This work wasn’t for the faint of heart. Surviving meant deadening your senses. It meant being surrounded by ugliness and tragedy. I learned to care less and lock away what I didn’t need. Corpses became objects. The grieving they left behind became itinerary. Compassion came with a price I couldn’t bear to pay. The result? I was a walking corpse standing on two feet with a badge on my chest and a gun on my hip. What was really the cost I couldn’t pay then?

  The harsh wind whipped my hair into my face as I walked down the street. I didn’t know what possessed me to pick that dingy little pond again. Hindsight is 20/20. Back when he gave me a ring, it was the first place I thought of. It was nearby, within walking distance, and a public amenity I was technically privileged to live by. Last time, I beat him to the punch, but today Gabe made it there before me.

  “Have you been waiting long?” I asked.

  “Nah,” he shook his head. “Just got here.”

  “That’s a relief,” I said, pausing briefly. “Sorry about the weather. Didn’t know it’d be this cold.”

  The sudden cold spell came with overcast skies. The temperature was misleading. It felt colder than it was with the heavy wind. The silver lining? No rain, at least not yet, and according to the forecast, it’d stay that way. It wasn’t the first time I’d been disappointed by the local meteorologist, but it pays to have faith sometimes. I decided to take their predictions with a grain of salt.

  Gabe, being a good sport, just laughed.

  “I don’t mind,” he said. “Cold’s just fine.”

  The park looked like it was reserved for just the two of us. There wasn’t a person in sight. The same dead tree stood pathetically next to the park bench. Its barren branches were still not fit for shade. Fortunately, this time we didn’t need it. Where was the sun to be shielded from? Even the ducks were nowhere in sight.

  “We should go,” I said.

  “Nah, let’s sit a minute,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked. “To admire the scenery?”

  I expected him to crack a joke like he always did, but this time he just looked thoughtfully forward, like something was on his mind. Suddenly, the tautness of my shoulders was looking like a bad reason to leave. Steeling myself against the cold and what my bones knew, I took a seat beside him.

  If I were honest, it wasn’t the weather or the scenery that kept me on my feet. Those were petty, mundane things, and I’d been through worse before. Truth be told, there was an uneasiness to returning to a location with strong feelings attached. The last time we were here Gabe handed me a photo Ethan should have given me himself and talked to me about the arm I had freshly wrenched from my shoulder.

  This little, dilapidated park took on new meaning then. It wasn’t just a disappointing patch of grass with a dirty pond small enough to leave barely a foot above my head if I dared to lie across it. The one, singular bench by the water was the crowning centerpiece of this place, shaded by the city’s deadest tree. When the ducks came by, you could feed them and stare at your reflection in the muddy, brown water. Places like this made you think, and I thought more than I should have for my own good without it.

  “Does it remind you of something?” I asked.

  “You could say that,” he said.

  Then we returned to the familiar quiet. For once, the city was silent. It figured that nothing could make the city take a break from its steady hum other than a bit of bad weather. However, even this wouldn’t hold it down long, and we’d need to savor it while it lasted. He leaned back against the bench and scratched his chin.

  “Our first big case,” he said. “Back when we were still green.”

  “You’re going to have to jog my memory,” I said.

  “They pulled a dead guy out of a lake,” he said.

  “Oh,” I groaned. “That one. How could I forget?”

  He sure knew how to pick them, didn’t he? I remembered now. Despite my best efforts, the past always had a way of catching up to me. Maybe it was my fault for not being fast enough or for running in the first place. Locking them away didn’t work either. All it did was force them to bang on the door until I let them out. Even if you denied how hard it was to avert your eyes, it still wore you down and ate you alive all the same. All that work was just to kick the can a bit further down the road.

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  “Something else on your mind?” he asked.

  “The photo,” I sighed. “Things always hit me harder than I want them to.”

  “Not a bad thing,” he said. “You always get back up.”

  That line caught me off guard, and the more I thought about it, the more out of place it seemed that it did. I always had a razor-sharp focus on how things were harder on me than they should have been. I’d scrutinize my faults and shortcomings with a fine-tooth comb. The worst part was when I questioned whether it made sense for me to feel the way I did or struggle with something that shouldn’t have been that hard. Right now I was battling sitting in a shitty park on a tiny bench with my best friend, and it shouldn’t have been this hard.

