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maybe you’re just not listening hard enough
maybe
Mase Face
Jeremy came on the radio today while I was driving
I don’t care what actually inspired that song
I don’t care about the underlying meaning and metaphors
as far as I’m concerned, it’s your song
it’s you fighting back
it’s you coming out on top
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
AGE 22, MARCH
It’s funny what death does to birthdays.
And of course by funny, I mean it’s the saddest fucking shit.
Made even more sadder when you share the date with the person no longer here, and you have to go on like half of you isn’t frozen in time.
What used to be celebrated, now dreaded. Lumped right up there with the anniversary of their death. Permanently engraved into the slab of stone that is left in their place. A reminder…that time continues to move forward, while they remain locked in the past.
Once upon a time, I was only twelve minutes and thirteen seconds older than my sister.
Now, I’m twenty-two. She’s still seventeen.
Five whole fucking years separate us.
I can’t imagine the loss of a sibling is easy for anyone, but it’s definitely a special brand of torture when you’re a twin, and have to carry the knowledge with you that your headstones will only share the one date.
It’s one of those things you don’t really think about—that you’ll come into this world together, but go out separately. Not until they’re gone, and you’re left behind, and now you have to suffer through year after year of reminders that you’re still here, getting older, while they’re…
Not.
So perhaps, given all that, it’s a little masochistic of me to be here of all days, of all places, celebrating not just my birthday, but hers too, even if all she has to show for her presence is a slab of stone and an empty casket buried somewhere beneath us.
A birthday picnic in a cemetery.
Morbid? Absolutely.
Inappropriate? Maybe.
Do any of us here care? No.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last four and a half years, it’s that there is no right or wrong way to grieve. Death is morbid. Why should we grieve like it’s not?
Ivy eases the car to a stop, and through the window I spot Will and Waylon behind a large headstone a couple rows away, their embraced figures silhouetted by the sun. Waylon’s hands are cradling Will’s face as they kiss, right there in the middle of a cemetery where anyone can see, smack dab in front of his homophobic, abusive asshole of a dad’s headstone. A big middle finger to the asshole if there ever was one.
Something loosens in my chest at the sight.
As far as I know, this is the first time Waylon’s been here since his dad died back in December. He didn’t go to the funeral. None of us did. Not even Reggie or my mom.
