People mourn differently. My mother would turn in her grave if she knew I went to work last night instead of going to my sister’s funeral. My sister, Jennifer, was the only family I had left.

And instead of watching Jenny be put in the ground, beside my mother who’s been there for a decade, I worked.

Yes, my mother would turn in her grave if she knew.

But that’s because my mother had never been able to stand on her own two feet whenever there was a loss, or any day of the week, really. Let alone take on a sixteen-hour shift to avoid the burial of a loved one. The last loved one I had.

As I let out a flat sigh, remembering how she used to handle things, I watch my warm breath turn to fog. It’s not even late, but the sun has set and the dark winter night feels appropriate if nothing else.

The laughter coming from inside my house doesn’t though.

My heart twists with a pain I loathe. Laughter. On a night like tonight.

Gripping the door handle a little harder than I need to, I prepare myself for what’s on the other side.

Distant relatives chattering in the corner, and the smell of every casserole known to man invade my senses.

The warmth is welcoming as I close the door behind me without looking, only staring straight ahead.

Even as I lean my back against the cold door, no one sees me. No one stops their unremarkable conversations to spare me a glance. Bottles clink to my right and I turn just in time to see a group of my sister’s friends toasting as they throw back whatever clear liquor is in their glasses. My glasses.

With a deep breath, I push off the door. Focusing on the sound of my coat rustling as I pull it off, I barely make eye contact with an aunt I haven’t seen in years.

“My poor dear,” she says, and I notice how her lips purse even while she’s speaking. With a wine glass held away from her, she gives me a one-armed hug. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers.

Everyone is so, so sorry.

Offering her a weak smile, and somehow not voicing every angry thought that threatens to strangle me, I answer back, “Thank you.”

Her gaze drifts down to my boots, still covered with a light dusting of snow and then travels back up to my eyes. “Did you just get done with work?”

I lie. “Yes. Did the scrubs give it away?” The small joke eases the tension as she grips my shoulder. This isn’t the first time I’ve ventured to the bar before coming home. Although, this is the first time the house isn’t empty. And it’s the first time I’ve felt I truly needed a drink. I need something to numb… all of this.

“Would you like a drink?” she offers me and then tells a group of people I’ve never met goodbye as they make their way out of my house.

“How about some red wine. A nightcap, since it’s almost over?”

It’s. Is she referring to the evening? Or the wake?

The tight smile on my face widens and I tell her, “I’d like that.” My gaze wanders to the living room and I spitefully think that I’d like the four-year-old rummaging through the drawer of my coffee table to get out. They can all get out.

That thin smile still lingers on my lips when she brings me a glass and I nod a thanks, although I don’t drink it. Not because I don’t need one, but purely out of spite.

“Did the caterers bring everything?” I ask her politely, nodding a hello at a few family members who offer a pathetic wave in return. My mother was the black sheep of the family. Because of that, I couldn’t name half of the people in here even though I recognize their faces. She got a divorce when my dad skipped out on us, and the family essentially divorced her for not “trying harder” in her marriage.

So the majority of the people here, I’ve met only once or twice… usually at funerals.

“They did,” Aunt Margaret answers and I’m quick to add, “I’m glad everyone could come.”

I hate lies, but tonight they slip through my lips so easily. Even as the emotions make my throat swell up when I see the same group of girls doing another round of shots.

Maybe it makes me a hypocrite, seeing as how I just came from drowning myself in vodka and Red Bull at the bar down the street, Barcode. I tend to swing by after a lot of hard shifts, but that particular group doesn’t need any more drugs added in the mix.

“The funeral was beautiful.” My aunt’s words bring a numbness that travels down my throat and the false expression I’m wearing slips, but I force the smile back on my face when she looks up at me.

I take a sip of cheap Cabernet and let the anger simmer.

Beautiful.

What a dreadful word for a funeral.

For the funeral of a woman not yet thirty. A woman who none of these people spoke to. A woman I tried so desperately to save, because at one point in my life, she was my hero.

The glass hits the buffet a little harder than I wanted.

“Sorry I didn’t make it. I’m glad it went well.” My voice is tight.

“It was really kind of you to pay for everything… I know there’s nothing in the estate or…” she says, but her voice drifts off, and I nearly scream at her. I nearly scream at all of them.

Why are they doing this? Why put on a front as if they cared? They didn’t come to visit any of the times she was in the hospital. They didn’t pay a cent for anything but their gas to attend the funeral and come here. And whatever those fucking casseroles cost. All the while I know they were gossiping, wondering about everything Jenny had done to land herself in an early grave.

