Withdrawn

The service

The mirror shows me a 5'9 thin woman in a tight black dress that looks nothing like me. I was thin before, but it's been a while since I've worked up an appetite. I have almost subtle eye bags concealer could never fix. They make me look like I'm drained, Which I am. I crashed hard after being awake for thirty-nine long hours. My long dark brown strands have been replaced by a sleek, stick-straight, black head of hair that came out of a box and is carefully parted in the middle. Now maybe people will see that I'm indiginous. I hate that I'm white passing, but sometimes having light skin makes me feel elegant. I'm pale because I never leave the apartment unless I have to. The hair's not that much of a difference, but nothing about me is the same. Collar bones peek through the neck of my dress, and thighs don't exactly touch. I've lost some weight since he left. It's pathetic, really.
    I hear a pounding at my door that belongs to a man. And it does. The doorknob turns and I am terrified. I stand there like a deer in headlights as my father intrudes into my home.
    "Hi, Critter. It's been a while." He says awkwardly but comfortably at the same time. Critter has been my nickname almost since birth, and I still don't know where it came from. He gives me one of his dad smiles with his almost yellow crooked teeth. I walk up to give him a long hug. He smells exactly how I remember. I try not to make up for lost time even though I know it won't scare him away. I haven't seen him in a while. Five months. We don't talk much anymore but when we do, it's perfect and we still have the same type of relationship. And it's priceless. "You changed your hair... You've changed." he says. He looks me up and down and notices the other painfully obvious changes in my shape but says nothing about it. I return another nod. I don't have enough energy for words right now. But he seems to like my hair. Maybe because we have the same long kind of hair now. He has long black hair that he's kept in a low ponytail almost my whole life. "Are you ready?" He asks.
    I will never be ready to attend my brother's funeral. All I can think about is the questions people will ask, how he'll look when he's completely dead and lifeless, how many looks I'm gonna get, how the looks will tell me it's my fault, and how fucked up it will be when I talk about him in front of everyone about how big his heart was, as if I wasn't the reason it stopped beating.
    I give him a Colton nod and we leave the apartment. Dad has a gray Chevrolet truck that should've stopped working four years ago. I step into the car and smell the familiar black ice air freshener tree smell with cigarettes that ends up giving me extreme nostalgia. We share some marlboros. We both always smoke when we drive. Before he turns the key, he looks me in the eyes and says
    "You were his favorite." I don't know whether I should smile, cry, or scream.
    "He was my favorite, too." I say with a raspy voice that can barely push out words as it breaks. I cry uncontrollably. I cry hard. And after my dad sees me like that, he starts crying too. We hug in the front seat, which is awkward because of the way the car is built, but it's also awkward because in moments like this, I'll simply never know just what to say.
    Colton did more than me that night, and that's why I'm still here. It's not common to overdose on meth, but we didn't know the shit was laced. Fentanyl was in his system. I would normally blame Zig, but of course he didn't know. He would've never made a deal knowing this shit would happen. Zig went to a new source after his was arrested. You'd think after losing someone to drugs, you would want to stop doing them. Not me. I crashed hard the morning after finding him. I knew I needed more. Fuck, I deserved it.
    Coming down from meth is depressing as hell. It feels so real, and life feels gray and pointless. Imagine that, but with a fresh batch of grief. Went to a new dealer so I can be buzzed for the funeral. I'll admit, I'm a little ashamed to show up to my own brother's funeral while high, but at least I'm awake and not crashing anymore.
     I see old aunts and uncles, my grandma, who looks like it's almost her turn to lay in the casket. Adeline arranged the funeral. I see her and she's perfect as usual. Doesn't even look like she has a single sad emotion running through her existence. She shoots me the exact look I've been waiting for. A look that says "He would still be here if you weren't such a fucking junkie." She knows what I do behind closed doors, and that's why she stopped talking to me three years ago. Talking or not, there's definitely a new grudge being formed, and I don't blame her.
