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Tali
Ben was buriedon a sunny day underneath a grand oak tree near his grandparents. His sister, Claudia, spoke through tears, telling stories about the antics she and Ben used to get into. Mourners laughed at her stories. When she spoke of him that way, it was impossible not to conjure an image of the carefree jokester he’d been in the beginning, not the sad, defeated man he’d been at the end.
Jude sat with Ben’s family during the service. A woman I’d never met, but who was unmistakably Jude’s mother, sat behind him, periodically rubbing his tight shoulders. I sat with Tino, Juan, and Nina. We held hands, making a chain of friendship and comfort.
We followed the family to their house, where they would sit shiva for the next week. I only knew this because Claudia had explained what sitting shiva was—the week-long mourning period where they would remain at home and mourners would come sit with them. Jude had barely looked at me.
And I let him have his space.
The house was packed with people I didn’t know, talking about topics other than Ben, as if this were any social gathering. Food filled every surface. I was overwhelmed and uncomfortable.
Claudia grabbed my hand. “Come with me. All of Benny’s friends are going to hang out downstairs.”
I followed her down to the finished basement, shocked to find it filled with the scent of weed and most people holding some kind of alcoholic beverage. We were at the funeral of a man whose substance abuse killed him, and his friends were getting high in his parents’ basement.
I was even more uncomfortable than I’d been upstairs.
Jude was in the middle of it all, a joint in his hand, and a vacant, detachment in his eyes. I went to him, squeezing myself into the small space at his side.
“Hey, Jude.”
His head turned, eyes meeting mine, but looking right through me. “Hey, Stripes.”
He was there, but he wasn’t. When I forced my arms around him, hugging him for the first time since he left my bed to check on Ben, it felt like I was holding a ghost.
“I love you,” I whispered.
Jude’s head dropped down on top of mine. “Love you too.”
The absence of any feeling behind those words was a knife to my gut.
I knew he loved me, but I needed him. He’d lost a best friend, but so had I. His pain might have been more profound, but I wasn’t interested in a competition in who hurt worse. I only wanted to hold each other through this, like we’d promised.
This wasn’t the time to talk through our relationship struggles.
Jude let me keep my arms around him while he smoked and talked to his old friends. Every once in a while, he’d lean his head on mine, or play with my hair, but that was the only dose of affection he gave me.
When it was clear this reunion was going to go all night, Tino said they were going back to the hotel.
“I’ll stay here.”
“You should go,” Jude said.
The knife in my gut twisted. “What?”
“You should go. We’re just going to be talking about people you don’t know. No one’s going to be sleeping. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I could have slapped him. My hand burned with the desire, but I held back. If I slapped him once, I wouldn’t stop. Not until he woke up and saw me.
Dismissed, I went back to the hotel with my friends and cried until I passed out.
I lefteveryone at the hotel, driving to the house early in the morning. I should have waited for them, but Jude was my only focus.
Ben’s mother, Aviva, let me in. We’d met several times over the last two years. I’d planned on sitting with his family at his graduation in two weeks, but that wouldn’t happen now. We hugged, long and hard, then she directed me down to the basement, where a lot of Ben’s friends had slept.
Downstairs was still quiet, and trepidation filled me. Bodies were strewn haphazardly across the sectional couch and on the floor. It looked like everyone had just fallen where they had been standing.
No Jude, though.
