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two

U nfortunately, one hour becomes two, thanks to construction.

Then three, thanks to construction.

By the time I finally stumble through the front door of my small, two-bedroom ranch style house I inherited from my aunt, I’m ready to just fall down onto the floor and use my arm as a pillow. Hell, I probably don’t even need a pillow. Just my face on the fake hardwood.

“You’ll regret sleeping in the foyer, Kai,” I grumble. “And the neighbors will see you through the window. They’ll judge .” I remind myself that Patrice would definitely tell the HOA, and I’ll end up with some letter taped to my door about how floor-sleeping is against the code.

I’ll probably have to pay a fine, which I’m definitely not financially set up for at this time.

Kicking the door shut hard enough that it really might reach Patrice’s ears—bless the delicate peach—I groan and drop my duffel bag to the floor. Once more I gaze at it, considering how the clothes inside would make an excellent pillow and I’ve definitely slept somewhere worse.

Like in a puddle of my own vomit in a dorm room with the window open in the middle of a Michigan Winter.

“You aren’t eighteen anymore,” I mumble, carrying on a conversation with myself, just as I usually do. My friends are used to it, thankfully, but I can’t help the way my stomach twists at the memory of my Floridian family glancing my way in concern and disdain whenever they heard me muttering to myself about something stupid or unimportant. Like the weather.

With my feet dragging, I glance around the main living room and into the kitchen, making sure that nothing has changed in the past five days. I know Em has been here every day, just to check up on things and using her spare key, but still I…worry.

I always worry.

But everything is quiet, until the AC kicks on lightly to cool off the room. I let my shoulders fall as I remind myself that things really are the same here. They’re better here than they could ever be in Florida, which is why I’m halfway across the country from my family.

Ungluing my bare feet from the floor is a monumental task, but I manage to drag myself to the one bedroom with a bed in it, despite Em’s and Madalyn’s constant complaints that I’m not utilizing my space well enough. The second bedroom is an office, sort of. Though with only a desk and a few shelves on the walls, it’s barely even that. I just don’t have a use for it, given that I live alone and don’t regularly entertain.

Unless I count Patrice’s too-frequent visits as she regales me with stories on how bad of a neighbor my aunt was, and how I shouldn’t want to slip down the same path.

Honestly, my late Aunt Hortense is quickly becoming my idol for her neighborly conduct. Especially if it means making Patrice’s life just a little bit difficult.

I strip off my clothes on the way to my bedroom, leaving them on the hall floor until I’m left in just my underwear and a t-shirt I snagged from the clean laundry pile on my way by. There’s no way I’m actually doing laundry, not when I can barely remember how to walk. And at last I face plant my bed with my best zombie-like groan.

God, I’m so tired.

Tired enough that within minutes, I’m falling asleep. Still wondering if I actually locked the door or if I’d accidentally left it open for Patrice to come in and slap fine notes all over my house with reckless abandon.

Too bad I don’t have a guard dog trained on her scent specifically, I think to myself as I drift off.

I don’t know these people.

Sitting awkwardly in the front row of the benches in the funeral home, I fidget with my hands and pick at my nails until they sting and blood wells to the surface of my skin. Dressed in a simple black skirt, leggings, boots, and blouse, I feel as out of place as if I wore bright pink to the funeral.

I don’t know these people, and I don’t belong here.

Cousins I’ve barely ever met glance my way, whispering behind their hands or grinning in unfriendly ways when they see me. But when I try to really look at them, to place them from my childhood, their features slip away like water on glass, leaving just blank, smooth faces in their place.

The preacher takes his spot at the podium, and even his face is blank and featureless and strange. Glancing around, I feel panic well in my chest when I notice everyone in the room is the same. Even when their faces turn to me, I can see nothing. They all look the same, just in different shades and styles of black.

I tear harder at my nails—not feeling the pain I know I should—until I’m ripping strips from them and blood is trickling through my trembling fingers to stain the skin of my palms.

Not that I feel it.

Numbness spreads from my hands, up my arms, to my chest and finally down my legs. Belatedly, I realize the preacher’s words are formless. Meaningless.

Everything here is just so strange, even though the featureless figures all around me nod their blank faces like they know exactly what’s happening.

Finally, they all stand and I stumble to my feet as well, anxiety surging through my body. As one, my row moves toward the casket. Closer to the body lying there that we’re all paying our respects to.

A mourner in a black dress leans over to touch the person in the casket. The next, a suited figure, only nods their head before moving on. Each person takes only a few seconds, and with a jolt, I see I’m only four people away from seeing what lies in that box.

I don’t want to.

God, I really don’t want to.

Stepping out of line proves impossible, though. My legs won’t move that way. They only shuffle forward, boots making no noise on the well-worn carpet of the funeral home. I open my mouth to protest, to say I don’t need to see.

That I don’t want to see.

