger who helped me on that night. He has a burly beard now, and when he sees me on the bench, he will come out bringing sandwiches. He talks to me about everything and wants to know how my grades are in school, what hair color I want to have next, and how my physical therapy appointments are going for my leg. He tells me that his wife is driving him crazy, and if he didn’t love her so much, he would leave. He gives me the right amount of distraction and emotional support I need to function.

Losing Jacob, it left an irreparable hole in me, something that I am aware of everyday. I no longer have my movie buddy; I never did get the tattoo we planned on getting, and any family events feel even more awkward, although my Stepdad tries to keep me away from those. But good did come from it, too. I am in school now, something I never wanted to do even before losing Jacob; I feel less worried about fitting in, and I did gain a good friend. Sometimes life isn’t too terrible, sometimes terrible things happen and no one can make sense of it; I could have died that night and spend many nights wishing I did, but things do happen for a reason.

As the sun comes through the window, glistening off my coffee cup and my mom’s silver strands of hair, and I hear my dad laugh in the next room, I am thankful for my parents. I am thankful to be here and happy to try to live every day. Jacob would have wanted me to do that, and I will.

“Hey mom,” I say, sipping from my cup of coffee.

“What’s up, honey?” She asks, looking at me surprised.

“I was wondering, after I finish this assignment, could we go see a movie tonight? Like old times?”

A smile split her face, and I knew we weren’t related to Jacob, but my mom had chocolate eyes too, with the same gold specks and I felt comforted in them. She reached across the table and grabbed my forearm, giving a little squeeze. “That would be wonderful.”

I smiled back and nodded at her, looking back at my computer I continued my assignment. Just one day at a time. One breath at a time. Moment by moment.