𝐒 𝐓 𝐀 𝐑 𝐙 • 𝐃𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐊 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐀𝐍

THE FUNERAL

[𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐎𝐧𝐞; 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝗼]
-

Black is a depressing color. It holds the feeling of shame, discomfort, and regret in its self and most definitely doesn't complement my parents or my toned skin.

I collected myself that day. I got up out of Ki's arms and finished my pity party in the ladies' room. It was something of knowing that everyone saw me breakdown that sparked embarrassment in me and I knew that my father would be disappointed. I now owed everything to them; my mom and dad, but also more.

I stay up for three days, only 2 hours of sleep and 8 cups of espresso-making to insure that my parents go out in the way I know they would have wanted.

Respectable and fashionable.

So like I said, black is a depressing color. It makes my parents look dead as if everyone needs to see it. My parents need to look like how I saw them. My mom needs to look at how she is; an Angel like her name and my father needs to have a suit that says he still runs shit, even in the afterlife. My parents' skin needs to glow. When everyone walks into the venue, they need to see more than a plane crash. They need to see my mother as the African-American leading female in the Grand Mafia with her husband by her side.

They need to see what I see.

I decide on white. As fucking cliché as it is, my mother glows brightly in the dress, and my father is complemented in ways I cannot describe.

White daisies, white chairs, white caskets; everything is white and as much as I dread the day to come, my parents' funeral is here. I wake up at 5, the funeral being at 10 and I pack a small bag before showering, brushing my teeth, and making my coffee. I throw on a sweater set and start the 45-minute drive to the funeral home. I take my reserved room and get ready. The cape dress I put on matches my mother's in a less dressed-down fashion and I set up the room. I stifle the emotional wall that threatens to come down and when I'm done I move in a circle to examine the room.

In front of the room, podiums for both caskets stay ready while chairs are placed about 4 feet from it, lining up until the centerpiece in the back takes over the wall.

This is what my mother would have liked.

This is what my father would have liked.

I'm doing this right.

I'm fucking doing this right.

I bite the inside of my cheek to stop the tears that line my eyes, only a few leaving. It was 9 now, and everyone was to be here soon. I head back to my original room, waiting for my parents to come into the venue so I can let everyone in.

They open both caskets for me, just for one last goodbye, and when I touch my mother's skin, she's past cold. She's freezing as if a block of ice was all she ever was. Her dress is beautiful, not too much but just perfect for her, and even the little makeup she wears still makes her look so pretty.

My father is frozen also. His skin is colder than my mother's and the tuxedo he wears, the belt is of his initials so he can go out the way he always wanted to; just as Harris Star and nothing more.

I press kisses for their head and ask the staff to close the boxes that my parents are kept in and open the doors. It's not what I wanted at first, but to have my parents on display, for my parent's cold bodies to be on the web, disgusts me to my core. Press, old friends, family, and business associates walk in. The press is confined to the back, my extra security making sure. Family, aunts, uncles, and even my grandparents get the first row. Old friends file between the second and third row while the rest is left to whoever.

It makes me angry that people who never thought to care more about my parents and viewed them as checks cry harder than me. Well, than I did. I just stare at the flowers around the caskets the whole time while Kiana rubs my shoulders.

It is almost like a bad fucking joke. I'm the crying shoulder at my parents' funeral. I'm the one telling everyone it's going to be ok. I'm being everything I fucking need, but won't dare to ask for.

My shoulder feels soaked from the tears of many people and my back feels dirty as they hug me and hug me in the end. I didn't even notice how long the service took.

I wasn't paying attention.

I don't pay attention to the burial or the repast. Everyone speaks about my parents and tells me how sorry they are for me, yet it seems like the people they talk about are goddamn strangers.

"Hey, do you want me to stay?" Kiana asks as we approach my door, the dreadful day nowhere close to an end; or at least not that it feels like.

"Whatever." My thumbs go through the touchpad and the key lock opens for me to slide my home key into. I step in, only for me to strip at the door and head for my bathroom. I run a bath like I did the night before my parents died, this time, it's less soothing.

I let my underwear drop down and my bra falls next to it as I step into the declined part of my bathroom. I just sit in the water, no bubbles, no soap, just water that doesn't capture the dirtiness I feel.

"Hey you," Ki's voice is around the corner as she meets my eyes first. I wave for her to step forward as she sits on the ledge of the tub. "Talk to me."

"I've got nothing to say. My parents are dead, and now I have to run a multi-billionaire company by myself; if the paperwork even allows me." My monotone voice doesn't match what I feel.

"You don't think it's much?" She puts water on the untouched parts of my back for me. "To do it alone?" Kiana reaches for my open scrubber and adds soap. She dips it in water before rubbing my back, moving my hair to the side to get it all as I stay silent.

"I can do it," I mumble. "I have to do it." I seem to find words when I'm out of my bath and in an old shirt of a friend with briefs on. "My mother and father have passed on their life for me to do this." I pour wine and give Ki a glass, just to drink from the whole bottle.

"But how are you? Talk to me!"

"Hurt! Is that what you want to hear? Tell me, Kiana, do you want me to go on and on how I feel angry because my parents are dead, and as selfish as it sounds, they fucking left me?" Hurtful words come in-breaths and anything in my grasp I throw. "It wasn't supposed to like this! I don't know what the hell I'm doing with GA! I'm only 25, I work like I'm 50 but now that I have to, my mother is not here by my side and it's always been better when she was here. My mother is supposed to be here and my father is supposed to tell me how proud of me he is. We are supposed to joke with each other one more time and I am supposed to have him at the wedding I don't want to have, but now I have to keep the tradition. I'm supposed to have the life that others want, Kiana. And who the fuck wants dead parents?" I scream. Not at my friend, but the world. I scream because I am angry. My parents left me. They died and left me here like a clueless little bird.

They died and left me to feel small, something my mom always got me out of. I'm angry because my parents are fucking dead and I'm alone.

Or at least I remember that I'm not when I have to step over the glass from the things I've thrown to get the door. I check the peephole ready to let whoever was at my house so late at night have it but it changes when I see the face.

I see my face.

I see my fucking sister.

"Diamond?" I open the door only to be greeted by a slap to the face.

"When the fuck was I supposed to know my parents were dead?"

[MJ]