“Lena, it’s your turn,” Tori nudged me. I noticed that the priest present with us had been done with his prayers. It was time for me to say the poem Liam had written this morning.
I stepped forward, reluctantly letting go of Liam’s hand. I cleared my throat and got the small piece of paper out of my jacket. I held it in the same hand as the white and blue roses.
“Well, uhm, to me, Darla Black was one of the kindest women I’d ever met. She is a happy, caring and generous soul. She took care of everyone in her life and they will forever be grateful for that.”
I looked at Liam over my shoulder; his eyes were glued to the casket.
“This is a poem by Victoria L. Payne that Liam wanted me to read.”
“In my Rose Garden of memories
I see you standing there
An angel in disguise
who taught me how to care
I long to hear your voice
for real not in my dreams,”
I paused for a second, letting a tear splatter on the paper.
“I am missing you so much these days
how empty my world seems
People say time heals all wounds
that someday the pain will subside
But Grandma I can tell you
I think they must have lied
The emptiness I am feeling now
is strong and I am weak
These days go by without you
so dreary and so bleak
In my Rose Garden of memories
I know you'll always be
for though you're gone
from this mortal world
in my heart you'll always be”
There was a sudden silence as a cold breeze blew over us, making me feel as if Darla had heard me and she saw how much we loved her.
My legs shook as I walked closer to the casket, my steps, making tracks on the snow. I put the flowers on top of the coffin and whispered, “I’ll try to take care of him like you did.”
I walked to Liam and put my hand in his again. Despite the freezing weather, his hand couldn’t possibly be warmer. I refrained from talking to him this whole morning. He avoided my eyes.
The priest and a man beside him looked at us with pity. “It’s time for the burial,” the man said. I stiffened.
He was giving us a choice on whether to stay and watch, or leave. The burial would take a longer time, since there was snow. The caretakers of the cemetery took care of cleaning the places of snow, but it didn’t stop nature from crying frozen tears in places where dead bodies lay.
For the first time that entire morning, I spoke to him, “Liam?”
He nodded.
“I’ll stay too.”
He squeezed my hand and our eyes met. He pleaded for me to go, he wanted to go through this alone. In a way, I understood. A part of me wanted to stay with him and another comprehended that this was something he wanted to see alone.
“Okay. I’ll go.”
He nodded in gratitude.
Liam’s neighbor shook his hand and there was a mutual understanding between them. The few others; a middle aged woman and two men did the same with him. They were gone by now.
Mom blinked at me and headed towards the car. Tori patted his shoulder and walked away. It was a matter of seconds before I had to leave as well.
I positioned myself face to face with him. He looked down at me with a passiveness that made my blood get cooler in my veins.
I wrapped my arms around his waist, catching him off guard. He never responded, he just put his head down to my shoulder for a few moments.
“Come over when it’s all over, alright?”
He didn’t answer. He hadn’t talked to me again since Friday night and it was slightly disappointing. I didn’t expect him to talk again, but a small part of me hoped he would.
I put my hands on his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. They were an empty blue, as if the ocean in them had lost life. There were no waves.
“Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”
I half-heartedly believed my own words. I heard them over the years so many times, I couldn’t understand if they were true or just lies that are supposed to make you feel better.
But for now, it was all I had to help.
♥♥♥♥♥
12:01
I wondered how easy life would be if we could all transform into animals whenever we wanted. And that spirit was the one that revealed your true form to others.
I wished to be a bird; a dove, precisely. They were simple, tiny, sneaky and innocent looking.
The doorbell broke off my concentration and I jumped off my bed in seconds. Tori was soundly sleeping, mumbling something about different kinds of tea. I crept into my mother’s room and she was bundled in her covers, soft snores signaling just at what point she was exhausted.
I slowly went down the stairs, took a freshly washed pot from the kitchen and held it in my hand as I looked in the peephole. It was dark, yet the person’s head was down. They were slightly swaying.
He raised his arm to bang on the door and I let out a small shriek. I recognized him within seconds, dropped the pot on the ground and hesitantly opened the door.
“…Liam?”
He looked at me with a crazy gleam in his eyes. The smell of alcohol seemed to have been sprayed on him. His clothes were messy and they were the same he’d worn this morning.
“Liam,” I repeated, instantly steadying him. I had to breathe through my mouth to avoid the reek of alcohol.
He gave me a little hysterical laugh. “Lena,” he said in the same tone. I was momentarily stunned that he was talking. I led him to a small chair beside the door, but he refused to sit.
