Death and Disbelief

Chapter One

Sunlight filters through the curtains, casting eerie shadows upon the pale pink carpet. I sigh and continue fixing my hair, pulling the dark brown waves into a half-assed ponytail. I have no one to impress. My appearance is irrelevant.

"Everything is irrelevant."

I slip on some flip-flops, grab my phone and keys, and am out the door before anyone can even attempt to bother asking where I'm going. I'm not in a speaking mood, so it's for the best.

"Everything is for the best."

The sun warms my skin the instant I step outside. It takes everything I have not to scream. I want it to rain. I want thunder, lightning. I want it to fucking pour. I want an end to this bullshit façade of everything being okay.

"Everything will be okay."

Slamming my car door shut, I start the engine and head east, straight into the sun. I wish it would eat me alive, swallow me whole and never spit me back out. The streets are empty. Everyone is either asleep or getting ready for church.

It's Sunday, always the most miserable day of the week.

The city is a blur as I speed down the interstate. I don't want to see. I don't want to linger. I don't want to run the risk of accidentally feeling anything at all.

Today is not a day for embracing.

I make it through the gate. What should have been a twenty minute drive has been cut in half. I park beside the curb, not bothering to lock the car behind me. Anyone who dares to commit a crime here, now, on this day, under these circumstances, does not deserve to live.

My footsteps are silenced by the lush green grass. I walk straight down the center of the rows of matching white marble. The white against green really does make for a beautiful contrast.

If anywhere deserves beauty, it is certainly here.

I halt in my tracks, shaken from my previous train of thought. A man, dressed in faded jeans and a light gray coat, kneels in the distance. His uncomfortably pale hand grips the cool stone as if it is the only thing keeping him alive.

His head is cast downward. Messy brown hair falls into his face, obscuring it from view. His other hand is clenched in a tight fist at his right side. He appears in immense pain.

He understands.

"No one is able to understand what you're going through."

A bouquet of sunflowers sits at his feet, adding to the beauty of the scene.

Sunflowers were his favorite flower.

The man's head lifts and he's staring straight at me.

I can't breathe. My lungs refuse to fill with air. My head is spinning. My balance is off. I want to puke. I want to lie down. I want to go back in time.

After all these years. Those eyes, still so clear, so green. I could never forget those eyes.

"Rian."

I stand no more than six feet from him, exposed under his cold gaze. The hard set of his jaw and the frostiness of his eyes are foreign, but he is not. Five years and I can still remember everything about him. I want to go back. I want it to have never happened at all.

"I'm sorry." I clasp my hands awkwardly in front of me, finally breaking eye contact. I can't handle everything that comes with it. "I didn't mean to disturb you or anything. I didn't see anyone else when I started walking, or I would have waited by my car until you left. I'm really sorry."

He stands up, straightening out his tall frame, towering almost a full ten inches above me. I crane my neck upward as he begins to speak.

"It's okay. You just surprised me there."

"I'm still sorry." I refuse to meet his eyes again.

He nods, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. It's a slight comfort to know I'm not the only one ill at ease in the situation. I hadn't thought I would ever see him again.

"You'll never see him again."

"So," his voice is soft, "How are you?"

"I'm okay, I guess. How are you?"

He shrugs. "I'm alright. Nothing interesting is going on with me."

I nod my shared sentiment, staring at my feet. What am I supposed to say? Rian and I haven't had a conversation in over five years. The last time we'd spoken we'd both been fourteen, living in a world void of loss, pain, and devastation – a lie. We'd been clueless, naïve, innocent… We'd been kids.

Five years sees us grow into two scared and broken strangers.

Another beat of silence passes us by and I can't take it. I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to fucking feel again.

I want to know.

"Why did you stop talking to me?" My tone is flat, empty of any kind of inflection. I can't muster together anything more.

He looks down at me. I can see his eyes working out a way to stall this conversation. "What?"

"Stop it, Rian." My words are clipped in my first show of emotion in weeks. "Stop doing this. You know exactly what I said and what I meant. You haven't spoken to me in five fucking years."

Silence. His eyes are distant, empty.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry."

The words make me physically sick. I've heard them too many times and they don't do anything at all. They're filler. They lack substance. They're meaningless.

"Everything has meaning."

I know he can read the disgust written all over my face. "Answer my question."

He shrugs again, trying to downplay what is happening. You can't make this unimportant, Rian. You know this. I can't believe you're even trying.

