They let me go.
The sound of dirt being shoveled back into the hole followed me all the way home.
I didn’t start dry heaving until I made it to the safety of my bedroom. I forced myself to choke down the bile that threatened to come out because there was no way in hell I could go into the bathroom to vomit. I’d probably never be able to go in there again.
Chapter Thirty
I took a seat on my window seat, surrounded by bright, girly pillows and flicked my wrist casually. My bedroom door slammed shut, making me cringe. I’d done well for a beginner, but I really needed to work on it; I had wanted the door to shut without making noise. I got one but not the other. Progress.
Only days ago, I would have jumped for joy at the progress I had made. Today, not so much.
This was a dark day. For me and Mr. Cole. No, not Mr. Cole, but Marcus. He’d insisted I call him by his first name when he got home. With my mother dead, I had no reason not to honor his request. Add that to the fact his brother had died and I couldn’t not give him what he’d wanted. We’d both lost family even though I was the only one aware of it. I felt his pain like a physical thing and it hurt me just to look at him. I imagined he saw something similar on my face, but he was way off on the why.
My mother was dead and Mr. Cole thought she’d gone and left us both willingly for something else, or, likely, someone else. He didn’t seem too broken up about it. In fact, he didn’t seem to care that she was gone at all. Such was his grief over the death of his brother that he didn’t seem to mind that I’d supposedly been left behind with him, for him to take care of.
He told me we’d deal with her absence after he put his brother in the ground. I’d left it at that. The pain in his eyes when he talked about his brother hurt simply to look at, I did not want to make it worse.
I wanted to ask him questions about my future though because I was worried. With my mother gone he had no real obligation to take care of me. He could send me away tomorrow and there was nothing I could do about it.
Another part of me simply didn’t care. I was numb inside and out and quite possibly in shock. Who cared about tomorrow when I felt next to nothing today?
The guys had tried to see me, tried to talk to me. They’d called, texted, and even showed up at the house. Apparently, Tyson had given out my phone number to the rest of them and all but Damien and Dash had made use of it. Even though I did not talk to any of them I was still a little hurt that those two hadn’t even sent a text to ask if I was okay. It was stupid because I knew they didn’t really like me, but that didn’t take the sting out of them making it blatantly obvious. I knew my silence upset Tyson and the twins the most because we had become friends and they didn’t understand why I had shut them out. Quinton kept texting me because he was worried I now hated him. I didn’t hate him. I hated myself because I didn’t care that she was dead. After almost throwing up the one time, I realized I’d only gotten sick because the dead body had freaked me out, as well as what we were doing with it. I didn’t care that it had been my mother’s body. I was afraid to see Quinton because I didn’t know how I’d feel about him or myself when I did. What if I saw him and it made me feel something other than nothing about my mother being dead? I couldn’t be around him for a while.
When I refused to see them they stopped coming over, but the text messages and phone calls didn’t stop so I turned off my phone.
I’d figure out what I wanted to do with them, just not today. Probably not even tomorrow. Maybe not even next week.
I needed to pack because Mr. Cole and I had a plane to catch, and tomorrow a funeral to attend. He wanted me with him. I didn’t understand why when he’d have his own kids there with him. I didn’t want to go, not in the least bit. I didn’t want to be around his children and I didn’t want to meet the rest of his family. And I most certainly didn’t want to attend a funeral, not so soon after my mother’s death. My mother wouldn’t get a funeral because no one knew she was dead and they never would. Instead, she’d simply been tossed into a hole in the dirt.
And I was supposed to go on with my life like nothing happened. I didn’t know how to do that, but I knew I had to try. It would likely be the hardest thing I’d yet to do. And there would be harder things to come. Much harder. I just knew it.
The End.