It’s strange how the most minor things fade first, the ones that once meant everything, while the things that hurt cling to you no matter how hard you try to shake them loose.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
I lifted my head as my aunt Lilly appeared in the doorway. A cigarette rested between her fingers, smoke curling lazily toward the ceiling. Her short bob was uneven, strands sticking out in every direction, as if she had run her hands through it too many times.
“Hello, darling,” she said gently. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” I answered after a moment, letting out a slow breath. “You?”
She stepped further into the room. “It’s still so strange,” she said. “The last few days, he kept talking about you. And your mom.”
“Hmm.” My eyes dropped back to the music box.
“Did you prepare a speech?” she asked. “People would like to hear from you. He was loved.”
He was.
And that was the problem.
Everyone loved the version of him he gave away so easily.
The devoted father.
That man never came home.
The one I knew arrived late, carrying the sharp stink of alcohol. His hands were never gentle, and those hands I knew held disappointment, anger, things meant to be set down somewhere else but on his own daughter. Every bruise he left on me was a scar I still carry with me.
Now they wanted me in front of his grave, under soft daylight and with sympathetic eyes. They wanted stories. Proof that he had been good. Maybe they still wanted to believe, because the truth they knew was buried with him.
The paper I folded last night was gone from my pocket. It slipped out. And words I wrote,I forgive you, lost meaning.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I have a speech prepared.”
“Good,” she replied, exhaling smoke. “Change, darling. The funeral’s at four.”
I nodded.
She turned to leave, then paused at the doorframe.
“He left you the house,” she said. “Maybe you should move back home.”
My lips pressed together before I looked up at her. “I’ll think about it,” I whispered.
She nodded once and closed the door behind her. The click was soft.
Some habits never change.
Sometimes, even when you want to, you don’t know how to stop bending. You lower your head. You endure. You learn how to please everyone until there is nothing left of you to give.
A single tear slid down my cheek. I wiped it away before it could fall.
I set the music box back on the nightstand and walked into the bathroom.
The sink was white once. Now it stared back at me, chipped along the right edge, as if something hard had struck it and walked away. Above it, a mirror sagged inside a frame of rust, held up by thin iron bars that looked tired of pretending they were strong. Just like I was.
I stood there, facing myself.
I stared at my reflection and saw nothing looking back. No expression. No resistance. Just a face emptied by too much silence.