"I thought it would make things less painful."

"Did it?"

He shrugs yet again, this time as if the weight of his own arms is burying him slowly but surely underground. He cannot escape; any attempt is futile. The heaviness of his following sigh reflects this perfectly. "I'm not sure."

A quick look at his eyes finishes the thought for me. He's not sure. Maybe it's less painful, maybe it's not. He can't tell for certain. He doesn't feel enough to know. It's as if I'm looking into a completely pathetic and heartbreaking mirror.

My eyes rest fondly on the headstone to his left. "I miss him a lot."

"Me too."

"I wish he was still here all the time."

"Me too."

These statements, we both know, are the only things we truly believe. Beyond immediate feelings of longing, everything is uncertain.

"I never thought we'd speak again."

"Everything happens for a reason, right?"

I cringe. He notices. He understands as well as I do – better than most – just how wrong of a saying that is.

"Yeah, I suppose it does."

We're nothing more than hypocrites.

"I guess I'll leave you alone now. I know you need this time to yourself."

"Uh, yeah, thanks. I guess I'll see you around?"

He nods. "Yeah, of course. I'll see you sometime, Soph." The words are only seconds out of his mouth and I'm already doubting the truth behind them. Chances are Rian Fox and I will never see each other again. I'm only in the city for the next two or three days anyway, and it's doubtful that Rian stayed in town for college. Knowing his father, Judge Fox, Rian's probably going to Harvard.

"He's also probably miserable." I look again to the headstone in front of me. Is there anywhere he wouldn't be miserable? Will either of us not be miserable again? "Doubtful, isn't it?"

I kneel in front of his grave, running my fingers across the petals of Rian's sunflowers.

Rory Daniel Lark

Loving son of

Mr & Mrs Daniel Lark

"Mom won't be too pleased with that inscription once the divorce is finalized, will she?"

No response. There's never a response. There will never be a response.

"I wish you were here. It should be you, me, and Rian against the world. That was always our plan."

Three best friends out to conquer the world, doing what they want whenever they want, nothing and no one to stand in their way.

"That obviously worked out well…"

I don't know what to say. It's all been said before. The past five years have left me speechless.

"If there is an afterlife and a God and you can hear me, then I hate Him for taking you away from us."

Tears pool in my eyes. I don't want to cry. I don't want to look weak. If there is a God, I don't want to give Him the satisfaction. Only I'm allowed to know how pathetic I've become, how broken I still am.

"I'll see you later, Ror."

A single tear hits a sunflower's petal.

Pathetic.

The drive home is uneventful. I can't get Rian Fox out of my head. What if I never see him again? Am I okay with that? Is that kind of complacency an admittance of total defeat?

He'd just looked so sad, so goddamn sad.

"We're all very sad."

It was more than sadness, deeper than that. It was like his heart had been ripped viciously, deliberately, unapologetically from his chest, and he's been living with a void in its place ever since. Five years now, the boy without a heart, trekking through the world with set lips and sharp eyes.

He really does get it.

I kill the engine, get out, and quickly make my way to the front door in case any neighbors are outside to stop me. However, my loneliness plan falls apart the second I step inside.

"How're you holding up, Soph?"

My older brother, Nolan, is spread carelessly across the length of the living room couch. His usually sparkling hazel eyes appear dull and glazed. I can imagine the smell of the whisky on his breath from here. Maker's Mark, aged approximately six years, 90 US proof, sweet like Dad's breath after a hard night at work – not like the bitter sterility of his coat.

"We all cope in our own special way."

I shrug. "I'm okay, I guess. Same as every other year, you know?"

He nods, understanding almost exactly what I mean. It's hard to move on, damn near impossible, actually. It's hard, but we do it, more or less. And, if not, we fake it to the point that people stop asking questions.

"Dad called earlier. He just wanted to make sure that you and I are okay – Mom too, actually. He said to tell you that he loves you and that he's really sorry he's not around right now. He doesn't want to drag us into this mess any more than is necessary, so he's making himself scarce. He doesn't want to piss off Mom even more by being around, I guess."

"Makes sense, I guess." I can understand my father's position, but that doesn't make this hurt any less. When one kid dies, you don't abandon the rest, for fuck's sake. I need him here. I need him to reassure me that Rory wouldn't want to see me like this. I need him to be a proper dad. Judging by the frown on Nolan's face, he's handling Dad's absence even worse than I am. He's trying to be strong for me, but he's failing. His façade is cracking, and the alcohol isn't helping to keep in in place.

