Black and Blue

10 - The Check-In

Freyja's funeral service was one of the bleakest I'd ever seen. Not that any in particular had been very lively, but all the color and air seemed to be sucked from the room, even in the bright flowers by my tía's casket, even the little children who'd been dragged along by their parents and really didn't know what was going on. I felt this sudden and odd pressure to be the most mature, most sorrowful person out of everybody; maybe because I knew Jack, and felt the need to oversell everything I was feeling, to get it across that I didn't want this to happen. Maybe because I'd been the first to find her body, though I knew nobody was going to point me out and shout it at the top of their voice. Everyone who so much as knew my name was aware that I'd stayed on my knees that whole night, not moving an inch, whispering over and over again, "He killed her. He killed her. He killed her."

When it was time for speeches, I felt even more empty inside, even more like I was carrying this terrible burden of knowing her killer. My mother, father, uncles, aunts, grandparents, even Javier kept going on and on about how she was with God in heaven now, and I had to resist the urge to stand up, slam my hands on the back rest of the bench in front of me, and say to everyone's faces in the middle of a church that there was no heaven and the only place my tía had gone was into the mouth of a possessed, undead cannibal. But I sat quietly with my head down, memorizing the pattern on the psalm books stowed beneath the benches. My fingers kept fiddling with a zipper on my dress, and I caught a few distant relatives giving me the side-eye from across the giant hall like they were trying to figure me out. I learned very quickly to keep my eyes ahead while I was seated.

Javi was the first to come rushing from his room when I'd screamed. I didn't catch his face; my entire body was still turned to Freyja. But I did hear him vomit about a minute later. The time in between is trickier to remember. He might have tried to cradle her body, sank to his knees in the puddle of blood and lifted her up as fragments of her ribs fell to the floor. There really wasn't much he could've held on to. He still tried. He was definitely crying, and repeating the same few variations of "mom" over and over again. He must have felt so guilty. Anybody would, even if they had no reason to.

Next was my mother, and she let out a yelp of shock when she flipped the light switch in the hall and saw the two of us. That yelp turned into a bloodcurdling scream when she finally looked past Javi and me and saw Freyja's mangled body.

"MATEO!"

Everything after that was a blur—a hazy, nauseous, red-stained blur.

I was back sitting in the pews. Dad had barely started his speech, and he already had this look on his face that said, I don't care if I die anymore, whoever is responsible for this will pay. Bitter, immature thoughts started curling around my mind like dark tendrils as flashes of impulse hit me in the same place, leaving a mental bruise. I still wanted to scream. I wanted to do more than that, a whole lot more. Some of the actions I was suggesting to myself...I couldn't even wrap my head around what they were supposed to be. Violent? Rebellious? Eye-opening? I knew these were not the kinds of things one should think about, especially at a funeral. But I also knew that I couldn't be the only one in this hall who was thinking about it.

At the end of the service, as they were lowering her casket into the ground, my anger had started to direct itself at everyone politely paying respects at the side of her grave. I felt unbearable, second-hand guilt for putting on a brave face the entire day, acting like I was just sad, when really my chest was a ticking time bomb. But you don't yell at a funeral. You don't cuss out a person nobody else can know exists, at least not out loud.

If society wasn't plenty a bitch to me before...

I stood idly by the car, a raw, empty feeling spreading throughout my entire body. It took me a moment to realize that I was literally empty; I hadn't eaten at all today. Mateo—my dad, her brother, walked up beside me and cupped my shoulder.