I had taken off their shoes that night. Crawled into bed and cried some more. I hadn't slept that night. I had grabbed my headphones and blasted some random music and curled into a ball, haphazardly covering myself with my sheets. I blasted the music pretty loud.
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I was afraid of the nightmares for the first time that night.
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The next morning I had gotten off my bed to make them soup. It was awkward for the first thirty minutes. Then Casey tripped over the coffee table and me and Liam had cracked up. We had asked him if he was alright while miserably failing at holding back our laughter. He had scowled at us and taken Liam’s hand to get back up.
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Just like that the fight had been forgotten.
We were family again.
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I didn't know if the boys remembered what I had told them. They didn't mention it. I simply assumed that they didn't remember a thing. If they did, I was certain they would have kicked me out of the house.
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Instead Liam had offered to make me toast to eat with my terrible soup, and Casey had given an animated run down of Liam and Casey’s experience at the bar that night.
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I'll be honest, I was a little surprised that Liam had taken Casey out drinking and both of them had returned home drunk. Liam was never that irresponsible. He knew Casey was a light weight.
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The boys did have classes. So they grabbed their bags and headed out the door. They offered to drop me off. I had refused. Telling them I didn't have any right then, mine were later in the afternoon. That I would grab the first train at twelve.
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I had lied.
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They bade me farewell and walked out the door.
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I had taken my bag and caught a train to the park. The park that is far far away from you. The park he loved.
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I had sat on his favorite bench and leaned my head back, staring up at the mesh of leaves above me, beams of sunlight leaking through.
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I had thought of his funeral.
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Thought how much I had deserved whatever happened that day.
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His mother hadn't even seen us till we came to attend the last rites. We were at church, sitting in the last row. Waiting to go see his face for the last time.
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She hadn't noticed we were there till after his family went on taking turns to talk of his good character. Of how much this world would miss him. Of how he was in a better place.
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The three of us were surprised he even was allowed a funeral at the church.
But we supposed his family had thrown some money in the right direction to make it happen. We weren't sure we were glad about that.
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He didn't really have the best experience with church as a kid. He wasn't a religious follower ever. But his family had been avid followers of the church. It had stressed him out a lot as a child, all the restrictions his family would place on him in the name of god. In the name of avoiding hell, everything they had forbidden him to do.
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I remembered how he had told us it was suffocating. That once he was old enough he would go far away from his house, and spread his wings and fly.
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We had laughed at how stupid he had sounded, and told him he couldn't do that. He couldn't fly. But we'd go far far away from all our homes. Together.
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We had been in line to see him for the last time, the three of us taking turns to peep into the coffin. Liam and I hadn't cried, Casey couldn't stop the silent tears. I had to resist the urge to brush his blonde hair away from his forehead, he never liked to wear his hair down. His long blonde hair would be tied up, leaving a few strands that he tucked behind his ear.
He didn't like it when his hair came into his eyes, or tickled his neck.
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We always told him to cut his hair. He always told us he was prettier this way.
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The three of us had gone forward in line to give our condolences to his family members.
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Even as we had stood before his mother, she did not recognize us immediately. We told his father we were very sorry for their loss, we had turned to his mother to say the same.
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That was when she recognized us.
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“You! You!” she began to shout, pointing a shaky finger at us. At me.
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“YOU! YOU, MURDERERS! HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU SHOW YOUR FACE HERE! YOU DEMONS! HOW DARE YOU!” she had lunged forward shouting all sorts of profanities at us. Her hands had found my hair, and despite me being taller than her she had used all her strength to yank me down to her height.
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I had held back a cry and had tried to, as calmly as I could, ask her to let go. That we could talk this over. That she had been mistaken about something.
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She had yanked at it harder, until I finally let out a cry of pain. That was when Liam and Casey had grabbed her hands and tried to free me from her grasp.
They did their best to untangle her bony small fingers from my hair, and had pulled me back and away from her.
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She still had a few dark strands of hair tangled in her fingers as she waved her hands at us. Tears streaming uncontrollably, her eyes red with rage. “YOU KILLED MY SON YOU DEMONS! YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED MY SON!”
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Liam had grabbed my arm and dragged me away from her along with Casey, “We need to leave, we'll visit him later.” He had told me in my ear as he had dragged me away, “We’ll go lay flowers at his grave later.”
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As we had walked away from his coffin, away from his mother, his father who had stood in shock the entire time. The few guests that had been from their mothers side, and the priests that had come running at the sound of the commotion, I had this strange feeling blooming in all the numbst corners of my chest. I had wanted her to yell at me more.
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Pull my hair more, maybe hit me more. I had wanted her to push me over the edge, so I could finally join him. I had wanted someone, anyone, to throw me off a cliff, maybe even reach for my neck to squeeze the last breath of life out of me.
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Then I would join him in the afterlife and I would have told him how sorry I was. Told him that I hadn't meant to do this to him. That it should have been me.
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I should've taken his place.
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But I was dragged out of the church, the echoes of his mother’s curses haunting me the entire drive home.
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Sitting in the park that day, I had reminisced about all this. Thought about what would have happened if the boys hadn't pulled me away. That the boys had perhaps taken time to yank me free cause they had always known. They always knew I was at fault.
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That I had killed him.
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That like a fool I had gone and begged an agent that had abused him when he was younger. I had gone and made them meet countless times, oblivious to his changed behavior, to how eager he was to leave every time we had met up with that agent.
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That I had personally delivered him to his specially crafted hell.
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I know better than anyone that I killed him, angel.
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I killed him.
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And I fear now I must pay with my life.
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and then Add to home screen.