CHAPTER FIVE: TREY I’m driving. It's mid-afternoon. My phone rings—my head throbs. Echoes of the night before: cocaine, the casino, Trey Augustine. My dear friend. He ran into Mason and me. We had the best fucking time. Man, did we. If there’s anything in this life that’s good, it’s casinos and cocaine—I mean, can I get an amen? Trey was my first boyfriend’s roommate. You know that first boyfriend everyone has, that ordinary standard that is above everything and anything else? Trey watched me grow up. I trusted Trey. I hoped Mason and he could become friends; it would be good for Mason to really have a friend. We were at the casino. The ironic thing about last night and running into Trey—Matt, my first boyfriend, and I had the same birthday. Thats how i met trey. I hadnt seen matt in years. Well, last night was my birthday, December 22. I was turning 25. Something about Trey always made me feel wholesome to a degree. Something like home in him. I answer— “Brooke... Trey Augustine died last night.” “What?” “Which one?” as if it would be mercy if it was the other trey… There were two Trey Augustines… what a fucked-up thought. I liked the other Trey, but he wasn’t with me hours ago. He didn’t talk me through nights I’ve never spoken on. It was him. I had to pull over. Hysterical, I cried. And cried. And cried. More than ever before. That sudden shift—from the high-wire buzz of cocaine, the casino lights, and turning 25 on December 22, 2021, straight into the sheer, impossible gut-punch of a phone call on the side of the road—tears the narrative wide open. Trey wasn't just a face from the past; he was a anchor to something clean and wholesome in a life that was constantly spinning out. And he saw something in me that not many people notice… me… thanks for seeing me trey. I had already lost Jake - Jacob Scott Brady. Gosh. I missed him. Then i see the face of sam.. sam. Man what the fuck is wrong with the world. samuel wilson…. He never made it back home from where we went to rehab, where i went.. too.. It says it in his obituary - which actually took my breath that he never made it home. all in the same year. 2021. I think i died too that day. A little bit inside i felt my heart break in a place that wont will never heal quite like it was before. I didnt go to the funeral. I told myself i didnt deserve to grieve trey because i didnt know if he valued me the same way. Grief. Weird. Like i said. Every domino has another it falls into.. until.. the last.. the last…. Is you
