Chapter 1
Chapter One
THREE YEARS LATER
“Poisonous does not always mean deadly. The official definition of a poisonous plant is ‘that which contains substances capable of producing varying degrees of discomfort and adverse physical or chemical effects, or even death, to humans and animals when they are eaten or otherwise contacted.’”
-Fez Inkwright, Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow-Lives of Plants-
Grief changes you. The second it enters your bloodstream it rewrites your very soul.
You’ll never be who you were before it touched you.
At least that's what my mom used to say. And as I watch her coffin being lowered into the ground I can’t help but think she was right.
That whatever is happening in me since she died is changing me right down to my very DNA.
Because ever since I found her on the bathroom floor, so cold and lifeless, I’ve felt like I was playing dress up in the old Thea’s body.
“I’m so sorry for your loss dear girl. Your mother was such a special woman, who would have thought…” I slide my eyes over to her, a vague memory of her name passing through my mind before it drifts off. I don’t care enough to run after it.
“Who would have thought what?” My voice no longer sounds like my own, the tone hard and flat.
She stumbles a bit, her words getting caught up. I know what she was going to say. It’s what everyone has said, we never would have thought Maire Montgomery had a drug problem. We never thought Maire Montgomery would kill herself.
My mother didn’t have a drug problem. She didn’t kill herself.
She was murdered. I know it’s true just like I know the sky is fucking blue.
But it’s hard to convince a small town of that when one of their favorite women is found dead due to a drug overdose.
At least according to the autopsy. The words had seemed surreal when I heard my stepfather, Rodger, read them outloud.
The coroner stated her tox screen had come back positive for drugs, though he hadn’t specified what type, and ruled her death as suicide by drug overdose.
Nevermind there was no note, no message, nothing to indicate she had tried to kill herself.
Nor did my mother have any history of drug use, fuck she only really drank once a year on the anniversary of my biological fathers death.
She would drink one glass of wine at the unmarked grave before leaving a bottle of whiskey.
Every year, like clockwork, up until this year.
Now she was a permanent resident in the graveyard that she used to frequent.
My eyes track towards the area that holds the unmarked grave and for a flash of a second I have the urge to pick up the mantle, drink a glass of wine and leave that bottle of whiskey.
But what about the months of isolation… maybe the town is right, she killed herself with drugs. She wasn’t well, like mother like daughter.
I want to rip the voice out of my mind. Hating the doubt that my brain likes to sow every now and again.
“Your mother was such a kind soul, I just can’t imagine what she got mixed up in.
” This from a different member of the blue haired brigade, as my mother would have called them.
Her patronizing tone grates at my nerves and the pity in their eyes feels fake as shit. All they want is the latest gossip.
“My mother didn’t get mixed up in shit.” I spat, ignoring the audible gasp from the ladies. “She didn’t do drugs and she didn’t kill herself.”
She never would have left me!
I want to scream it from the rooftops. How could anyone think she would have left me here alone, with fucking Rodger as my only family! And yet I swallow back the words instead focusing on the hole in the ground that currently holds my mothers casket.
“Poor Rodger, I can’t imagine how he must be feeling.” The words are all the same. Some even dare to say how lucky I am to still have such a doting stepfather. But all I can see is my mother dead.
“She never wanted to be buried. She wanted to be cremated.” The words are hollow. But I say them anyway, determined to keep my mother's wishes and memories alive whether people want to hear them or not.
People nervously shift around, throats clearing as they try to pretend I’m not standing here looking at the place my mother will never leave.
After a while the vultures start to meander away, hushed whispers left behind in the air about what my fate will be.
They also make sure to add in how shocked they are that my brother didn't come home, followed with sympathetic musings about how hard it must be to come back here. My teeth grind down hard enough I’m certain I might crack one as I pull my phone out, opening the group chat that has been a group of one since three years ago…
Me (Friday 8pm): I miss you guys.
Me (Saturday 1pm): Y’all must be busy but just wanna say it again… I miss you all.
Me (Thursday, 9am): Can I at least get a proof of life from someone?
Me (Friday 3:15pm): I’m sorry if I made anyone uncomfortable. I… I don't know what got into me. I should have apologized sooner, I just didn’t really realize how big of a deal it was.
Me (Monday, 7am): I can take the hint. Sorry.
It was as though when they left they took a part of me with them and with each unanswered text it continued to chip away at the core of who I was. I never thought Law and Logan would cut me out because of what I had done with Ace… my brother I could understand.
Nausea builds in my stomach even as I think about that night. Embarrassment and shame coated thick on my tongue as I keep scanning the messages.
Me (Friday 10pm): I know none of you want anything to do with me and that's understandable. This is my fault, I know that. I didn’t deserve the friendship I had from you all and I took advantage of it in the end.
Me (Friday 10:05pm): But I need help. And I have no place else I can go.
Me (Friday 10:07pm): Or friends that I can go to.
Me (Friday 10:30pm): I just….I can’t do this anymore.
I can’t live like this. I’m watching my mom drown while I’m going under right next to her.
I deserve it, I know I do, but my mom needs help and I can’t do it.
Not anymore. I have a plan. I don’t want it but I have it.
Poison feels like a good way to go given my obsession with plants. Very poetic if you ask me.
Me (Friday 11pm): Okay that was a bad joke I’m sorry. But really… I’m doing okay and I need help. Please.
Me (Friday 11:01pm) : Logan? Law?
Me (Today): My mom is dead.
I hit send on the message and shove the phone back into my pocket. I hadn’t bothered to send it earlier given no one had responded to my previous messages. If a suicidal message hadn’t invoked a response then my mom dying wouldn’t either. But it felt wrong to not tell them.
The sound of the excavator starting up startles me and I realize the funeral director is standing off to the side waiting to finish burying my mother.
He looks at me before glancing down at his watch and back to me, the message clear, hurry the fuck up.
I narrow my eyes at him, the rage I keep barely contained flickering in my gaze.
A sheepish look crawls over his pasty face and he turns to look at the operator of the machine.
Old Thea was meek and timid and never would have been so rude to him.
The old Thea only wanted to be lost in her books settled in a branch of her willow tree.
I often try to remember when that version of me died.
Sometimes I think it's when they all left me here and other times I think it's the moment I found my mother's body.
Either way the new me is filled with nothing but venom, rage and grief.
Bending down I grab some of the hard dirt before chucking it over my moms casket, the sound of the rocks and debris hitting the top of the wood is louder than a bomb going off.
Fuck did the funeral really go that fast? I didn’t have time. I need more time.
Memories of our last few days together flash through my mind and I cringe when I think of the words I had said.
We had always been so close but when she married Rodger we drifted apart, a distance growing between us with each passing day.
It had been easier to ignore when I was occupied by Ace, Logan and Law but after they left the gap had grown so large I don’t think either of us knew how to cross it.
Instead, I lost myself in the depression and she lost herself… .
The spiral starts like they always do, and if I don’t stop it now I know I’ll get carried away by the loneliness that is festering deep within my soul. The itch to escape it builds and builds under my skin, a physical manifestation of the shit I keep shoving down.
I back away from the grave sight as my breath begins to come out in short choppy pants.
The funeral director cuts me a curious glance and I quickly turn my back to him and begin walking in the opposite direction.
My feet crunch against the frozen grass as I speed walk away from the last resting place of my mother.
I shove my hands down into the deep pockets of my peacoat.
The tips of my fingers sweep across the cool blade in my left pocket and the ridged flask in my right.
I hold onto them both like a life line tethering me to this world.