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“Sis.” I have no tears. My eyes are dry, so dry they ache. “This ain’t fair. You should’ve stayed. You said you’d stick by me.” I stop, because it sounds so selfish. But she’s my family. All the family I have. Except… “The kids will miss you. Matt will miss you. I…” My voice breaks, and I rub my chest. Fucking hurts. “Don’t know if I can do this without you, dammit.”
“Zane.” Matt appears at the door. “It’s past nine. They’re closing up here, and you should go to bed. You look awful.”
He does, too. Not that it matters. I shake my head. “Talking to Emma.”
“Emma’s dead,” he bites out, and I bend over, his words a punch to my stomach. “Look, you have to come to terms with that, man.”
The chair creaks when he sits down next to me. He puts his hand on my shoulder, and I flinch hard, almost falling down. He withdraws it.
“Zane… I’m sorry. I love Emma. I know you love her. I know this is hard. But you have to rest, or you won’t make it to the funeral tomorrow. You don’t look well, man.”
I concentrate on breathing, getting air into my crushed lungs. My heart is banging in my chest. “’M okay.”
“Come on.” He pats my arm and stands up. “Let’s go home.”
Home. Home ain’t here, not anymore. I let Matt haul me to my feet and drag me toward his car. I’m thankful I don’t have to drive. Not sure I can.
I let him drive me to their house, and once there, I drop on the sofa and spend the night staring a hole into the ceiling.
She’s gone. Emma’s gone.
Dammit all to hell, but when reality comes crashing down, it really doesn’t hold back.
Matt drives us to the cemetery. The kids are riding in his mother’s car, he tells me. His mother. Keep forgetting Matt has parents, unlike me and Emma. His parents are here, and as it turns out, also some cousins. Maybe that’s good. More people to say goodbye.
Goodbye to Emma. A knot is stuck in my throat, and I can’t swallow. Can’t speak.
The casket is there. There’s a hole in the ground. They’re gonna put Emma into a fucking hole in the ground. I can’t…
Matt’s hand on my arm brings me back from the brink. “Ready?”
The fuck I am. How can I ever be ready to put my sister into the ground?
But I follow him out of the car. There are chairs. There’s a priest. He waits for all of us to sit and starts talking. He talks and talks, words, and words, and more fucking words, washing over me like soap bubbles, pretty, light and just as empty, bursting into nothing.
I’m not alone, I tell myself as they lower the casket into the earth. I’m not. I have my friends. I have the kids. I have Matt. He said we’ll always be a family, ever since he started dating Emma.
I glance at him. He’s, what, twenty-six? But he looks old, emaciated and bent, his mouth thin.
One by one the people get up to leave. I stay seated. Don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Where I’m supposed to go. Nothing makes sense.
“Zane.” Matt is suddenly in front of me. I blink. “Come home with us. You need to sleep. I don’t think you slept at all last night.”
Maybe that’s what I should do. Besides, I can’t think, so I might as well follow his lead.
“Your friends know what happened?” Matt shoots me a glance as we walk toward the cars.
I don’t answer. I don’t understand what happened myself. I slow down, look back at the fresh mount of earth over the grave. Why am I leaving already? I can’t leave Emma here alone.
“Zane.” Matt grips my wrist and jerks me back around. “Snap out of it.” He sighs. “Listen, man. I have to tell you something. I decided to take the kids and move closer to my parents. They need all the love they can get right now, and they need someone to take care of them.”
“What?” I rub a hand over my face. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s not too far. They live in Missouri. You can come visit sometimes.”
“Where are the kids?” I turn in a circle. Everyone’s gone.
“My mom took them home. I couldn’t—”
