UNSEEN

SIX

It's thanksgiving. I hear them blabbering and giggling, most distinctively, my mother. She sounds so remorseless, just like everybody else. I guess I'm the odd one out. They're talking about something happy, so I figure it's not about Liv.

It's funny, people simply pretend to feel sad for the dead. In all honesty, they don't give a fuck. And listening to their screeching, facile voices, I realise it's not the dead that need pitying, it's the living who could use it.

I can't gather my thoughts. It's nine O'clock. Sooner or later, I'll have to go down. But I just want to go into the darkness, into the nothingness. I want to go where Liv is.

Someone knocks and pushes my creaky door open. Aunt Abigail. I know why she, of all people, was sent to call me. She's the only other queer person in the family. It makes no sense to me or her. Heterosexuals are weird. She's not too excited about this. This is what you get for coming out in the Whitney family.

"They're waiting." She says.

Her blue gaze sends an all too familiar chill down my spine. I've seen it enough to tell when those eyes are sad or scared.

"She's there, isn't she?" I ask. She nods her head in a way that's barely visible. She knows who I'm talking about. The mother of my mother, my worst nightmare. She tells me to be down in five, I reluctantly agree.

I put on the only dress I have. It's a yellow sundress with tiny, white polka dots. I put a pin across my hair and look at myself in the stained mirror. I look like I'm ready to go to church.

I sigh as I walk down the steps, but almost gasp when all the faces turn in my direction. I feel my stomach knotting. My face is warming up. I don't know how much of this I can take.

"Look who decided to greet us! Hon, you look beautiful." Aunt Linda says, pulling me toward the dining table. Uncle Matt hugs me. Little Lisa is chasing Jason around. No one from Evan's family ever visits, and I find myself not giving a shit when I see her, sitting at the end of the table. Miranda Whitney, the stone-cold, savage, white witch who just wouldn't die.

She doesn't smile. We're at a stare off. I'm in no mood of challenging her, not unless it's a strangling contest. I look away.

"Well," she says. "Are you bringing that turkey, Paula?"

She's still looking at me. My mother hears her but doesn't reply. She does that all the time.

I sit down next to Scott, my second cousin. He smiles at me. There's something off about it. I see him often, but this smile brings me back to something I'd rather not think about. I swear, in the back of it, I see Liv.

Scott's gone now. She's sitting next to me, all bright and beautiful.

"Still thinking about me, babe?" she tilts her head cockily. I can't help but wonder what it would be like to be dead. But it wouldn't feel like anything, because I'd be dead. What does it feel like to not feel anything? Do I get to watch what happens behind my dead back?

"I can't stop it." I murmur in her ear. Well, I don't exactly murmur, for Miranda hears me.

"What?" She's on to me. I look up at her, with her face so withered you can barely make out her features. I look back at Liv, but she's gone and Scott is back, picking out broccoli from his pasta.

I think fast. "Jason won a prize for spellings." I say.

"Crossword." He corrects me.

"No" she says. I clutch my fork to supress my scream. "What was that about you stopping something?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." I say.

"I heard you. I'm not Deaf yet, you see."

I lose it completely. "I said", I place my fork on my full plate. "Talk to Jason about spell bee, you whore."

"Jesus!" She yells, with her hand on her chest, like she's having a heart attack.

"Reece, apologize to Nana, now." My mother says, peering into my eyes.

I'd rather stab myself. And I do. I grab the knife next to the turkey and drive it through my thigh in one thrust. I scream. The pain brings me back to my senses. I just called my grandmother a whore.

It's too late now, my vision is blurring out. Darkness. I'm finally going into the darkness. And just before it's all gone, I see Liv being shot again.

Evan stands behind the trigger.