But I can’t stop moving, and the murmur of conversation from the faceless people plays like an eerie white noise in my ears.

Three people.

Two.

I can’t even lean to the side to catch a glimpse. I can only stand straight with my eyes on the flowers on the casket while the person in front of me leans forward to murmur to the dead man.

“We know you were a good man, Robert.”

The words ring in my ears; foul and false and wrong.

But when she moves away, my feet shuffle forward like I’m programmed to move this way, until I’m staring down at the figure in the coffin.

But this one has a face.

Grey hair with hints of its former red is combed thinly over a pale scalp. His face is slack and empty, and the hands clasped over his chest are pale from bloodlessness.

I don’t feel pity, or sadness, or anything appropriate.

I feel nothing, in fact.

“Tell him he was a good person,” a voice hisses in my ear, but I can’t look away from Uncle Robert. I can’t move, with my hands on the edge of the coffin like I’m having to brace myself for balance.

I don’t say anything. I can’t move, but I also make sure my lips don’t form those words.

Something pinches my side, causing me to wince, even though I don’t feel any pain.

“Tell him you lied.”

This time I manage to shake my head, and something pinches my hip. Then my thigh. Then my arm.

“Tell him you made it up.”

“Tell him he was a good man ? —”

“You made it up ? —”

“You lied ? —”

“I didn’t!” My hands clasp the coffin tighter, and I finally look up at the faceless crowd surrounding me. “I didn’t make it up! I didn’t lie ? —”

A hand suddenly grasps my wrist, cold and clammy. Its grip drags my eyes back down to Uncle Robert, whose eyes are now open and whose fingers hold my wrist like a vise.

“Then tell them you asked for it,” he murmurs from between cracked lips. “Tell them you wanted ? —”

“I didn’t!” I sit upright, shaking, my forehead clammy as I try to place my surroundings. Early evening sun pours into my small bedroom, and belatedly I realize my phone is ringing, and must be what woke me up from the strange, nightmare version of Uncle Robert’s funeral.

May he burn in hell.

“Fuck,” I mumble, groping around for my phone in the comforter. I’ve wiggled my way to the middle of the bed during the day, and it takes a good few seconds to find the vibrating device I’ve somehow thrown almost to the headboard.

“Hello?” I answer, not bothering to look at the name on the screen. God, if it’s Patrice, I’ll lose it.

“ Are you back? Finally?” The voice on the other end is much more welcome than my shitty neighbor, and I let out a sigh of relief as Emmalyn’s concern travels to my ear.

“Fucking finally,” I groan. “I’ve just been trying to sleep off…everything.” I’m still tired, still drowsy, and if I don’t go back to sleep right away, it’ll only be because I’d like to order enough delivery food to feed a football team for three days.

Or me for tonight.

“ Sorry if I woke you up. Shit—Do you want me to let you go?” Em sounds guilty, and I let out a breath as I flop back on the bed.

“No. Maybe? Not because I’m upset.” I never get upset. Not outwardly, at least. From a young age, I learned how to control the appearance of my emotions, and I hate letting others know how I feel. “I’m just so fucking tired it’s unreal. I did the drive all at once and construction made it longer.”

“ Seriously, Kai?” Em sounds exasperated. “ You’re ridiculous. You should’ve taken a break. Madalyn would’ve murdered you if you’d died in a car accident.”

“Lucky for me I would’ve already been dead and saved her the trouble.” Dragging a pillow over my eyes, I let out a huff at the whirring sound of Patrice’s smart car pulling in across the street. “God. Patrice is home. Want to bet she’ll be over here banging on my door since she sees I’m back? Maybe leaving for a week is against one of the HOA codes. Maybe I’ll get fined.”

Em snorts at that. “ I really will let you go. I can hear how tired you are, okay?” She sounds a little less concerned, a little more like her normal self. She doesn’t push it. Doesn’t ask me how things went, and I’m happy for the reprieve.

Even though I know when Madalyn hears I’m back and alive, she’ll immediately be all over my case to know what happened and if I’m all right.

“ Madalyn says we’re coming over tonight.” Em’s tone is a bit dry, a bit humorous as well. “ So this is my warning to you. Don’t groan at me.” She waits for me to finish my dramatic noises of dislike. “ I’m not going to try to talk her out of it. You sound like you need it, along with another eight hours of sleep. So when we break in later, just know it’s with good intentions.”

“Good-ish,” I correct. “You guys just want to torture me in my time of weakness.” Em cackles at that, but doesn’t deny it, and after we exchange goodbyes, I toss my phone onto the nightstand with a clatter.

“Maybe I’ll change the locks,” I tell the backs of my eyelids, rolling onto my stomach to bury my face in my blankets and pillows. “Maybe I’ll block the door.”

I won’t do either, but it’s worth pretending. At least for now, in the minutes before I’m back to what I hope is a dreamless, worry-less sleep.

Yeah, right.