Amalgamation

CHAPTER NINE

A single tear slips from my eyes as I stare at my Grandmother's corpse. Growing up, Gran had been all I'd had. My entire life she'd been more of a mother to me than my actual mother ever had. I still can't believe this is real. I wipe my puffy, tear damaged eyes with my sleeve before doubling back to wipe my running nose. I almost feel like a child all over again. But this time, without Gran I'm well and truly lost.

Suga wraps his arms even more tightly around me, encouraging me to bury my face into his chest as I begin to sob. I'm so thankful for the way he ignores the stares that my family levels upon him. I'm so angry for the judgemental way that they are behaving, and angry at Gran for leaving me alone with these people. But I'm also so heartbroken that I don't even know how I'll continue forward from here. How will I ever be the same again?

Behind me I can hear my family bickering, in what I'm sure they believe to be a covert manner, over who is going to get Gran's assets. Emery, my Aunt, wants the house. Samantha, my mother, believes it should be hers. Meanwhile, my father is busy pounding yet another beer, in total disrespect of Gran's memory.

I wail loudly, unable to control myself as I think about how these people are little more than animals. Gran deserves better.

I break from Suga's comforting embrace, fury screaming in my ears and causing me to take dogged steps in my father's direction. Like a woman possessed, I slap the beer out of his hands and begin screaming at him.

I don't even know what I'm saying. Words, feelings, and formless thoughts simply continue to shriek from my lips. They're looking at me as if I'm crazy. All of them. I swing to the left, grabbing an empty chair before brandishing it like a weapon of mass destruction. "Get out! All of of you! Leave!" I scream. I can feel the heat of my anger on my skin, and my body nearly shakes with the weight of it. "You're animals, the lot of you!"

I watch as, one by one, each of my abominable relatives file out of the parlor. There is not a single one that doesn't fix me with a disgusted look as they walk by. I don't give a fuck. I return the look unabashedly to every single one of them, willing them to feel the venom in my gaze.

The moment Suga's arms wrap around me once more I nearly collapse into them, relieved as the last parasite leaves the room. I allow myself to sob freely into his chest now, fingers sinking desperately into the back of his shirt as I attempt to pull him closer. The funeral home's owner, a kindly and rather elderly gentleman, simply looks at me with pity in his eyes.

I don't want his pity.

I return to Gran's side, and there I remain until long after the wake has ended.

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"Miss Gray," the man before me, a lawyer, stands and greets me politely. He'd been hired by Gran before she died, funny how that works.

Except that it isn't funny at all.

As Suga and I sit, hands clasped the entire time, the lawyer reaches for a very official looking envelope.

"I have a bunch of paperwork for you to sign, but your grandmother left you everything. The manor, and just shy of three million dollars, as well as a portfolio full of investments." He tells me as he slides the envelope towards me.

I blink owlishly, the situation still hasn't clearly sunk in. The pale and veiny hand that is wrapped within my own squeezes tightly. The last couple of days Suga has been absolutely wonderful. I never would have credited him with such a caring personality, and yet he has been a major comfort to me since learning of Gran's passing.

His hand releases my own, and I reach for the envelope that is bursting to the seams with life altering paperwork. The hand that lifts the attached pen shakes so badly, I almost wonder if it belongs to someone else. My hands have never been so unsteady.

And as I begin signing the paperwork the lawyer, whose desk bears the name Tyson Wallace, speaks once more.

"You know, your grandmother was an exceptional human being," he tells me. "I wouldn't be the person that I am now if it wasn't for her."

I nod my head in acknowledgement. Gran had a way of bringing light to those around her. Which is why I've never understood how my mother ended up the way that she did. I give a brief moment to the age old question of nature versus nurture. Maybe more of it is nature than is fair.

Despite the size of the stack of paperwork, the signing of it all passes relatively quickly. Before I know it I am being given instructions on how to receive all of the money left to me, how to finalize the deed on the manor, and being given a set of keys that I am only too familiar with.

And when I step out of Mr.Wallace's office I wish that I could say that I am grateful for the crisp Seattle air. But, where once there was joy, the sights and sounds of the city fill me only with a deep ache instead.

"Hey," Suga says as he engulfs my hand with his own once more. "You're gonna be okay. You know that right?"

But the truth is that I don't know that. With all that I am feeling right now I could almost argue that I'll never be okay again, and yet I nod my head morosely anyways.

He pulls me into the thousandth embrace since all of this began, and I weep into his chest all over again, heedless of onlookers. My frame shakes against his sturdy presence, over and over again.

I nearly break several times over the course of our trip home. And by the time we have reached our apartment, I am more than ready to collapse. The weight of reality sets in, leaving me unable to summon the finesse required to unlock my front door.

So I slump to my knees before the threshold, crying as Suga's touch keeps me tethered to this world and all of it's aches.