I’m numb. At least I think I am.
I’ve cried more tears than I knew I was capable of producing. And now, I don’t think I have anything left.
My mother is strangely composed. I’m not sure if it’s normal or not. Shouldn’t she be a blubbering mess? She just lost her husband, making her a widow at the age of sixty-one.
Carter has barely left my side since he came for me at the hospital. He’s been amazing. When we left the hospital, he drove Mum and I home, then sometime after we’d fallen asleep in the early hours of the morning, he and Mase had gone back to the hospital to retrieve Mum’s car for her.
When I woke the next morning, he was passed out sitting on the floor, propped up on the side of my bed, one of his big hands wrapped firmly around my own. It took me several minutes to realise why he was there. And when I did, the hole that had torn through my heart when my mother called me the night before, ripped open again and more tears began to stream down my cheeks.
Carter woke up and climbed into the bed behind me, wrapping his strong, warm arms around my shuddering body as grief overtook my senses.
Today is the day of my father’s funeral. My father’s funeral. Those three words don’t make sense to me. I can’t wrap my head around them.
“Chance,” Carter says from my doorway.
I lift my head to look at him, is it wrong that I notice how good he looks in that black suit? Maybe that means I’m not numb after all? I sit there just staring at him as I contemplate that.
Carter moves toward me, “You ready, baby?” he asks when he stops in front of me, his hands tucked into his pockets.
I blink up at him, how is this the same guy from Friday night? The thought hits me like a sledgehammer. Flashes of the crazed gleam in his whiskey eyes assault me and I flinch.
Carter reacts immediately, dropping to his knees at my feet, “Baby, what is it?”
Shaking my head, I focus on the look in his eyes right now, as he watches me, his brows furrowed with concern. “Nothing,” I close my eyes, “Nothing, I’m okay.” I can’t deal with that right now, I need him too much.
His expression doesn’t change as he continues to search my face for any sign of distress. I try to smile for him, I really do, but the muscles in my cheeks won’t cooperate, so it comes across as a grimace. “Just being my normal awkward self,” I say, in an attempt to reassure him that everything is fine between us, even when I’m not so sure of it myself.
When Carter’s warm, calloused palm cups my cheek, I lean into it, accepting his touch and the comfort it brings. “We need to talk about Friday night at the gym, I know we do,” he sighs in resignation, “Just let me be here for you now. And for as long as it takes for you to get through this, then we can talk about it. Please,” he whispers.
I get the feeling he needs this as much as I need him right now. I nod, leaning further into his touch, “Okay,” I say softly.
He brings his free hand to the other side of my face, gently holding me still as he moves his face closer to mine, “Thank you,” he murmurs as his lips brush against mine in the sweetest kiss he’s given me yet. When he pulls back his eyes are glassy, “We need to go, baby,” he says, as he gets to his feet then holds a hand out for me.
Taking it, I allow him to pull me up, and I follow him out to the dining room where my mother is sitting at the table, her fingers laced together in front of her as she looks out the window to the back yard, twirling her wedding ring around her finger.
Dropping Carter’s hand, I wrap my arms around her shoulders from behind and press my cheek to hers, “Mumma,” I whisper, “I love you.”
She swipes a tear from her cheek, then pats my hands at her neck, “I love you too. Come, we should get going,” she says in a voice much stronger than my own, as she braces her hands on the table and slides her chair back, effectively disengaging my hug.
Carter wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me into his side, somehow knowing how much my mother’s detachment from the situation hurts me. Dropping my head to his shoulder, I curl into him, absorbing the comfort he offers freely, the comfort that my mother won’t or can’t offer me right now.
Fifteen minutes later we arrive at the Crematorium. Knowing my Papa is not only gone, but that his body is about to be engulfed in flames until he’s nothing but ash, turns my stomach and I throw my door open, running for the gardens along the side of the building.
“Chance,” I hear Carter call after me, but I can’t stop.
