Two days before your funeral.
Two days later, they brought you home. Another two days, your funeral was held inside the only church in our town. Four days were all they needed to prepare everything, which I found funny because of how fast it was. How fast the world moved on without you, as though you were only real inside my head.
Damian came to my house on the second day after your death. He looked disheveled and stricken, which was so unlike him that I felt disoriented again. He told me, “I was planning to wait. Wait until his physical therapy is over. Then perhaps we could start over his playing. I thought it was how it's going to be, but then he stopped attending the therapy.”
“He was mourning,” I said tonelessly.
He looked at me, unshed tears in his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, he was.”
Penny came a little while after Damian had left. From how red and swollen her eyes were I could tell that she'd been crying. She had wanted to come to the hospital but I'd told her I hadn't wanted to see anyone, so the past two days I'd only curled myself in my bed, staring at nothing, except for when Luce or my father came in to convince me to eat.
I didn't know what they saw in my face, but I was certain Penny could see whatever it was, too, because her eyes turned into something softer and sadder. Or maybe it wasn't my face, more like the fact that when people saw me, they also saw you, Sam. Even when I played with other kids at school, even when we were separated more often than not the past few months, even when we only spent time with each other in the evenings, people still saw us as a pair. It was as if we had been born at the same time, right down to the seconds. So, maybe that was what their expression was: pity.
From my mouth came an echo of your words, “Don't look at me like that.”
“Like what, Roo?”
“Like I'm too damaged to be your friend.”
“Oh. Oh, Roo.” She threw her arms around me and we stayed that way for long minutes, with her weeping into my shoulders and me drowning in the memories of your smile.
YOU ARE READING
Wearing My Smile | ✔
Teen Fiction"I wondered if you'd ever thought that the name your parents had given you felt like sharp knife twisting through your heart in its prayer. I'd never asked you that before, now I'd never get to." Having been together since forever, Roo struggles in...
