At some point, he’d crouched in the sand behind a large flowering bush, but he hadn’t remembered how he’d gotten there. All he knew was that he was watching the woman he loved make out with his dead brother. He pinched himself hard enough to bruise, trying to wake himself up. But the scene didn’t change. It was Gretchen. And Harris. His brother who he’d seen lowered into the ground—alive and kissing his girl. Burke couldn’t decide if he wanted to cry or scream. Seeing his brother in the flesh was impossible to process. Part of him wanted to run and embrace him, to tell him how much he missed him, how pissed he was that he’d left, to ask all the questions he wanted to ask. But seeing Harris and Gretchen together stirred other not so brotherly feelings deep inside him. Anger. Possessiveness. Heartbreak. He looked on in anguish as the kissing turned more ardent. Harris slid his hand down Gretchen’s belly and then lower, into her shorts, touching her.
