Fill the Empty Spaces

I didn’t want to think about that. Couldn’t let myself remember his battered body on the stretcher in the hospital or the pity on the face of the doctor who said, a few hours later, “We’re sorry, Mister Nethercott. His brain was severely injured. He might never function on his own again. It might be better to let him go. You’re his medical proxy. It’s your decision.”

The last time I’d seen my colorful, sparkly Austin was the moment I told the doctor to shut off the machines that maintained the appearance of Austin being alive. I’d kissed Austin goodbye and walked away before his life faded. I was too much of a coward to stay in the room. I hated myself for telling them to turn everything off. To turn Austin off. But even I could see the doctor was right. Austin’s body was too broken, and Austin was no longer there. I’d made the right decision.

But I still hated myself for it.

I didn’t want to remember him that way, but that was the memory that came in the darkest hours of the night, as I lay on my side of our queen-sized bed even though I could have moved into the middle. I’d barely slept the past several weeks; or, rather, I’d dozed off and on and awakened from nightmares about the man of my dreams.

My bereavement leave from work had become an indefinite leave of absence. The three days the school district offered hadn’t been nearly enough to process losing Austin, especially right before Christmas. At first, I told them I was staying home until after winter break, then, a few days later, I applied for a longer sabbatical. I wouldn’t go back until March at the earliest now, and I’d alerted my principal that I might wind up taking the rest of the year off. I missed my students, missed having a regular schedule, but I was in no shape to counsel a bunch of high-schoolers. I couldn’t get my own shit together, let alone advise them on theirs.

In the immediate aftermath of Austin’s death, other people had filled the apartment, friends and chosen family who mourned Austin alongside me. His best friend-slash-honorary sibling Remy Doucette, a/k/a Remington Real at the club. Her mother, brother, and sisters, who had driven down from Maine to say their goodbyes. Remy’s family had taken in Austin at sixteen, after he came out and his parents booted him onto the street. Since I’d cut ties with my parents halfway through college and had no siblings, Remy’s family had become mine too.

I wouldn’t have gotten through the days after Austin’s death without Remy’s mom cooking for me and his youngest sister, Mya, handing me glass after glass of water. Remy, even in her own depths of mourning the man she considered a brother, had run interference with the other queens from the club who nearly smothered me in their attempts to honor Austin’s memory. The Doucettes hadn’t kept me from falling apart.  Nothing could have done that. But they’d at least made sure my pieces stuck around to be gathered up at some point in the future.

Some point when I healed. If I ever did.

We’d held a funeral for Austin at the nondenominational church where Remy led the choir on Sundays. Neither Austin nor I had much use for organized religion, but we’d attended a few services to hear Remy’s solos, and he’d told both of us if anything ever happened, he wanted a church funeral. Mainly as a “fuck you” to everyone who’d ever said God hated him for being a gay drag queen. The service was three days after his death, followed by a memorial at the club so the queens who weren’t comfortable entering a church could say their farewells. I always felt out of place in the club, but Austin’s fellow performers had done their best to make sure I was included. It wasn’t their fault I felt awkward. Over the years, I’d attended a few of Austin’s shows, but mostly the club had been his space the way the high school was mine.

Christmas had come and gone, and I’d ignored it completely. I hadn’t even decorated the apartment. That had always been Austin’s thing. Neither of us retained happy holiday memories from our families of origin, but he’d had the Doucettes, and thanks to them, he loved Christmas. All the sparkles and lights and colors. Some years, he went so overboard I swore I’d moved into a Christmas shop. But even though I grumbled, I loved it because Austin did, and I loved Austin.

Without Austin, I saw no point in pulling out the decorations or wrapping the presents I’d bought him, which were still half-hidden on the floor of my closet. Without Austin, there was nothing to celebrate.

After a couple weeks of trying to cajole me out of my self-imposed exile, most of our friends had drifted away. Not entirely by their own choice. I’d shut people out. I didn’t want to put on a false face and pretend to be social when grief and pain pulled me down like quicksand. I’d isolated myself to the point that other than Remy, nearly everyone had given up on me.

Remy was too damn stubborn for that, and even though she pushed a little too hard sometimes, I was thankful that she hadn’t gone away yet. Today, though, I wished she had.

Today, she was coming over to start packing Austin’s belongings. All the bland, boring clothes he’d worn to his bookstore “day job” and all the sparkly, colorful, fantastic outfits he’d worn as Toppa. The bland clothes would land in a donation bin somewhere. His drag clothes, makeup, and so forth would go to the club to be split among his fellow queens, with anything they didn’t want going to an organization that provided clothing to trans and nonbinary teens who couldn’t afford clothes that fit their true gender. Austin and I had never gotten around to end-of-life planning, but Remy and I agreed on what he would have wanted.

Giving away his clothes, though, wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to give away anything of Austin’s. Some of it still smelled like him. But maybe emptying out his closets and bureau would help me process and move on.

Remy texted me at eight a.m. on the dot. I’ll be there in half an hour. Bringing coffee and donuts. Be up and dressed.

I was already awake. Had been for a few hours. The nightmares didn’t let me sleep for more than an hour or two at a stretch anymore, and sometimes I couldn’t bring myself to try falling asleep again after waking up. But I hadn’t gotten around to dragging myself out of bed, and I didn’t want to now. I could get away with staying put until Remy actually arrived. She had a key. She didn’t need me to let her in.

Stop being so lazy and move your ass, Austin’s voice said in my mind. Or, rather, my mental recording of his voice, saying what he’d said to me so many times when he’d planned “excursions” for us on weekends and school breaks. The day trips had run the gamut from visiting the top of the Prudential Center in downtown Boston to collecting shells and sea glass from the beach near Gloucester after a storm. And every time, he’d had to tell me to move my ass, because I hadn’t wanted to give up a day off from work to go out.

Actually, I hadn’t minded. Spending a day with him was worth it. But he’d enjoyed having to motivate me, and I’d played along.