"Where is Mom, anyway?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, to be honest. I woke up half an hour ago, and the house was abandoned. I was worried about you. I didn't know if you'd come home last night or not."

I grimace before I can stop myself. Last night isn't something I want to think about again. "Sorry for making you worry, Nol. I just wanted to get out there and see him before Mom or anyone else showed up."

"That's understandable. It's impossible to grieve in that woman's presence. She's been so fucking self-centered ever since it happened. I can't stand it."

He has a point. For five years now, our mother has been like a malignant tumor, growing stronger while destroying everything in her path. I think it's her own way of mourning the loss of her son, but it helps nothing. Honestly, it's just served in further damaging what's left of our broken family.

"I'm hoping things will improve now that they're getting divorced. If not, then I don't really know. She might just be a lost cause." Like father, like son. Like mother, like daughter.

"We can only hope as much, baby sis. We can only hope." The beginnings of a smile are spreading across his face. I'm glad someone can find some happiness in this shittiness.

Nolan and I drift into silence. I face my brother. He's biting his nails – a nervous habit our mother has been trying to break him of forever. At age twenty-four, he's still a chronic nail biter. Not everything improves with time.

His sandy blonde hair falls into his eyes and takes me back to Rian at the cemetery. Nolan really reminds me of Rory, though. They have the same hair – light, unruly waves that hang in their faces and block their gaze. The same rounded face with a straight, proud nose, thin lips turned near permanently upward in a smile, and a dimple only on the left side. Technically, it was Rory who looked like Nolan. If he were still around, people would probably assume they're twins, despite the three year age difference. If not for Rory's green eyes, they would have been identical.

His eyes had been green like emeralds, and with his utterly carefree attitude, they had sparkled the same. Rory had never understood being in a bad mood. He'd said he didn't have the time to sit around moping and griping at every little thing, and he'd been right. He'd barely had any time at all, and yet he'd still managed to touch so many people. He'd done more in fifteen years on Earth than I've done in nineteen. I'll probably never accomplish as much as him. He was on another level – always had been, always would be.

"Sophie, come on! There's nothing to be afraid of here. It's just water!"

I shook my head at Rian. I knew with all my five year old heart that if I stepped foot into that pool, I'd drown. He sighed, rolling his eyes. "Rory, your sister's being dumb!"

"Am not!" I shouted, trying to keep some of my dignity intact.

"Are too," he sneered, hands on hips, tongue stuck out directly at me. Stupid boy.

This was serious now.

Before I had a chance to retaliate, Rory appeared. "What's going on?" he asked. "What's wrong? Why do you both look so mad?"

"Sophie won't go swimming because she's too scared. I keep telling her it's just a little water," Rian said, groaning melodramatically and motioning to the pool behind him. "She's acting like a wimpy girl."

"Am not," I grumbled.

Rory's green eyes swam with mirth. "Rian, leave my sister alone. If she doesn't want to swim, she doesn't have to. You can't make her do anything."

"Whatever, Ror, she's no fun anyway." Rian jumped into the water, smiling widely at me when he came back to the surface. "You don't know what you're missing, Soph."

Rory looked at me. "Just ignore him, Soph. He's dumb."

"But I do want to go swimming," I said, jealous of how happy Rian was in the water. "I just don't know how."

"You want to learn?" Rory asked. I nodded slowly, a bit wary. "Then we'll come back here tomorrow and I'll teach you. We can come first thing in the morning without Rian. That sound good?" I nodded, grinning. "Alright, nine in the morning, we'll come back here."

The next morning Rory had stuck to his word – like always – and we'd gone to the neighborhood pool where he taught me how to swim. A few hours later, and I couldn't have been dragged from the water. Rian had been rightfully confused by my newfound attachment to the pool, and Rory and I had never bothered to explain.

We'd been so happy then. We'd been whole; we'd been alive. Now, we just exist.

A/N: Hello, internet readers, that is, if any of you still exist. This is that story I've been hinting at for literally years now, freshly rewritten, because as you may know, I am indecisive as fuck. Also, hi, I'm more or less a totally different writer now, and this is maybe not what you expect from me, but it is me. Also, consider this a test run, because who knows whether or not I'm letting my baby stay up here for long. Please leave feedback/criticism/thoughts/feelings/sonnets/so on. I am so sorry for the long hiatus. I'm a terrible person.

Natalie.