[Drabble]
She holds herself together, though she isn’t certain why. It would be within boundaries to cry now. She can feel the tightening in her throat, the pounding headache that starts at the base of her skull and slowly expands until it explodes behind her eyes, the shaking hands she clenches so tightly, hidden under folded arms, all to keep the tears at bay. She holds her chin up, never avoiding eye contact with anyone for a moment. She will not be weak. She will not give in to the pitying and understanding glances. They don’t understand shit.
The only memory that really lasts from the day that she watches her father be buried comes from hours after the funeral. She’s walking back to the car with her mother, making a calculated and steady retreat from the home of her step-grandparents, and her mother laughs. Her mother laughs so hard that she cries, and has to sit down on the curb. Bewildered, and already giggling just at the sight of seeing her mother in such hysterics, she asks what’s so funny.
“You’re wearing green underwear. Your dress is see-through.”
She laughs too. She sits down next to her mother, and joins her in laughing to the point of tears. These tears, she will allow. She lays back on the sidewalk, holding her stomach and cracking up. It's completely absurd, and the few that pass by while she lies there avoid looking at her. She knows what they're thinking. She's just a child. She's delusional with grief. Because she isn't standing, they miss the joke. She doubts they would understand it if they were told anyways.
~*~*~*~
It's always the eyes. As hard as she tries not to be charmed by his smile, as much as she fights against being baited by his alternating flattery and mockery, the eyes always pull her back in. When he smiles, they crinkle at the corners, pulling into lines normally only seen on older men. And yet, they suit his teenage looks perfectly, creating a symmetry with his high cheekbones and firm jawline. Everything about his features is defined, etched almost. The eyes themselves are framed in thick, dark lashes. Girls would kill to have the natural lashes he has. His irises are fascinating, a constantly shifting mess of green and blue, flecked with tiny bits of gold, grey, and orange. In the moments where she lets her guard down, she tells him to wear green more often. She has no personal fondness for the color, but the way it reflects in his eyes is aesthetically pleasing to her.
When they say goodbye, she avoids meeting his eyes for the first time. She wonders briefly if he notices this. Her eye contact was always so strong. She knew that he could always read her. That he knew how to read when she was teasing, challenging, or begging for comfort, all without her needing to speak the words. It would still be many years before she learned how to effectively communicate with words. But he never needed her to. She avoids meeting his eyes, because she would rather appear cold and no longer interested, than to allow him to see how much he's hurting her. She knows it isn't his fault, and it isn't his choice. It still hurts, though. And that vulnerability threatens to strangle her, to leave her a crumpled mess in plain view of anyone and everyone. She, who proudly wears the title of Bitch, is threatened with the humiliation of crying in public.
For the briefest moment, the thought of that humiliation is enough to cause a surge of anger towards him for making her so vulnerable. She seizes that short flash, and uses it to meet his eyes for a second, all steel and mechanical coldness. She manages a flat "Later", and she walks away without looking back.
It remains one of her most vivid and nagging regrets for years.
It becomes the model for how she says goodbye to everyone.
~*~*~*~
She clenches her teeth and her fists, sitting as straight as possible in the pew. The priest drones on about God's infinite love and compassion, and all she can think about is how much she would love to bash the fraud over the head with the gold urn on the table. She hates him. She has never seen or met him before this moment, but in this moment, she hates him more than anything else in the world. She knows the disrespect is the fault of those who arranged the funeral, and that attacking the priest would be akin to attacking a messenger. It doesn't change how she feels, though. She still fantasizes about slowly strangling him with his stupid little purple satin sashes or whatever the hell they're called, until he cannot speak any more.
When the open call is made for people to speak, she chokes. Her knees refuse to unbend, and her body refuses to rise. She listens to everyone else's bullshit. The only one with any eloquence or seeming knowledge of the deceased is the brother. Everyone else spews standarized garbage you could find on a Hallmark card. It makes her nauseous, and if her body would cooperate, she would flee the room. But her body remains stiff and unresponsive, so she settles for glaring at each person who fills the air with their inane dronings.
She holds herself together until the slideshow. It isn't the pictures that tip the scales. It's the music. The right (wrong?) song plays, and suddenly her jaw aches, and the pulsing in her skull explodes beyond what she can control. She crumbles, and she cries. The sobs come hard, and she sinks out of the pew and onto her knees. She hides behind her hair, her arms wrapped protectively around herself, and she responds violently towards any who try to console her. Eventually, all except the deceased's brother give up. He makes no attempts to hold or console her, but he sits next to her, and allows her to cry. She can smell the alcohol on him, and knows that he is as angry and lost as she is.
When she finally looks up, he cracks a crooked smile and tells her that she looks like shit. He tells her that she needs to knock this emotional chick bullshit off, or else he might start crying, too. And then he tells her again that she looks like shit. She laughs for the first time in four days, and they allow each other the briefest hug. Neither is capable of accepting more comfort than that. He leaves her to get to her feet on her own.