‘Ow,’ she whispered, rubbing her leg.
‘Sorry,’ RJ said, leaning towards her and keeping his voice low. ‘I was aiming for one of them. It’s our mother’s funeral for God’s sake, they should be sad.’
‘We’re all sad.’ Briar sighed, pinning her brother with a sharp look. ‘Give them a break.’
A week. Their mom had been dead for a week and it still didn’t feel real. Time passed differently than it had before; Briar slept seemingly not at all, spending her nights tossing and turning, a pressing weight on her chest keeping her awake. And yet, every morning when she opened her eyes, for one moment it all felt like it had been a bad dream.
There had been tears, too many to count. It was almost a relief to be in public, around people scrutinizing her every move; it was easier to hold herself together with an audience. Her mother was well-loved, and this day was going to be hard for a lot of people, so the least she could do was not give them another thing to worry about.
‘Oh god,’ Laurel groaned, ‘it’s Mr. Teagues. Someone better be ready to grab the mic.’
‘Shh.’ Their father finally turned to them, frowning. ‘Please, darlings, the speeches are nearly over.’
Briar suppressed an eye roll as her siblings straightened and pretended to listen again. It didn’t matter that this was her father’s first time on American soil in years, and maybe the third time he’d ever worn a suit. If he suddenly wanted to play at being a parent after only ever being one for the sporadic family trip to London, then Briar would let him, even if today of all days she felt her siblings should be given a pass.
Mr. Teagues’s homage to their mother dragged on for nearly fifteen minutes. Briar knew because she’d taken to counting the seconds on the clock that hung on the far side of the funeral home’s grand hall. The funeral director finally wrestling the mic away from him was Briar’s cue to excuse herself to the bathroom. She walked quickly, keeping her head up but also avoiding eye contact with everyone she passed.
She locked the stall door behind her, leaning her body against it, and just stood there. She tried to focus on the pain still thrumming from where she’d been kicked, on where her heel was rubbing a blister along the side of her ankle – anything to ignore the way her body shook.
It took her longer than it should have to realize there was someone in the next stall over, and whatever sobs were about to overtake her died in her throat. She straightened, pushing her shoulders back, and walked out to the bathroom sink.
She stared at her reflection, struck by how she could still look the same when something so fundamental had shifted inside her. Her upper lip, redder than usual and still chapped from the frigid hospital air, was her only souvenir from the whole ordeal.
She began washing her hands, taking care to scrub between her fingers and under her nails, convincing herself that she wasn’t stalling. She heard a flush from the occupied stall and her eyes went to it in the mirror.
Alice came out of the stall. Because of course, she was right where Briar didn’t want her. Her eyes were red, nose too, the way she’d look after a cry, and Briar hated how she remembered that. Not that she had seen Alice cry all that much in their decade-long friendship. In fact, if Briar had been asked only a few weeks ago, she’d have said that seeing Alice Hughes exhibit a single real emotion was a sign of the apocalypse.
Alice froze as their eyes met in the glass, her hand still poised on the stall door. Briar couldn’t stop staring, falling back into her old pattern of cataloguing Alice’s every detail. She had spent so many classes watching Alice, memorizing her perfect penmanship, the angle of her fingers as she held a pencil, the way she’d bite her lip in frustration when she didn’t know the answer, the smell of vanilla in her long, blonde hair.
Alice’s hair now was shorter and darker, her natural color, which Briar hadn’t seen since they were children. She had traded her hyper-feminine floral dresses for loose trousers and a button-down. But her eyes were still as blue as ever, still as hypnotic.
‘Um,’ Alice said, ‘hi.’
Briar didn’t blink, relishing the way Alice shifted uncomfortably as her words hung between them. Aliceshouldbe the awkward party here; Briar certainly didn’t have anything to feel ashamed about.
‘That was a lovely eulogy,’ Alice finally managed. ‘I’m sure Susan would’ve appreciated it.’
Some mixture of anger, hurt and regret battled within her, but Briar pressed it all down before any one emotion could win out. She grinned tightly, more of a bearing of teeth than anything resembling friendliness.
‘Thanks. Your speech was kind of weird,’ she said, flicking water off her hands and stalking out the door.
She braced herself before re-entering the hall but was relieved to see that the speeches had paused as guests lined up for the buffet. Spotting familiar faces in line, she made a beeline for her friends.
‘Are we gonna talk about Alice?’ Harper said, nodding at where Alice was slinking back into the hall.
Briar was relieved to focus her energy on an easy target. ‘I didn’t expect her to actually show up.’
She couldn’t believe it had taken her mother dying for Alice to come home. That after years of no contact, Alice thought she could just show up and speak to Briar as though they were friends. As though she hadn’t abandoned Briar for a better life halfway across the world without so much as a goodbye. She couldn’t acknowledge how much it hurt, even to Noah and Harper.
‘I know, the esteemed PhD from Oxford,’ Harper’s voice dipped into a faux posh accent, flicking her long blonde hair dramatically over her shoulder. ‘Twice-honored Nobel laureate, and knighted by the King, at this small-town funeral? I’msoglad she found time in her busy schedule.’
Noah gave Harper a pointed look. ‘She’s here for Susan, and she’ll be back in London in no time. We don’t have to make it a thing.’
Briar glanced over to where Alice was sitting with the former camp counselors, totally engrossed in a conversation with Freddie and Sierra. It was weird to see how naturally she spoke with others after their stilted encounter in the bathroom. Briar couldn’t wait for her to go back to London, where she could pretend she didn’t exist again.
‘Um, obviously,’ Harper said, rolling her eyes. ‘It’s not like I’m jealous. That was a million years ago. And she’s a lesbian now.’
Briar winced. Even though it’d been years since Alice had come out in an Instagram post their freshmen year of college, it still felt wrong for Harper to state it so matter-of-factly, as if it hadn’t represented a monumental shift in Briar’s life. From the Alice she’d known to a stranger. Briar had fixated on it for years. Alice rarely managed to surprise Briar, but her stomach had dropped when she’d seen the post. Nothing could have prepared her to see the girl she’d loved throughout high school fall for seemingly the first girl she’d met at college.