“Please sit, Liam.”
He shook his head. “No, you’re not my mom.”
I tried to push down his shoulders to make him sit.
“In fact, my mom can’t even tell me what to do, because she’s dead!” He chuckled dryly. I tensed and stared at him.
“Neither can my dad… say anything… because his body is underground! He’s dead!” His tone rose.
I put my hand on his arm. “Liam, pl—” He abruptly took his arm away from me.
“And they say that siblings will always be here for you, eh? Mine, where is she, huh? She’s DEAD, too! How old was she, Lena? FIVE YEARS OLD!” He was shouting by now.
I stayed frozen.
“And Grandma, she used to tell me what to do.” He paused, taking ragged breaths. “But now she can’t, you know why, Lena?”
I didn’t answer.
“You know why? Do you?”
I shook my head, feeling that it was the right thing to do.
He put his hands on my shoulder and looked at me in the eye.
“She’s DEAD TOO!”
I wasn’t used to Liam talking just yet, much less to him yelling. I decided to stay calm and silent, just to let him get everything out.
“And why?” He whispered, walking around the living room. His steps made stains on the carpet.
He turned to me and pointed at himself. “Me. It’s all my fucking fault!”
“I’m letting them die, Lena! For god’s sake, I’m losing everyone around me! I’m an orphan!” He shouted, every fiber of me was shaking.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “It never was.”
He scoffed. “My family died because of my god damned birthday present! I was a selfish brat who couldn’t wait for an airplane for his tenth birthday! They got killed in that car crash! It was my fault! And then, Grandma came to live with me! And maybe she wouldn’t have gotten sick, and maybe she wouldn’t have fucking died, Lena!”
He swung his fist into the closest thing to him, which was the old lamp Mom had always refused to get rid of. He grimaced at the blood on his knuckles and looked up at me.
The anger was gone and it was replaced by a look of heartbreak.
“They’re all gone,” he mumbled, falling to his knees. In a flash, I
was by his side.
“None of this was your fault, I promise. It wasn’t your fault that a drunk driver crashed into their car. It wasn’t yours. It wasn’t your fault that your grandma got sick.” I kept on repeating.
He let out a sob and covered his face with his hands. “They’re all gone,” he kept on saying. My heart broke at the sight of him. I put my arms around him, feeling our bodies vibrate as he cried. We remained like that for a long time. I held a broken soul and watched as he got out of the shell he hid behind.
A small trash can was placed in front of me and I realized that Tori and Mom were awake. Mom leaned against the wall and looked at us with a broken expression.
Tori gave me the trash can and nodded. As if by telepathy, Liam grabbed the trash can and started retching. I breathed through my mouth and Tori turned away.
I rubbed his back as he got every drop of alcohol out of his system. He coughed repeatedly and I grabbed a tissue box. I handed him about five of them and watched as he wiped his mouth.
Mom handed me a bottle of water and he cleaned the puke in his mouth out with it.
I helped him get up and I put him on the red couch, I loved to read on. He blinked at me several times. I took his hand.
“It isn’t your fault, Liam,” I said.
“It is,” he replied, his voice barely audible. His cheeks were wet from the tears that were still falling.
I shook my head fervently. “It isn’t. Your mom, your dad, Serena and Grandma Darla are looking down on you right now, guarding you. They will always be in your heart. They wouldn’t want to see you like this.”
“But they’re not here.”
“They are,” I pressed my palm on the place where his heart should be. “They’re right here.”
He closed his eyes and opened them with difficulty. “…will you leave me?”
“Never.”
He took a deep breath and fell to sleep. I turned to my mom and sibling. They looked at me with sadness and pity.
Mom scrunched her nose. “I never really liked that lamp, anyway.”
♥♥♥♥♥
18
Something About December
“Who really needs a gift
When love is meant to give
I can still recall
Carry with me always
Every Christmas dream
They live in you and me”
~Christina Perri~
Lena Rose Winter
Christmas was a time of the year I absolutely adored. The fun was in decorating the tree and making cookies. And of course, my family tradition that broke the rules, sleeping all day and staying up on Christmas Eve, trying to catch Santa and playing games.
Happily enough, we completely forgot about decorating the tree. It was the 21st, the first day after Christmas break. Tori and I went out to buy a medium sized tree and we rushed home after school.
We started decorating it with little figures; doves, reindeers, elves and a mini fat Santa Claus. We put on traditional music and sang along.
To sum it all up, I felt jolly.
