15 days after
It was my first real day back at school, and while I knew people would treat me differently, I hadn’t expected this. The stares. The whispers. The avoidance. They wouldn’t even look at me.
It’s just as well, I thought bitterly. I didn’t want to talk to anyone anyways. A couple of my friends had called me in the days after, but I never picked up. Voicemails were deleted without ever being heard, texts without ever being read. My phone sat on my nightstand turned off for a week straight.
My phone had blown up again exactly a week ago, when I had first tried to come back. One look at the display in the front office – RIP Elias Hudson, written underneath the same picture they had displayed at his funeral – had me running straight out the school doors and back to my bedroom.
Since last week was a shortened week due to Thanksgiving break, my parents had allowed me to stay home that week too. Or rather, my dad did. My mom hadn’t said a word to me since the burial. I gripped the straps of my backpack and shoved my way down the hall, ignoring the looks of sympathy and pity. A hand reached out and grabbed my arm.
“Tae!”
Alani. My best friend. I knew she had tried to get in touch with me countless times, even coming over to my house and banging on my permanently locked bedroom door for almost an hour before my dad had finally given u and asked her to leave.
I shrugged off her touch and quickened my pace. I especially didn’t want to talk to her. I glanced back over my shoulder as students milled awkwardly around me. Alani stood in the midst of it, the look of hurt on her face only adding to my guilt. The thing about Alani is, other than knowing me better than I knew myself, she also has a brother. A brother the same age as Elias. I know part of her is relieved our situations aren’t reversed, even though she’d never admit it. The other part of her would try to sympathize, say she can imagine what it must be like. That’s a lie. Alani and Blain would never be me and Elias.
I made it to the end of the hall just as the first bell rang. Instead of turning left to go to my first period Consumer Ec class, I hung a right and pushed open the door to the bathroom. A group of Senior girls walked out just as I opened the door, leaving the space blessedly empty. I leaned against the door and clamped a hand over my mouth, my eyes squeezing shut. I couldn’t do this.
I bent forward, letting my backpack fall to the floor, and braced my hands on my knees. I took a few deep breaths.
Inhale, I told myself. Exhale.
I shoved myself upright and walked over to the mirror. I looked like hell. My long brown hair was messy, and I realized I hadn’t even brushed it today. My old gray sweatshirt was drab, making me look even paler than I already was. My eyes, it seemed, were permanently red-rimmed from the two weeks’ worth of tears I hadn’t been able to shed. It was like my body knew that if I cried over Elias’s death, he would truly be gone. So I didn’t let myself. As much as I wanted to – when I had found him, during the funeral, all the times I had heard my mom’s loud sobbing, even the one time I had seen my dad clutching that poisonous bottle of bourbon late one night – not one single tear had leaked out. It simultaneously terrified and relieved me.
I ran my hands under the faucet and tried to pat down the worst of the flyways in my hair. I gave up after a few minutes, eventually pulling my gray beanie out of my backpack and settling it low over my ears. I stared at my reflection, trying to get a glimpse of Elias. We had the same dark hair, the same blue eyes. But that’s where the resemblance ended. I favored my mother’s face structure while Eli was a spitting image of our dad.