  “You too,” I said.

  He nodded, but he didn’t say anything. I could tell something was on his mind. This time I wasn’t the only one taking it hard.

  “The thing that hit me hardest was the smell,” he said. “I was a big man that day, all puffed up. Walked in that room, took one whiff, and deflated like a balloon. Do you remember that?”

  “New day, new corpse,” I muttered. “Isn’t that what I said?”

  “Yeah. New day, new corpse,” he echoed back. “That’s the line.”

  “Ethan was there that day, wasn’t he?” I asked.

  “Waiting for us right when we walked in,” he said.

  Ethan was younger back then and much more full of himself. Even now he took the rules harder than the rest of us, but it was even more true back then somehow. That distance between us back then was like the gulf of the sea. Two parts trauma and one part sibling rivalry will do that to you. You know how it is.

  “Our first drowning victim too,” I sighed. “I can’t say I’m nostalgic about it.”

  “All the ugly stuff makes us who we are too,” he said. “Better not to forget.”

  “There’s more, isn’t there?” I asked. “You wouldn’t want to sit here just for that.”

  Silence. Whistling wind.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding.

  I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. He stopped short and sweet and went straight to the point. Gabe didn’t talk about himself that much. We weren’t distant, but we didn’t sit around chatting about his parents or what he was up to in the late hours when the peace and quiet of the night made room for all the thoughts drowned out during the day. Maybe it was the awkwardness of self-disclosure. All of us operated on rules, especially those of us who thought we couldn’t be weak. People like us were always strong. Always.

  “Well, I already had my regularly scheduled mental breakdown,” I said. “Your turn?”

  He laughed, but I wasn’t sure what there was to talk about. That case was a long time ago, and since then, we’d been through worse. Then again, I had a way of glossing over all the ugly details that held more meaning for me than I’d ever been willing to admit.

  “I still remember the way he looked,” I said. “Once that body bag was unzipped, all I could see were his eyes.”

  That ashen gray body stared at us cloudy and lifeless. His clothes were already cut away for the autopsy. Some superstitions insist that you can see the moment the soul leaves. Some even insist that the body gets lighter. I didn’t believe in things like that, but I always thought of corpses as the empty shells that once housed a soul.

  “The guy had a fan club. The higher-ups wanted it closed down fast. Didn’t care if it was done right,” he said.

  “I remember the all-nighters, but I don’t remember how we wrapped it all up,” I said.

  “I don’t either,” he said. “But I remember feeling like a big man. Like a real detective.”

  “You were having doubts?” I asked. “I thought it was just me.”

  It’s easy to fall for the highlight reel of someone else’s life. To me, I saw him cracking jokes and handling the big bads with confidence and ease, but even I couldn’t see inside his head. Even someone easygoing and put together could have their own demons to battle. We often forget that everything we present to the world is a persona. Consciously or not, we alter our behavior to give off the image we want them to see or accommodate them by being what they need.

  “Back then?” he asked. “All the time. I felt invincible but scared as hell too.”

  “And now?” I asked.

  “I have my moments,” he said.

  “Don’t we all,” I sighed. “Just makes you human.”

  He chuckled, and then everything was back to normal. That was just how we worked. We always had each other’s back. Suddenly, this terrible park was starting to look almost beautiful.

  “Damn, I should remember that,” he said.

  “That makes two of us then,” I said. “No one takes my advice less than me.”

  We both laughed. I could have sat there longer, but the cold had other ideas, and a shiver ran through me.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  “Yeah, let’s find somewhere else to sit,” I said.

  “I’ll give Ethan a call,” he grinned.

  Gabe always called Ethan. It was another unspoken part of our dynamic. There were periods we needed Gabe to play mediator because we were butting heads at every available opportunity, but we already worked that out. These days we were letting down our walls and trying to figure out this thing called family. Why was it so awkward just to give him a ring?

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said.

  “Feel like pizza?” he asked.

  “You really don’t need to ask,” I said, already on my feet. “Round two. Let’s go.”