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Now, she was a wax statue. A ghost of herself, now in more ways than one. They’d put make-up on her, which startled him. He could see a dusting of blush across the one visible cheek, and her lips were rouged. Her hair was powder white, and he didn’t know if it had happened naturally in the time he and Leo were gone, or if it was a side-effect of being dead.
Either way, the whole thing was starting to make him dizzy. The room felt hot suddenly. Too hot, and he tugged at his collar until Leo’s hand gripped his wrist and pulled it down. “You need to get out of here?”
Oliver swallowed, his throat painfully dry, and he couldn’t help but look over again. Insane ideas began swirling around his head. What if he just started screaming? What if he rushed the casket and tipped her body onto the ground? What if he fell to his knees and started to cry, begging her God to let her come back just long enough to tell her what she’d done to him—what a monster she’d created?
What if he took a knife to her dead skin? What would it look like? He doubted she’d still bleed.
Not like he had, anyway.
He forced himself to think of how Leo’s fingers felt on his wrist, the tight grip almost painful, but necessary. “I think I need a bloody drink, but no chance of that now, is there?”
Leo looked pained, then reached into his pocket and pushed something hard plastic into his hand. A pill bottle. “It’s opiates,” Leo said under his breath, glancing over at their father who was deep in conversation about what to expect with the funeral proceedings. “Mikey gave them to me before we left. They’re not that strong, but just…take one.”
Oliver swallowed thickly again, then turned away and popped the cap as quietly as he could. He tipped one white, round pill into the palm of his hand, and dry swallowed it. It went down harsh and painful, sticking to his throat and leaving him with a vicious, bitter taste. But he got it down eventually and shoved the pill bottle back at Leo.
“Thanks.”
Leo gave him a slow, careful look, but didn’t say anything as he slipped the bottle back into his pocket, and then glanced back up at the front of the room. The vicar and their father had finished talking, and they were beckoning them over now.
“We’ve come early so the pair of you can pay your respects before other guests show up,” the vicar said. “Only family is allowed for the private viewing, but you’ll be expected to greet them here, as well as during the funeral.”
Oliver felt bile rising into his throat at the thought of all those insincere condolences. He doubted anyone really knew what she’d been capable of, what she’d done. He doubted anyone would see him as anything more than a grieving son.
He desperately wished the pill would kick in soon, before anyone arrived.
“…fine on our own. If you’d like to give us a few moments,” Leo was saying.
Oliver almost laughed when he realized his baby sibling was filling his role. He was taking charge and commanding the situation, and Oliver felt like a complete failure. Hadn’t his job always been to protect Leo from these things? To shield him from unnecessary unpleasantness?
His hands were trembling now, but his father and the vicar actually agreed and moments later, they were in the room alone. Their mother’s dead body was still there, in the casket like a dare, begging Oliver to defile her in some way—as she had done to him so many years ago.
Leo dragged him to a chair and sat him down, holding him tight by the shoulder. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Oliver replied, his tone sharp but shaking.
“It’s written all over your face. You’re lucky our father doesn’t know you better. Just let it be. She’s not there. That’s a fucking corpse, Ollie.”
His throat went tight again, and he cleared it, daring to look over at the casket. “I know. I hate myself for not coming earlier. Even if she hadn’t been able to recognize me, at least she would have been alive.”
“And you would have what?” Leo asked with a scoff. “Hit her? Burned her? Attempted to exorcize the demons of old age and bigotry from her bones? Even if she was alive and coherent right now, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
Oliver glanced up at his sibling, staring at the pale smear of gold shadow across his eyelids, at the soft pink gloss along his bottom lip. He had moved on, embraced who he was with a fullness Oliver knew he could never achieve, and it made him feel proud. But left a taste as bitter as the pill he’d swallowed.
“I don’t want to be here,” he said, acutely aware he sounded like a petulant child. “I want to get the fuck out of here and go home.”
“I know.” Leo finally moved his hand away, grabbing one of the nearby chairs and pulling it close to his sibling. “I’m going straight back after this. Dad’s out of his fucking mind if he thinks I’m going to stay on for any reason.”
Oliver looked over at him sharply. “Did he ask you to?”
“He hinted at it.” Leo rubbed his face carefully, not disturbing his make-up. “He’s not thrilled with my marks, thinks I ought to come back here for a proper education. Funny how he wants to blame the American universities for it instead of me.”
“He’s never paid any real attention,” Oliver said with a shrug. He glanced down at his hands clasped between his knees, and he noticed they weren’t trembling anymore. His head started to feel a little floaty, and a smile flickered across his mouth. “I think that pill is kicking in.”
Leo looked at him sideways, a small smirk playing at the corners of his lips. “Good. Just… don’t start giggling during the funeral.”
Oliver snorted, shaking his head. “Fuck you, Leo.” Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes, and it was easier now to pretend they weren’t in the room with her dead body. “I fucked up with Gabriel, you know. Probably worse than I ever have.”
“How?”