Placing the red ball on one of the tree’s branches, I sang my heart out. “I ought to say no, no, no.”
“Mind if I move in closer?” Tori sang in a fake, deep voice. She came next to me and wiggled her eyebrows at me.
I continued, smiling. “At least I'm gonna say that I tried.”
Tori furrowed her eyebrows and gave me a pedophilic smile. “What's the sense in hurting my pride?”
“I really can't stay,” I faked a tear of sadness.
“Ah, baby it’s cold outside,” we sang together in falsetto.
We burst into laughter and I realized how grateful I was for Tori’s entrance in my life. She’s the best friend I never had and luckily enough, she’s my sister. It felt good to have another teenager with me.
I glanced at the family clock, ticking, 7:40 p.m. Out of the blue, a question randomly haunted my mind.
"Tori?"
"Yeah?" she answered, eyes glued to adjusting some of the colorful balls.
"Have you ever fallen in love?"
My question took her aback, she turned to face me and froze. Slowly, her cheeks turned a crimson color and she fidgeted with the cookie in her hands.
"Well, there was someone-" she started, but then almost immediately stopped. She lifted her head to face me, her caramel brown eyes brimming with tears.
"Who?" I asked, hoping to get an answer. "Tori? Talk to me."
Her bottom lip quivered and I was terrified, because I've never seen her so sad, so... vulnerable. She shook her head.
"Victoria, speak, please," I begged. She cleared her throat, then vaguely looked at me, as if in another world.
"His name was Daniel, we completed one another. He made me bloody happy and I think I did the same. We met on the first day of… I think you call it preschool... He offered me an apple and I accepted, thinking of it as a friendship offering.”
“He was the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen, I have utterly and completely fallen for him. He soon turned into the bad boy of the school, but when we were together, he was the same Daniel I always knew. He made me feel special, beautiful, hell, I felt wanted. Until, one day, I-" Her voice was dry, and hoarse. She was hurt and broken, how could I not see that?
I stayed silent, awaiting the continuation. Out of nowhere, fire glazed in her eyes, like a flame that had been recently lightened.
"H-He cheated on me. I found him snogging a freshman in the girls' locker room. I remember that day because I'd just finished football practice and couldn't wait to see him…
♥♥♥♥♥
Victoria Grace Winter
I dried my sweat with a towel, entering the girls' locker room. I was ready to win the match that would lead our team to Regionals. Coach Blogs has faith in me, as do all the other girls. I just hope my mum doesn't mind me being so late, after all, practice finishes at 5 and it's 7 now.
I heard someone panting and stopped in my tracks. No one's supposed to be here, I was pretty sure that I was the last one around.
"Sydney, babe! Are you still here?" I cried out, thinking my best friend might still be here.
No answer.
I walked a little, then regretted it.
There he was.
He had his hands on her waist and she was clutching his hair. He was aggressively making out with her, almost snogging her face off. I recognized her as the freshman that had just joined the team. That was the moment when I understood exactly what heartbreak and anger was. I remembered my English teacher's words, defining fury.
"An emotion so strong, so visible, yet to those who choose to see only what they want to, see only the flash of fire in your eyes, feel only a burn in the deepest depth of your souls, hear only the drop of one tear as it passes past your cheek, these signs catch those who care and they look only into your eyes with the power of ice, calm your soul with just one touch and dry the tear with just one word."
At that moment, I wanted to explode like a time bomb that has no hope of being stopped. But I also wanted to shout until my throat runs dry and mostly, I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry like I've never ever cried before, like I didn't know how to do anything else. My biggest wish was to punch him, but that would prove that I cared.
"Daniel," I breathed, clenching my fists to calm down. He broke off, then his eyes were the size of tennis balls.
"Tori, I-I, this is not what it looks like."
The freshman, Dina, fixed her hair and clothes, her cheeks flushing.
"This is exactly what it looks like, Daniel."
That's when I spit on him and walked away.
♥♥♥♥♥
Lena Rose Winter
When she finished, her cheeks were hot with tears and her features fallen. Her eyes were puffy, because she wouldn't stop sniffling during the whole thing.
Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around her in a tight hug. I stroked her hair, as my shoulder became wet with tears.
> "It's his loss," I said, handing her tissues. She blew her nose and smiled.
"Yes, after all, I am the great ToriBear."
We giggled, but she was unaware of the plan forming in my mind. We swayed to the songs and continued decorating the tree while talking about anything BUT her love life, which included the topic of me and Liam.
Click.