A Stone Turned Soft

Chapter 9

Chloe, despite every fiber of her being screaming at her to stay asleep, forced herself to open her eyes. She looked at the clock. 7:08. 2 hours since she fell into a dreamless sleep. She willed herself to move her body to look at her phone. Just as usual (well as usual as this past week could get), she woke up to a text from Kylie giving encouragement. She loved her for that. She went through all her social media accounts, looking at all her friends talking about how perfect life is. Chloe envied them. Without thinking, she went to the Google Photos app and clicked on the People section. She caught herself. Her finger hovered over Grandma's face. No! She chided. I'm not gonna do that to myself. She shut her phone off and collapsed her head on the pillow. She groaned as if she were in pain (physical pain that is) and propelled herself out of bed. She looked in the mirror. She looked how she felt. Dead. Lifeless. Zombie-like. Any synonym there was for "without life," that's how she felt. The funeral started at 10 so she slipped on her black dress and fixed her hair. Every motion she did was like an out-of-body experience. She knew it was her doing the movements, but it wasn't her doing the movements. Her heart wasn't in it and neither was her mind. Her face remained straight and expressionless. It was a face she was very painfully familiar with. The same face she wore for months after Benny passed. She hated every second she wore it and hoped she never had to wear it again and yet, here she was. Another large piece of her heart had shattered and she didn't know how long it would take to recover - or if she would ever. She was afraid her heart had been too scarred. No matter what the outcome would be - the tremendous amount of potential bad possibilities or the slim chance something good would come out of this - she knew she would never be the same.

She trudged downstairs. Layla had left a sticky note on the microwave saying she went out to get breakfast. In the meantime she turned on the TV and started putting on makeup. As she felt the cool touch of her liquid foundation brush across her face, a thought crossed her mind. What's the point? I'm just gonna cry it all off. Then a voice in the back of her mind, like the angel and devil on her shoulder, told her to continue. By the time she was done, Layla had shown up with Dunkin Donuts and Chloe's favorite drink from Starbucks. She wanted to cry when she saw her.

"Hey," Layla greeted with a weak smile. Her eyes were tinted red. Embarrassed, she wiped her tears quickly and sniffed.

Chloe got up from the table and hugged her. A good, long hug; both of them with tears in their eyes trying not to sob. After a few moments, they pulled away.

"Thinking about her, huh?" she asked wiping away her tears

"Yeah," she nodded doing the same

"Well if it makes you feel any better, I'm gonna have to redo my eye-makeup because of you!"

Layla gave a weak chuckle, "Well you should eat breakfast first. I got your favorite drink," she offered

"Venti caramel macchiato?"

"With extra caramel," she finished

"You know me too well," she said as she took the first tip of goodness. "You know what?"

"What?"

"Until we get to the funeral home, let's just... try our best not to think about her. You know? We can cry when we get there, but for now let's just focus on stuffing our faces with sugar and covering our faces with makeup. I'll even do yours for you," she said trying her best to smile.

"Um, okay," Layla said suspiciously

"Great. I'll put on some show tunes and we'll just distract ourselves from reality, just like all good theater should do."

"Okay..." she said slowly, "But Chloe, are you okay?"

"I'm okay, I swear. Just please... Do this with me?" she pleaded taking her hands