They’re from uptown New York and all they do is brag on social media about all their charity events. All their expensive dresses and glasses of champagne, put on full display every weekend for the charity that they so generously donated to.

I’m sure that would have been so much better.

Or maybe this alternative is their charity for the weekend. Coming to this fucking wake for a woman they didn’t care about.

I could scream at myself as well; why open my door to these people? Why tell my aunt the reception could be held here? Was I still in shock when I agreed? Or was I just that fucking stupid?

They didn’t see what happened to her. How she morphed into a person I didn’t recognize. How my sister got sucked down a black hole that led to her destruction, and not a single one of them cared to take notice.

Yet they can comment on how beautiful her funeral was.

How lovely of them.

“Oh dear,” my aunt says as she hugs me with both arms this time and I let her. The anger isn’t waning, but it’s not for them. I know it’s not.

I’m sorry they didn’t get to see those moments of her that shined through. The bits of Jenny that I’ll have forever and they’ll never know. I feel sorry for them. But her? My sister? I’m so fucking angry she left me here alone.

Everyone mourns differently.

The thought sends a peaceful note to ring through my blood as I hear footsteps approach. My aunt doesn’t pull away, and I find myself slightly pushing her to one side and picking up a cocktail napkin to dry under my eyes.

“Hey, Beth.” Miranda, a twentysomething string bean of a girl with big blue eyes and thick, dark brown hair, approaches. Even as she stands in front of me, she sways. The liquor is getting to her.

“Do you guys have a ride home?” I ask her, wanting to get that answer before she says anything else.

She blinks slowly, and the apprehension turns into hurt. She shifts her tiny weight from one foot to the other. Her nervousness shows as she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, swallowing thickly and nodding. “Yeah,” she croaks and her gaze drops to the floor as she bites the inside of her cheek. “Sorry about last time,” she barely whispers before looking me in the eyes. “We’ve got a ride this time.”

It’s when she sniffles that I notice how pink her cheeks are – tearstained pink – not from drinking. Fuck, regret is a spiked ball that threatens to choke me as I swallow.

“I just don’t want you guys getting into another accident, you know?” I get out the words quickly in a single breath, and pick up that glass of wine, downing it as Aunt Margaret turns her back on this conversation, leaving us for more… proper things maybe.

Miranda’s quiet, looking particularly remorseful.

I don’t mention how the accident was in front of my house, five fucking feet from where they were parked. Miranda passed out after getting drunk with Jenny and some other people nearby. Her foot stayed on the gas and revved her car into mine, pushing both cars into my neighbor’s car until mine hit a tree. She could have killed them all. All four of them in the car, high and drunk and not caring about the consequences. Consequences for more than just them.

Her voice is small. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. It was a bad night.”

A bad night? It was a bad month, and the start of me losing my sister. That night, I couldn’t turn a blind eye to it any longer.

“I just wanted to say,” she begins, but raises her voice a little too loud and then has to clear her throat, tears rimming her eyes. “I wanted to tell you I’m really sorry.” Her sincerity brings my own emotions flooding back, and I hate it. “I loved your sister, and I’m…” This time I’m the one doing the hugging, the holding.

“Sorry,” she rasps in a whisper as she pulls away. I look beyond her, at the groups of people in the dining room and past that to the kitchen. There are maybe twenty or thirty people in my house. And not a single one looks our way. They’re too busy eating the food I paid for and drinking my alcohol. I wonder if they even feel this pain.

“She had this for you.” Miranda pushes a book into my chest before running the sleeve of the thin sweater she’s wearing under her eyes. Black mascara seeps into the light gray fabric instantly. “Right before she went missing, while she crashed at my place, she couldn’t stop reading it.”

It takes me a moment to actually take the book from her. It’s thick, maybe a few hundred pages… with no cover. The spine’s been torn off and my name replaces it. Bethy. That’s what Jenny used to call me. The black Sharpie marker bled into the torn ridges of what the spine would have protected.

“What is it?” I ask Miranda, not taking my eyes from the book as I turn it over and look for any indication as to what story it is. I can feel creases in my forehead as my brow furrows.

Miranda only shrugs, the sweater falling off her shoulder and showing more of her pale skin and protruding collarbone. “She just kept saying she was going to give it to you. That you needed it more than her.”

My gaze focuses on the first lines of the book, skimming them but finding no recollection of this tale in my memory. I have no idea what the book is, but as I flip through the pages, I notice some of the sentences are underlined in pen.

He loves like there’s no reason not to. That’s the first line I see, and it makes me pause until the conversation pulls me away.

“Before she died, she told me things.” Miranda’s large eyes stare deep into mine.

Jenny told me things too. Things I’ll never forget. Warnings I thought were only paranoia.

