"Alright!" The Lighthouse stood up from the dresser and sat next to Jacob on the edge of his bed. "Whose first? Your mom?" Jacob looked The Lighthouse in his eyes "Let's do Poo first." "Meeka!" The lighthouse said. Referring to Jacob's younger sister "I just love that name. Your mom didn't missed with any of her kids names." Jacob smiled, then spoke. "So what do we do? You gonna beam us up Scotty?" The Lighthouse laughed again "No, all you have to do is close your eyes." The Lighthouse closed his eyes tight to show Jacob. Jacob did as he saw The Lighthouse do and closed his eyelids tight. "Ok, now what?" Jacob was met with silence. He quickly opened his eyes to see he was no longer sitting on his own bed. Before he could collect his thoughts he heard the familiar sound of an IPhone ringing. He quickly turned to see that he was in his sister's bedroom sitting on the edge of her bed. His sister, just a foot away laying in the bed facing away from him felt around her part of the bed searching for the phone that continued to ring. She looked at the screen for a moment, then answered. "Hello?" "Hi Poo." The caller said to Meeka. Jacob could see it was a FaceTime call from their cousin Kya who lived in Georgia. "Are you still sleeping? Where's Gigi?" She shifted to her back, revealing her red puffy eyes. "She's in school, I got her off and got back in the bed." Meeka wiped a tear from her eye. "Poooo." Kya said seeing the wet eyes of Meeka. "I know Kya!" She said almost crying "I miss my brother!" Meeka and Kya cried on the phone together. After a while Meeka spoke again. "I know it's been a year but I just can't stop thinking about him." Jacob couldn't hold back his tears. He knew this would be part of the process of losing a sibling. He contemplated moments like this with his mom and daughter too. He'd already cried for that. Contemplated, and cried again. But seeing it in real time hit different. He knew there would be overwhelming sadness. But he figured because he wouldn't have to be alive to experience it, that it would be worth the trade off. It was exactly what he wanted to disconnect from, the pain. He looked around the room to see if The Lighthouse was watching. He wasn't. He heard Kya speaking so he turned to his sister. "You know Miles was hurting, Poo. And when you hurt that much, enough that you make that kind of decision, you gotta understand that there was nothing you could do to change his mind." Jacob agreed with her. He knew that most of the time the pain and disappointment he felt was so heavy and so deafening that it literally kept him closed minded and isolated from anyone that could help him. "Kya, my life was hard too! My life was not and still not perfect. I hurt too! Before he died I was messed up too! Oh my god!" Meeka cried out. "How do you do that to somebody, like why? I felt like taking myself out at times too Kya. You know the conversations we had. You know life never been easy for me. Especially what I go through with my body. But every time I think about Gigi it makes me realize how much she needs me! And I think like, man I could never EVER do that to her." Jacob just sat there. Her grief was like shackles. He was chained to her pain. "Poo, you know the more you try to understand what kind of dark place that is for the mind the more you'll drive yourself crazy. I really think Miles dealt with way more than just how bad he thought his life was. I honestly believe that the stress and pain he felt could've been so hard for him that his brain like, rewired itself. I don't know. But it gotta be something that happened to his brain, you know? It just broke apart." Jacob listened. Maybe she was right ,he thought. He already knew that long time drug use rewired his brain. But he also felt like there was something inside of him that just couldn't learn the discipline it required to do right. Not only did he feel like a lost cause, but the memories of the people he hurt never gave him a moments reprieve. He felt literal fatigue at times. He could feel his body reacting to his pain. "I just wished he would've said something Kya. I just wish he would've let me hold that pain with him. Miles always said what was on his mind, maybe not to everybody but he told me everything. I thought he trusted me enough to tell me that he didn't want to live anymore. I thought my brother loved me Kya." Jacob could see Kya wiping tears from her face through the phone. "Miles loved you Poo, and he loved Auntie and his baby. It was just too much for him."
"I know." His sister said quietly. "I just wish that our relationship would've gotten us through anything in life. My only brother. Oh my god I miss my brother." Meeka and Jacob both wiped the tears away. Jacob couldn't listen to anymore. He looked around for The Lighthouse again. "Alright I'm done!" He waited a reply. Nothing. He closed his eyelids tight as he could and opened them. He was back in his room. Sitting next to The Lighthouse.