Smoke and shattered mirrors

Chapter seven: Turning scabs into fresh wounds

Topher stopped the car in front of a massive white tomb with greek-looking pillars and an angel statue holding a sword on the front. The angel looked withered and old, like the rest of our surrounding.

I took the fresh yellow orchids from the center console, the flowers we bought along the way, and got out the car.

"I'll be here if you need me." Topher said with a crooked smile.

i nodded in reply.

I walked ever so slowly into the tomb, watching my worn-out shoes hit the muddy leaf infested ground and took ragged deep breaths.

Do you know what I was feeling as I walked towards my family's resting place?

I felt nothing. I felt like there was never a wound there in the first place. As if they didn't exist in my life. 

I felt nothing.

Nothing but a wide gaping hole inside my head that screamed and mocked my entire existence.

Finally, as I stood over their headstones, I laid the orchids, it seemed to give more color to this scenery with it's pigment, and murmured a silent prayer. I was hoping to remember at least something. Anything. But not a single tear fell from my eyes.

"I'm a bad daughter, aren't I?" I asked, knowing that no one would answer. I pushed the gathered dust of my father's headstone. CHRISTOPHER LOVE, it says, A LOVING FATHER AND HUSBAND. HIS LEGACY WILL REMAIN."I don't even know why you died."

I looked at my kid sister's headstone. SOPHIA NICOLE LOVE, YOUR GRACEFUL STEPS WILL BE REMBERED. "I'm not sure if I was a good sister, either."

By this time, I was crying. Hard. Sophie was only 10.

"Was I even a good person?" I mumbled on. Groping the carving of my mother's headstone ELIZABETH RENNER-LOVE, A WOMAN OF GREAT STRENGTH. A LOVING MOTHER AND WIFE. I shook my head. This was all wrong. I had cheated death, but my family has paid death's price.

"I'm scared." I admitted for the first time. In front of my family. "I'm scared and I'm terrified and I'm lost and I'm so shattered." 

I was crying because it was unfair. It was unjust. All three of them dead while I live with no hint of who they were. 

I was as good as dead. For the first time, I said,"I wish I just died along with you."

The end of my scentence came out as a sob. I didn't realize that I was kneeling.

"And I'm sorry for surviving." I muttered.

"Don't say that." Topher said from behind me, his voice filled with pity. "Don't be sorry because you lived."

I turned around,"I'm alive. But I feel dead, Topher."

He put his hand ever so lightly on my shoulder."No ones blaming you but yourself. No one wanted this to happen. No one."

I stood up."Someone did. Didn't I tell you?"

He nods, eyes fixated on Sophie's headstone. Where two yellow orchids lie.

"What are we gonna do now?" He asked. Eyes on me now.

I sneak a look behind me, where my family's headstone was visible, and back at Topher's lovely eyes.

"I have nothing. Whoever planned this will pay. I'll make him pay." I clenched my jaw."I owe it to them -I gestured my parents and sweet little sister - and most of all, I owe it to myself. I can't be weak." Immediately, I wiped away my tears.

Surprisingly, Topher smiled."I can't and I won't are two very different words.Now there's that fiery little pizzaz I've been looking for."

After saying a few silent prayers and promises, Topher led me out, I felt like collapsing. And the bright midday sun didn't help.

"We should look into that Margaret you had a flashback on. You say she could be a suspect? "

I replied,"Positive. I ferociously said,'I'm part of whatever your hiding in your closet.' It was kinda scary."

He laughs. "Only you would make cat fights sound menacing. What with using the term 'ferociously' and all."

"It wasn't just a cat fight."I defended, but can't help grinning."It was something... serious and frightening."

He shrugged and opened the car door for me when a sudden apparition caught the corner of my eye.

Kylie.

"Wait."I told Topher.

He did. He must've seen Kylie, too. She was about twenty feet away from me. She was on all fours, wiping a headstone clean with a towel. I could see her talking to it like I did. 

"She has a deceased relative?" I asked.

Topher shrugs."I dunno. She never mentioned one."

I wanted to go say hi. But she seems to be mourning,too. And I wouldn't want to disrupt anything.

Something I never noticed about kylie before:How raven-like her eyes and features look. How much she resembled a predator.

"She's leaving. Do you want to go and talk to her?" Topher asked, his voice genuine.

I shake my head no as Kylie gets up to leave; Leaving a burning candle and a bouquet of white peonies in her place. Her figure getting into a purple prius.

"Merce? Where are you going?" Topher asked. But it was too late, I was half-walking, half-running towards the headstone that Kylie mourned over.

I reached it before Topher could keep up.

SCOTT DYLAN ASHER, BELOVED SON AND FRIEND it had said. 

"Wait!"I exclaim."Is he... Brandon's brother? Like Brandon Asher's brother? One of the Asher siblings?" I asked Topher as he took his place beside me. Remembering what Aunt Caroline told me before.

Kylie had carved a "BEST BOYFRIEND IN THE WORLD" on the headstone.

"Yep. It's him." Topher said."I didn't know he was buried here."

But I didn't quite hear the other thing he said, something about Scott's death, for I dove headfirst in another hidden memory.

This time, It was Rory who haunted me....