    I don't even bother approaching people, I let them come to me. I make sure not to look into their eyes even though they're already looking at mine because I'm a fucking mess. The point is, I don't need anyone seeing how magnified my pupils have become.
    The service is a lot calmer than I expected. Everyone is in shock, in all reality. No one knew he did drugs. Colton always seemed like such an innocent boy, and he really was. He didn't deserve to die because he barely got to live. There's some quiet talking for a while until my mother walks up near the casket, but not close enough to see him. Let alone feel him. She announces that she's about to speak.
    "Colton was my youngest child. He had spider man sheets until he was twelve years old, and he hated cereal with milk." She lets out a small laugh. "I always caught him sneaking Lucky Charms into his room." There's some tiny laughter from the audience. "He's always been a young soul, but he was mature. He made sure everyone in the family was taken care of rather than helping himself. Colton wanted to be a doctor when he was eight. I would let him take my temperature and put band-aids on me. The next year, he wanted to be a marine biologist. He always had goals and he always did what was right." She pauses to erase tears from her overdone face. "Colton always knew how to make me feel better. I wasn't his mother. I'm his child. There will not be a day that goes by where I won't think of him." She says a little "Thank you." and goes up to colton, touches his face, lets out a quiet, contagious sob and runs to the back of the room, next to dad.
    There was a long, sad, awkward pause when Dad walked up to the spot.   
    "I remember when Colton was six. He lost his first tooth. I have never seen a kid more excited to put a tooth under his pillow. He cried for nine days after he caught me sneaking a five dollar bill under his pillow. I felt like shit for crushing his dreams. Colton had a beautiful imagination. I remember when we built the treehouse. It's still up to this day. He did most of the designing. He picked out all of the decor and made sure it was perfect. Colton was the greatest son I could ask for. When he was little, the girls would dress him up like a princess, and he would be okay with it because he knew it made them happy. Colton was the biggest source of joy in our family. That joy will live on, and so will his memory, thank you." Dad walks up to Colton and carefully places a toy wooden car on his chest he pulls from his giant, man sized pockets. He wipes a little tear away before he turns around and walks over to mom. And now Adeline has the spotlight. Here we go...
    "I wish I had gotten more time with him. That's all I really have to say. I would do anything just to see one more smile. I would do anything to even have one more fight with him. I wish I hadn't ignored him when he wanted to spend time with me as a kid. He always had my back. He would be my alibi. I trusted him with my darkest secrets, and he has never let me down. I don't think he's ever let anyone down, honestly. Colton was an angel. Colton was perfection. I know he is resting peacefully and looking down on us, and protecting us like he always has. Thanks for listening." She finishes up by dropping a letter into the casket. I guess it's my turn. I walk up to the spot.
    "I'm kinda bad with words right now, so please be patient." I say with heightened nerves. "Colton was my brother and my roommate. He was my best friend. My friends were his friends, and his were mine. We were like each other's support animals. Colton is irreplaceable." This is when my voice breaks and a lump forms in my throat. "I love him more than anything and I always will. I've always appreciated him the most. We did everything together. We got matching tattoos with each other's names on impulse. I am forever grateful for the time he spent with me on this earth." I look up to the ceiling as if he was floating right there. "I miss you." I walk over to him and pet his hair. One of my tears fall onto his shoulder. I wish this moment was like one of those movies. The tear would revive him like a plant, and he would be here with me, again. But it's not like that at all, and the realization that he's really gone hits me. And I can't handle it. I slip away into the bathroom to do what I do best: cry and crank.
    It may be fucked up that I'm doing hard drugs at my brother's fucking funeral, but hey, everyone grieves differently.
    I take out my ID and the powder. I pour a barely minimal pick-me-up onto the table and do my own little version of coping. And fuck, it helps. I feel amazing. I almost feel as good as before. One more line can't hurt, right? I crush some more crank and in the middle of my line,
The doorknob turns.