Eight
Sara
Iwake up with my face pressed to the floor, my chest rises and falls, and that feels like the biggest betrayal. My eyes brim with tears even before they open, streaming down my cheeks as harsh reality slams back into consciousness like a brutal punch to the face. Waves crashing and rolling me into the rock’s ocean deep, where oblivion offers a brief, deceptive relief. It’s all a lie, an illusion, a terrible dream, but as soon as I gasp for air, he’s gone. It's a finality that makes you ponder mortality, fate, with questions you’ll never be able to answer hanging at your throat.Like a destructive thief, death creeps around us, waiting to ignite our deepest woe and steal our most precious treasures.
I’ve been robbed.Come back to me, please.
I dream of Joe. Every time I close my eyes. He’s there, laughing, teasing, with that smile and beauty of his, inside and out. I can almost touch him, his blue eyes and blond hair haunting me in the shadows, which becomes darker and deeper and then he’s screaming. Metal crunching. The smell of oil, fire engulfing him.I overheard firefighters at a little café talking about a gruesome motorcycle accident that happened on the roads near the wine fields, and since then my dreams have become nightmares.My stomach lurches, my legs fail to stand while the screams still vibrate in my pounding head, and when I come to my senses, I’m the one screaming. Again.
It’s been six days, I think, since the world ended, but time hasn’t moved here.
The day, the hour, eludes me completely. I know nothing anymore. I only know the feeling in my chest — this nauseating, empty pressure in the pit of my stomach that won’t go away no matter how long I sit here, curled up on the floor of my bedroom like a broken thing.
My phone is off. My curtains are shut. Food doesn’t taste like anything, and even though I haven’t eaten, I feel full, like my belly absorbed my grief. Water sits untouched on my nightstand. I’m not sure if I’ve showered. Everything reminds me of loss and memory of a cruel taunting with a future that will never be.
My mother paces outside my door, not knowing how to take this away from me. She knocked, and for the first few days she helped me back into bed, until some nights, she deemed unnecessary to force my body into doing something as mundane as sleeping in my bed, she would just cover me with a blanket as I laid on the floor. The ground holding my soul in place whenthe surrounding air is begging for a burning match to light my memories on fire, yet my heart never wanting to let go of the love I felt.
Wiping my tears off, I glance at the black dress hanging on my closet door for the funeral that I’mnotinvited to. Black, like my soul, and my favorite color.
Fitting.
I imagine Liam standing there with his cruel eyes and clenched jaw, blaming me again.
“He was coming to see you, Sara.”
As if I didn’t already know. As if the guilt hadn’t already tattooed itself onto my spine. However, I remind myself that he, too, must be shattered, but I know he’ll never give me the chance to tell him how sorry I am.
The only distraction I’ve had is my debate about going, but I’ll take my chances. I won’t walk away again, even though I don’t know how to walk into a church and pretend that goodbye is enough.
The chapel smells of gardenias and death. The heat is brutal in the middle of July, bottled up by old stones and stained glass.
I pick a pew in the very back, behind a marble pillar big enough to hide my entire body if I curl up small. It doesn’t matter; I’m still in someone’s line of sight. Everyone here pretends not to stare, but their eyes flicker and catch on me every time the priest pauses for a breath. My mom had asked me not to make a spectacle of myself; well, that’s a failure.
The front of the room is drowning in lilies. Their perfume makes me want to puke. What kind of sick ritual is this? A pleasant scent masked by a foul tragedy. I’d been here years ago watching my brother’s casket covered with dirt.I should become a funeral planner: fuck the flowers, they die too.
We shouldn’t sugarcoat death. Joe didn’t need lilies spewing all over the room; he needed eulogies of love, reminders of his beauty, his heart, his bright blue eyes and his gentleness. The past few days had shown me I was in love with him, every part of him, and now, all I could hold on to is how much I deathly miss him.
Joe’s picture sits up near the altar, propped at an angle so his eyes follow me, so handsome. The lack of him aching in my bones.I can hear him say,“I’ll see you soon, baby.”
I try to keep myself from crying;closure is what I came here for, not a breakdown. But every muscle in my body is clenched, hands twisted in my dress so hard the skin’s gone white. The service is a blur of eulogies, and I recognize Joe’s uncle reading a letter. Only catching fragments while my intrusive thought of never knowing what he wanted to tell me that day plays in my head repeatedly. If only I had reached for him… maybe I wouldn’t be sitting here at his funeral. The darkness of that truth haunts me.
“Don’t cry, baby. Don’t cry. I can’t stand seeing you cry,”is the whisper in my ear from his shadow as one tear escapes. I can feel him all around me. Oh god Joe, what did you want to tell me? How do I get you back? This hurts. Ouch, the pain is so sharp in my heart. It’s grasping at my throat, at my ribs, choking me out of air and hope of ever being the same person. If I had any sanity left, it’s gone.
I look up again, holding back the tears, and I see him. Like a truck hitting me at full speed. Liam is standing at the edge of the first row, arms folded so tight his knuckles are purple.He’s even taller than I remember, every line of his body drawn straight with anger or grief, or maybe both. He’s dressed in a suit that’s made for him, both shapely and brutal, and is ominously breathtaking.
I hate him.
He tightens his tie, as if he’s trying to strangle himself but can’t quite commit.
Maybe he needs a hand. Can I volunteer?
He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t look at anyone, just stares at the coffin with a violent intensity, echoing into reality.I try to disappear into the pew’s wood. My breath shortens and my hands go clammy from looking at him, and then he moves, a turn so slow and precise it feels intentional.
His eyes find mine as if they’ve been hunting me all along, and they’re blue. So blue. I forgot how blue; Joe’s eyes were like sunlight and Liam’s are storms.I flinch. My chest flashes cold, then scalding hot. Like someone dropped me in ice water and dragged me into a scalding hot bath. I look away quickly, trying to calm my breath, but it’s too late…he saw me.
I count breaths. Try not to cry. The priest mumbles about dust and ashes, and I don’t hear a word of it. I hear blood rushing in my ears, and I feel judgment crawling over my skin.I could wait for everyone to disappear, Liam first, until I become invisible, but he turns and walks with steely determination, never looking away from me.
A monster. Straight down the aisle. Straight for me.Fuck, lucky me.