I run until my legs give out and my stomach heaves, forcing bile to burn its way up my throat and out my mouth into a shrub by the river bank. Tears flow from my stinging eyes as I heave, over and over again. I wipe my running nose with the back of my hand, squeezing my eyes shut to block out the glare of the bright sun that’s intensified by my tear soaked glasses.
I feel someone sit on the damp grass beside me, then Carter is pulling me into his lap, cradling me to his chest, “Here,” he says, sliding my fogged-up classes off my nose and replacing them with a big pair of black sunglasses.
“I don’t think I can go in there,” I whisper.
“I’ll be right beside you. Out here, or in there, I won’t leave you,” he says, gently stroking my sweat dampened temple.
We sit there in silence for a minute or two longer before Hux approaches, “You ready to come in now, Buttercup?” he asks when he reaches us.
“Do I have to go in?” I ask him.
I hear him sigh, then he crouches down beside us, “You should, I think you’ll regret it if you don’t. You won’t be alone in there, El and I will be right beside you, and Kassidy too.”
“Okay,” I whisper, and Carter moves beneath me, getting to his feet, then gently placing me on mine.
I take my seat in the front row nestled between Hux and Carter. The seating area is full of people, some I recognise and a lot that I don’t. But it’s obvious they knew my father well, because they’re visibly upset. Some even come up and embrace my mum.
Frowning, I lean past Hux to ask her, “Who was that?”
“An old friend,” she says without meeting my eyes.
I let it go when a lady steps up the podium positioned to the right of the front of the room, and turns on a microphone. “Good morning friends and family of Henry Holland Haynes,” she greets.
Everything fades to white noise as one of Papa’s favourite songs begins to play, and pallbearers I’ve never met before carry in a dark walnut coffin containing my father’s body. My knees buckle, but Carter’s strong arm holds me up, “I can’t do this,” I sob into his shoulder and he wraps his other arm around me, holding me tightly.
The service continues, but I’m locked away inside my head, remembering the way Papa held me and comforted me when Hux and El’s little dog, Minty, got hit by a car. That day he’d told me that Minty’s time came when it was supposed to, even if I wasn’t ready for it. I guess that’s what was happening now. It was Papa’s time, regardless of whether I was ready for it or not.
A voice I don’t recognise filled my ears, a man’s voice, and I stop to listen as he speaks of my father. “Henry was a good man, a loving father, and caring husband. But like all of us, he wasn’t perfect. He made some pretty monumental mistakes in his time. However, the thing that made him exceptional was his willpower and determination to turn his life around.”
I swallow hard, what is this guy talking about? None of what he is saying makes any sense. What monumental mistakes? What the hell is he going on about, turning his life around? Papa was an incredibly loving man, this guy is making it out like he wasn’t always that way.
Turning to my mum, about to ask her who this man is, I pause, she’s nodding along as he speaks, tears filling her eyes as he continues to ramble about a man that most definitely was not my father. Shifting to look at my brother, his expression is resigned and his eyes shine with unshed tears. What the hell is going on?
As the service draws to a close, another of Papa’s favourite songs plays through the sound system as I watch his casket lower into the stage it’s positioned on. My throat convulses, and I slam my eyelids shut, not being able to bear the thought of where it’s now going.
“I want to leave, please. I need to leave,” I sob into Carter.
I feel his nod before he curls me into his side and makes his way to the exit, not allowing anyone to stop him to offer their condolences. I don’t want to hear them. I just want out of here. And he seems to know it.
What would I do without him? He’s been my lifeline all week, and now, he’s saving me again. Ushering me into his car, closing the door behind me, then rounding the hood to get in beside me. He pulls out his phone and sends a text, then he’s driving without asking me where to go, and I honestly don’t care where we go, as long as it’s away from here.
Resting my forehead against the cold glass of the window, I draw shapes in the fog created by my breath with my fingertip. Thoughts roll through my head and I’m not sure which one to focus on. They war for my attention, but I can’t, I just can’t.
I’m so tired. That is my last coherent thought before sleep pulls me under.