As Miranda’s thin lips part, my boss, Aiden, walks up to us in a tailored suit and Miranda shies back. My lips pull into a tight smile as he hugs me.

“You’re dressed to the nines,” I compliment him with a sad smile, not bothering to hide the pain in my voice. Miranda leaves me before I can say another word to her. She ducks her head, getting distance from me as quickly as she can. My eyes follow her as Aiden speaks.

“You okay?”

My head tilts and my eyes water as I reply, “Okay is such a vague word, don’t you think?”

He’s older than me, and not quite a friend, but not just a boss either. The second my arms reach around his jacket, accepting his embrace, he holds me a little tighter and I hate how much comfort I get from it.

From something so simple. So genuine. My circle is small, but I like to keep it that way. And Aiden is one of the few people in it. He’s one of the few people I can be myself with.

“I heard you didn’t go… that it was today?” he asks me, although it’s more of a statement, my face still pressed against his chest.

I won’t cry. I won’t do it.

Not until I’m alone anyway. I can’t hide behind anger then. There’s nowhere to hide when you’re lying in bed by yourself.

“I couldn’t bring myself,” I tell him, intending on saying more, but my bottom lip wobbles and I have to pull away.

He’s reluctant, but he lets me and I find my own arms wrapping around myself. Looking back to where Jenny’s friends were, I notice they’re gone, along with a lot of the crowd.

Maybe they heard my unspoken wishes.

“You need to take time off.” Aiden’s words shock me. Full-blown shock me.

My head shakes on its own and I struggle to come up with something to refute him. Money seems like the most logical reason, but Aiden beats me to it.

“There was a pool at work, and the other nurses are giving you some of their days for PTO. You have your own banked, plus the bereavement leave. And I know you have vacation time too.”

“They don’t have to do that…” My voice is low, full of disbelief. At Rockford, the local youth mental hospital, I know everyone more than I should, especially the night shift. But I wouldn’t ever expect any of them to give me their time off. I don’t expect anything from anyone.

“They can’t do that. They’ll need those days for themselves.” They don’t even know me really. I’m taken aback that they would do such a thing.

“It’s a day here and a day there, it adds up and you need it.”

“I’m fine-”

“My ass you are.” Aiden’s profanity draws my gaze to his, and the wrinkles around his eyes seem more pronounced. His age shows in this moment. “You need time off.”

Time off.

More time alone.

“I don’t want it.”

“You’re going to take it. You need to get your head on right, Fawn.” His voice is stern as my body chills from a gust of air blowing into the dining room when my front door opens once again. More guests leaving.

“How many days?” I ask him, feeling defeat, so much of it, already laying its weight against me.

“You have six weeks,” he informs me and it feels like a death sentence. My heart sinks to the pit of my stomach as my front door closes with a resounding click.

With his hands on my shoulders he tells me, “You need to get better.”

Holding back the pain is a challenge, but I manage to breathe out with only a single tear shed. Six weeks.

The next breath comes easier.

I tell myself I’ll take some time off, but not to get better.

My breathing is almost back to normal at my next thought.

But to find the men responsible for what happened to my sister.

My eyes are burning and heavy, but I can’t sleep.

I’m exhausted and want to lie down, but my legs are restless and my heart is wide awake, banging inside of me. I need to do something to take this agony away. Staring back at The Coverless Book beside me on the side table, I lean to the left, flicking on the lamp while still seated on my sofa.

I’m invincible. I tell myself as I pull the blanket up tighter.

My heart races, so fast in my chest. It’s scared like I am.

Jake is coming.

He’s going to see me here in my house, and then where could I possibly hide from him? Where could I hide my blush?

Maybe behind this blanket?

“Miss?” Miss Caroline calls into the room, and I perk up.

“Yes?”

“Your guest is here,” she announces and I give her a nod, feeling that heat rise to my cheeks and my heart fluttering as she gives me a knowing smile and I hide my brief laugh. Caroline knows all my secrets.

Before I can stand up on shaky legs, he’s standing in the doorway, tall and lanky as most eleventh-graders are. But Jake is taller. His eyes softer. His hands hold a shock in them that gets me every time he reaches for my calculator in class.

“Jake.” His name comes from me in surprise as I struggle to lift myself.

“Emmy.” The way he says my name sounds so sad. “I heard you were sick.”

I read the prologue and the first chapter too before falling asleep on the old sofa that used to belong to my mother. I’m cocooned in the blanket I once wrapped my sister in when the drugs she’d taken made her shake uncontrollably.

The only sentence Jenny underlined was the one that read, “I’m invincible.”

Jenny, I wish you had been. I wish I were too.