Charter
Time feels like it is in perpetual motion; where time is slow, and it lasts forever. I cannot say it is a good thing. Everyone around me is dead, including me. Not in a literal sense, but we might as well be. For me, that would be my ultimate wish; to be gone…
I never knew I could actually feel this way that I feel. Actually, I don’t think anybody here could imagine feeling what they feel right now, especially my family. I would never wish these feelings on anyone. All I could think of was getting up from my seat, and running out. I just wanted to escape reality…or hell. What is the point of living when all your reason to live is gone? Why do we have to wear black? How does it help with loss? If anything, it just makes it all that more depressing.
I’m clutching onto the black, loose dress on my lap, while my other hand is in my mother’s lap with her hand cupped over mine. You would think this would bring me comfort, but it doesn’t. Nothing does. And, honestly, I don’t know if anything ever will. The weather is perfect for this gloomy day; it’s raining and the sky is dark. The dark sky looks like a monster that’s going to reach down any minute and take me. Scary, depressing though, I imagine. But, maybe that is exactly what I want: someone, something…to take me away. When is time going to speed up? When will my life matter again? Will it ever? I lost a lot four days ago. I lost my best friend, my comforter, my rock, my brother… We were best friends; we did everything together. Well, almost everything. He was my other half, my better half; my twin. My life-long friend that I would share everything with; genes, blood and our hearts. But, the darkest of clouds took all of that away on Friday, October 10th.
“Riley. Riley. Riley?” My mother’s voice echoed around my ears as I stared out in the grey fog. Her soft, fragile hand touched my arm. “Riley, are you okay?” I glanced at her hand and answered, “I’m fine, I guess.” Of course, that was just a lie. Truth was, I wasn’t fine, not at all. All I could gather up to think was why Charter? Why, why, why? Who will give me the answers I long for? My life will never be the same again; never. Mom’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Are you ready to go home?” She touched my face this time. Her cold, delicate fingers felt like ice against my cheek. It didn’t bother me much. Not that the touch of winter on my cheek is any feeling compared to how my heart feels. I shrugged my shoulders and zipped up my winter coat. “I guess.”
Before wecould leave, there were people who wanted to see me and say how sorry they were and tell me how awful I may feel and tell me how “everything was going to be okay.” All of it was force fed lies. All of it. What is “sorry” going to do for me? Is it going to bring Charter back? No. Sure I feel awful, I don’t need to be reminded about how I feel. And no, everything was not going to be okay. Why? Because it just wasn’t, end of story.
I looked down at my stupid flats my mother bought me months ago, sinking into the wet, muddy ground. “Can we just go home now? I don’t feel like talking to anyone,” I mumbled. My breath evaporated in front of me into the coldness of the air. My brother is buried in the earth behind where I stand. I felt a rush of emptiness. I felt my stomach turn in tangled knots, and I felt bile rise up in my throat. “Mom, please, can we go?” I held my stomach. She touched my shoulder and looked into the deepness of my green eyes and cried. I knew then that she felt some of what I felt. “I feel it, too, honey.” She held me close and just cried. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but I could not follow through with that promise today.
Crying is not wrong, is it? I have always looked at it as a sign of weakness. And well, I was feeling pretty weak… My father walked up to us and rubbed our backs. He always did that when he saw anybody going through some kind of trial. That was the only way he knew how to comfort. “Lets go home.”
