Chapter One

I hated funerals.

The idea was nice, I guess. But the actual thing was dreadful. When someone you love dies, you don’t want to see a crap load of black everywhere, don’t want to see everybody crying and saying over and over how “sorry they were.” What were they sorry for, anyway? Did they kill my mom? What the fuck did they do that needed apologizing?

I let the speaker’s words float right through me. I didn’t need people telling me how much they loved my mother, because I didn’t care and it had nothing to do with me. I loved her more, because I was her daughter, and I didn’t need anymore grief to sit and listen to.

Father’s hand squeezed my shoulder, and I could see that he was crying. His tears darkened the dirt like stains on cloth. His breath was wheezy and shallow.

“Rest in peace, Martha,” the speaker said.

“Rest in peace,” everyone, except me, chorused.

Father turned away when they threw the dirt over the coffin, as if it were too much for him to handle. But me? I stood and watched, watched my mom’s body be covered with mounds of worms and mud, buried in the depths of the earth until someone dug her up and threw her elsewhere.

Why did she have to go and die? Why did she have to run and get that milk? We didn’t need it. She could have just waited until the next day. But no--she just had to go right then, go and get herself shot. Why the fuck couldn’t she have just listened when we said, “Get it tomorrow.”

A chubby woman dressed in a big, fluffy black lady-suit pursed her lips in some sort of piteous frown. She ran a manicured nail down the side of my face, trying to smile a comforting smile, but her efforts were far from successful.

“Oh, you poor dear,” she clinked in a misty voice. “I’m sure your mother’s smiling down at you from heaven.”

I tensed. Dad smiled at her, that polite-businessman smile that I hated. “Thank you, Ruth. I’m so glad you could come and mourn with us…”

Ruth gurgled. I think it was supposed to be a laugh, but I’m not sure. Laughing didn’t exactly fit the criteria of a funeral, either. “Of course, Evan, of course. Be a good girl for your father, now.” She waggled her fingers, staring at us for a few moments as if we were just the saddest things she had ever seen, and stalked off. I growled from the back of my throat.

“Kelly…” Dad warned.

It’s funny how parents think they can scold you just by saying your name. It’s a wonder what they would do without tone, like in Chinese, where tone determines the meaning of the word. If someone just came up to you and said your name, you wouldn’t assume that they were angry with you. I’m not sure about my readers, but I would just say hello.

My father was a classic exerciser of names, and his use of tone was outstanding. Which kind of sucked, because I’m just a bit tone deaf.

So my dad and I have never really gotten along very well.

The crowd began returning to their cars, so that we could leave Mom in the dirt while we went and stuffed ourselves with comfort foods. It’s not as if anyone was crying for Mom, anyway--no one cared where she went, no one stood their pondering whether she would be happy in death or not. Instead, they cried because she was gone, because they wouldn’t be able to see her again.

“What will I do now!?” seemed to be a common phrase.

As we entered the cozy building that had been rented for the occasion, the overpowering scent of various foods called forth the hollowness of my gut. My stomach growled, so loudly that the people in front turned around and raised eyebrows at me--did I know them? No. There were strangers at my mother’s funeral, how comforting.

So I packed my plate high with all sorts of foods, some drifting over the edges and feeding the floor. Dad sighed and gave me The Look, but I just shrugged and pushed the food away from the edges with my fingers.

I hurried to the table, urgent to fill a stomach that had been neglected for the last week. I was dizzy and irritable--not that that had changed--and even Ruth had mentioned some worried remark about my health. I thought about the last time I had had a meal set in front of me, the meal that had sent Mom out for milk.

My stomach started churning. I stared at the food, longing raging in my blood, but my throat had closed up. I set down my fork and clasped a hand to my mouth, letting out little moans, shuddering violently.

Dad rushed towards me, nearly dropping his plate as he set it down, setting his hand upon my back. “Kelly! What’s wrong?” I could hear his heart pounding beside my ear. First his wife, now his daughter--what a lucky man.

I let out a cough, turned away from my plate, swallowed, and flashed a smile. “Yeah, Dad.” My voice was gentle and gritty as I spoke. “I’m okay. Sorry.”

Dad cleared his throat, staring at me in disbelief, before taking his seat. I was aware of everyone’s eyes on me--not that they hadn’t been, before, by the courtesy of my dead mother--as I rushed into the bathroom. I locked the door behind me, pressing my forehead to the cold glass of the mirror, and eased my rapid breathing.

I had to wait for Mom, I thought. I couldn’t eat without her.

The car ride home was the most awkward thirty-minutes I had ever spent. My dad kept casting worried glances at me, as if I would start choking on air at any minute.

I kept a smile pasted onto my lips, though this seemed to bother him more. Kelly never smiled. Not like that, not so warmly. Brightly, maybe. Happily--but never warmly.

“We’ll come and visit her the weekend after next,” he murmured. Dad was one of those people who despised silence.

I nodded, but didn’t say anything. We waited in hush for a few moments.

“Lauren called the other day. You’re lucky to have a friend like her.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Lauren had been my best friend ever since the eighth grade, when she first moved to town. I had been the one to come up to her and smile and welcome her to the school, in the confident way that I so often did. She was extremely shy, and eighth grade, when everyone was hormonal and bitchy, was not the ideal moving period.

Lauren had clung to me for the first while, as if I were her body guard in a place where everyone hated her. But by the tenth grade, things had completely turned around, and she was now my support behind everything from academics to hobbies.

But lately she had been somewhat annoying. Not in the usual sort of way, when people jab at you and never stop talking, but… she was so worried about me, so goddamn caring. It made me feel uncomfortable. It made me feel insecure and weak, and there was no feeling that I hated more than weakness.

“Why haven’t you been eating, Kelly? How long has it been since you last ate?”

I rolled my eyes. “I can’t eat because I get nauseas. I think I’m sick. And it hasn’t been that long.” A lie. It’s been a week. All I’ve had was some water and a few potato chips.

“You’re sick? Do we need to go to the doctor’s?”

“No, Dad. I’m fine.”

He glanced at me a couple of times, frowning, the crow-feet of his eyes down-turned. He flipped absently through the radio stations.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Because we really could--”

“No!” My retort was louder than intended, but I couldn’t handle him right now. It used to be that he would give up after a couple tries on starting a conversation. “I’m fine! I don’t need any fucking doctor prodding at me, okay?”

My father flinched in his seat, swerving off the road a little. He started to say something, but stopped mid-word. I had gotten mad before, but had never said anything. Just locked myself in the room and came out when I was calm.

There was a new fire in my eyes, a fire that was determined not to care anymore. And my relationship with my dad definitely wasn’t going to benefit from it.