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I sat down in the third row back, flanked by my family.
The preacher fumbled for a moment before launching into the service, his words falling on my deaf ears.
"Reeve, you have to," Wasp said near my ear a long while later, after the preacher had finished, had respectfully moved to the side.
"I can't."
"But you have to," she pressed.
And she was right.
She always was.
I couldn't do it. But I had to.
I took a deep breath and stood, making my way into the aisle, then approached the altar, skirting to the right where Erica's - Ronny's - casket was situated.
She didn't look right.
I guess the dead never really did.
Her skin was too pale. Her makeup was all wrong. Her body seemed softer than it should have been.
The mortician had put the necklace around her neck and arranged her hands to hold the wedding picture.
Serene.
It felt wrong for her to look so serene.
After going out so horribly.
I didn't speak.
I had no words.
What was there to say?
I'm sorry I failed doing the one basic thing a man should always provide for their woman and children - safety.
I touched her cheek like I had done countless times before, snatching my hand back when it met cold skin, making my insides go frigid too.
My lungs felt pinned in a vice grip as I moved the few short feet to the smaller coffin.
I swallowed hard as I got to the side, seeing him resting inside like he did any other night.
His hands were around his game.
His makeup made him a little orange.
His hair was styled wrong.
But it was Mikey.
What was left of Mikey.
Which was just a shell.
I fell to my knees beside the casket, slamming my forehead into the side of it, hoping the physical pain could dull the emotional kind.
But nothing would.
Nothing could.
It was a pain I carried with me always.
I guess, in that moment, I accepted that as my reality.
My hand reached into my jacket, pulling it out, curling it slightly in my hand like I had done countless times before, then opening it to the first page, and starting to read.
It wasn't until I ran out of pages that I realized two hours had passed.
It wasn't until I felt them dripping down that I realized I had been crying through it.
Behind me, Cy's hand clasped me on my shoulder, squeezing hard, giving me the only comfort he knew I could accept.
I stood, moving to tuck the book beside him on the white silk.
But I couldn't do it.
I couldn't leave it.
I tucked it back into my pocket, letting Cy lead me back down the aisle and out of the church.
I would have stayed in my bed for a week if I could have.
But the funeral was the next day.
A useless ceremony, watching them get lowered into the ground, watching the team standing by waiting to cover them in dirt.
"I don't remember much from the months after that," I admitted.
I knew Cy and Wasp watched me around the clock as I flip-flopped from catatonic to dead-man-walking.
I knew my mother kept the place clean and the fridge stocked.
I knew I took pills.
I knew they didn't do fucking dick.
Nothing took the pain away.
It was a claw forever ripping through my chest and guts, spilling me out every moment of every day.
"Sometime around the four-month mark, when the city decided to condemn the old house, deciding no one would ever want to live there, and making a parking lot out of it, I came out one morning to find a woman in my living room."
"A therapist," Rey guessed, moving closer, linking her arm through mine, sliding her hand under mine, and linking our fingers.
"A therapist," I agreed.
"Did it help?"
That was a good question.
She altered my meds, told me that with the right combination, I would be functioning again.
The first try made me a zombie, which I quite enjoyed, but my family wouldn't stand for. The second try gave me massive migraines. And, hell, I preferred the physical pain. The third shot made me queasy, and I finally decided to get rid of her.
I didn't want pills anyway.
"What do you expect, Reeve?" Wasp asked, coming in after ditching school, something I was sure our mother wasn't aware of, or her ass would have been grounded.
"What do I expect about what?" I asked, my throat actually hurting. I guess I hadn't been talking much.
"If you can't get up. If you can't remember to shower and eat without someone urging you. If you can't leave the house, run errands, get back to work. If you can't fucking function, of course they are just going to keep throwing pills at you. I get it. Therapy sucks. I wouldn't want to spill my guts all over a stranger either. But if you don't want to have to deal with them, then you need to learn how to function again."
