8. Eight
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 when the 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’m not invited 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.
Heads turn, following his stride, and when he stops at my pew, everything goes still. My heart forgot its own beat, a rhythm that life gave me, and stopped, becoming the cause of my death. RIP.
Coming here was a terrible idea, although even he can’t convince me I didn’t belong here today.
“You shouldn’t be here.” His voice is quiet, controlled, but it slices like broken glass polished solely for me.
I meet his eyes, and the grief on his face nearly floors me, but it’s buried so deep beneath resentment, I can barely recognize it.
“I just…” My voice shakes. “I wanted to say goodbye.”
Liam’s jaw twitches. His throat bobs once.
“No.” He sounds so final, it needs to be studied.
“No?” I ask in shock.
“I can’t do this. Not with you here.” He stares at me, not blinking a muscle, with no remorse.
I dip my chin in understanding, even though it cracks something in my ribs.
“He wouldn't want you to do this, Liam,” I say in defeat.
“Get out, Sara.”
And my eyes snap open at his restrained anger, yet his eyes betray a vulnerability that makes him seem so lost.
Keeping my head up as much as possible, I rise on legs that don’t feel like mine.
I can understand and empathize with his hatred, I’ve been through the stages of grief, and he’s starting with anger, but I won’t let him swallow me whole.
The air is thicker now as if the damn lilies are multiplying, squeezing the oxygen out of my lungs.
I walk past him with one last look into his empty eyes, not touching, not speaking, just the heat of his body grazing mine and it sends shivers you’d get from walking into a morgue.
The sound of my heel’s echoes in a deliberate countdown made for people’s heads to turn, following me as I walk out. Pitying me, some curious and some confused. I don’t look back and certainly wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
Who knows, maybe I’ll be dancing at Liam’s funeral next.
Once outside, the sun hits me too hard. My breath catches. My vision swims, and all I can think is that Joe should’ve been the one walking out. Not me.
I stagger down the steps and keep going, until I reach the row of cypress trees at the edge of the cemetery.
I duck behind them and press my back to the trunk, gulping in air that smells of earth and resin and thank goodness, not a single damn flower.
From here, I can see the chapel entrance, the slow stream of black dresses and grey suits pouring into the parking lot.
I spot Liam, his muscles tensing through his suit, brushing his dark hair back, talking to his uncle with his head bowed, the same chiseled jawline as Joe's. The sight of him could make me hurl, but I keep looking anyway because seeing him reminds me of Joe, and that alone is bittersweet. He looks up once more, scans the yard, but I’m hidden.
I wonder if he’d come after me if he knew where to find me.
A breeze rattles me. I pretend it’s his hand on my shoulder, giving me the push I need to get up and move.
Wiping my hands on my tight black dress, I stand and walk away, yet a voice cuts through the air, prompting me to whirl around, but I remain frozen.
I know this voice without even having to look, glacial intensity sending a shiver down my spine.
“Didn’t I ask you to leave?” Liam says.
My heart races, and adrenaline floods my mouth. I don’t turn around right away, not ready to face his control and the unfairness of his unreasonable dominance despite the infiltrating guilt he tries to have me swallow.
“I left the funeral. Is that not enough for you?” Finally, I spin around to face him, locking my gaze to his piercing stare, hands buried deep in his pockets, and eyes like shards, he might appear almost relaxed, but the palpable violence within him seethes beneath his suit, a volatile force.
His body coils with tension, ready to unleash, just from the proximity of my presence.
In this moment, I realize the hatred is completely mutual.
“That’s not even close to being enough, so why are you here?” he says rigidly.
“Same reason why you’re here. Talking to the dead.”
“Don’t play smart with me, Sara.”
“What? Now I have to ask you for permission to visit my brother’s grave. Get over yourself,” I say the words too quickly. He’s so close I don’t know how he closed the distance between us. For a split second, he seems pained.
I chuckle. “I don’t need your pity,” I hiss, and he grabs my wrist, his fingers closing tightly against my skin, searing his mark, and somehow, I let him.
“You’re going to do what I tell you to do, Sara.”
It sounds like a warning, but I don’t take it at face value.
I’m tired, broken, and scared. I should run, but fear can make me behave irrationally.
Tilting my chin, I see the sharp lines of his jaw and the tension in his face as he stares down into my eyes, rendering me irreverent, yet inexplicably curious.
The same curiosity I've felt when wondering what death would feel like.
“Enlighten me, Liam. Why would I do that? Can’t you leave me alone?”
His body is close, almost too close, the heat radiating off him in waves. The taste of bile fills my mouth and disgust mingling together as I struggle to maintain my composure.
I rip my hand away. “Get your hands off of me.” Standing up to him because it’s the last thing I got, I will not back down, although fear is creeping in.
“I would enlighten you, Sara, but something tells me you’re going to learn all. on. your. own,” after he pronounces each syllable, he looks away to the chapel and, with an empty stare, the kind a savage lives behind, he says,
“He’s not here to protect you anymore.”
For a moment, I consider he means from him.
As I watch him walk away, confident, strong, threatening, nothing like Joe, I leave the dead to the dead.
How I’ll survive is beyond me.