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The outsider is inside the nexus of your life, and I hate it.
“We should probably take our seats,” Jackson says. He checks his watch; it’s an old one of yours. The way he flashes it is hardly discreet. “The mass is probably starting any minute now.”
We walk into the service room together. I switch sides when he walks to my left. He doesn’t pay it any mind, going straight for the empty seat in the front beside your mother. Ellen is in full black and silent, resting her head on Russell’s shoulder. I’m ready to rage over where Jackson found the nerve to sit next to your parents, when my eyes find your body.
Even seeing it isn’t enough to believe it.
You’re in a mahogany casket, dressed in a black suit I don’t remember you owning. There are tons of flowers placed around you. It reminds me of the summer afternoon you confessed your love of calla lilies, scared to admit it because “flowers aren’t manly.” When I rambled about my secret obsession with immortality irises after discovering them in some comic, it became a happily manly conversation. Afterward, we’d occasionally visit your grandmother’s flower shop before it closed last winter, losing out to all her competitors during the Valentine’s Day rush. I process the flowers in the room again, not spotting any calla lilies.
I should’ve brought some white ones, your favorite. I’m sorry.
I walk toward you even though I know it’s not time for that. The minister is about to lead everyone in prayer or sing a hymn, but it’s you, Theo, in a box. My vision shakes, my knees tremble. My mom calls for me, and my dad appears at my left side, pulling my arm. I shake him off and switch sides before letting him guide me to our seats on the far left of the room, away from your family and Jackson. The seat is uncomfortable. Too many eyes are on me, so I sink to the carpeted floor, crossing my legs like it’s fifth grade all over again.
Father Jeffrey opens with a verse, Matthew 5:4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
I guess there is something comforting about being in a room with people who love you. But you should’ve been given more time in this universe. That way, when you were ready to die, you could pack stadiums with people who loved you, not a single room.
There are hymns sung, but not by me. We agreed that I can do a lot of things—like keep up with a car for four blocks before losing my breath or ride a bike with no hands for long stretches of time—but I cannot sing. Jackson is singing, though. I can’t make out his voice in the chorus of others, but he’s looking at you with a tilted head, like a curious child asking you why you’re sleeping in a box.
The eulogies begin, and they’re brutal. Your mother is the first one up, and she tries to joke about the nineteen-hour labor she went through with you, before she shuts down and quickly reboots. She tells everyone how she’ll miss nursing you back to health whenever you were sick, and how she regrets confiscating your Xbox One after you received a C+ on your earth science midterm. Denise is next. She tells everyone how you two used to have dance parties in the living room, which I never knew, and when she loses it, I snap up from the floor and race toward her because you’re in a casket unable to do so yourself, inviting her to sit back down with me.
I’m not surprised your father tells the story about how your first word, “sock,” was the first time it clicked with him that you were a little human being that was going to grow up to use all kinds of words to get around the world. Aunt Clara will miss your “funny little movies.” Uncle Ned doesn’t know who he’ll talk to about engines anymore. Wade keeps it quick, too, saying he misses you so much already and apologizes for wronging you. Your neighbor, Simone, is still grateful for the month you went grocery shopping for her after she crushed her leg in a car accident.
Then it’s my turn.
Not sure what they want to hear from me.
Maybe they’re interested in how our friendship began in middle school over Pompeii. And now I’m supposed to be delivering your eulogy.
I rise, helping Denise up from the floor, too. I encourage her to rejoin your parents, which she does without a fight.
I walk closer to you, your face touched up with makeup, and you don’t look like the boy I love. Your body has your features, sure, but you’re sort of chalky and very unnatural and it sends a bad chill running up my arms. The bright blue tie they chose for you would’ve gone beautifully with your open eyes. I slip into the memory of you at your graduation party, superimposing this blue tie over the green one you were wearing to see what it would look like, and then I pull myself out of this reimagining because I can’t change our history. I can’t begin remembering you wrong.
“One moment,” I tell the room.
I walk all the way to you, gripping the frame of your casket. I check my watch, waiting for the next even minute—10:42—and I touch your folded hands. You’re cold, I knew you’d be, but holding you after not being able to touch you in so long reminds me of last summer’s beach bonfire; the warmth of the glowing fire, our two-man huddle on the sand. But unlike that night, where we promised each other your leaving for college wouldn’t ruin us, I’m stuck having one-sided conversations with you as your boyfriend sits behind me. I squeeze your hands, crying a little.
I’m going to tell your friends and family a story about you, okay? I’m not going far.
I let go and turn around.
I step to the center, staring at nothing but shoes and the podium I’m tempted to hide behind.
“I love Theo,” I say, choking. I tug at my right earlobe, squeezing it between my thumb and middle finger. “He’s been my best friend since I was ten, my favorite person, who was supposed to exist forever. I told him everything, even the things about myself that scared me. Like the time I came out to him as a possible crazy person the same second he told me he was gay . . .” I tell them a bit about how we threw off our straight cloaks two years ago on June 8th, and how it taught me that honesty sometimes leads to happiness.
The memory quickly comes and goes.
I’m crying now, full on, and one hand is pulling at my ear and the other is pressed against my chest. “He made me feel safe from the world, and made me feel safe from myself.” My legs are going to give out. “I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t think any of us do. No one would’ve ever thrown down money, betting we’d be saying goodbye to Theo so soon, and it’s not fair and
it’s a total nightmare. But we all have mad love for Theo, and history is how we get to keep him.”
I make my way back to my spot on the floor, thinking of a thousand more things I want to say. My dad leans over and kisses the top of my head. He tells me I did a good job, but he doesn’t know anything. I’ve said enough to everyone here, but there’s still so much I have to tell you.
Father Jeffrey approaches the altar when Jackson hops out of his seat. He steps to the podium.
“Hi everyone, I’m Jackson,” he announces in a tight voice. “I was Theo’s boyfriend in California.”
I can’t listen to this.
