Every Breath You Take

51

Monday morning was quiet.

The weekend had been wild, reckless, and loud with my brothers and I disturbing the peace. But today? Today was quiet.

Today the birds seemed to sing in a lower pitch. By the lack of cars driving up and down our street, it seemed that families were spending every last second together before the day began. I appreciated that, even if I was assuming that's what was happening. Every second counted. That final embrace before a long school or workday, that goodbye kiss, and that glance across the driveway to silently say I love you—those things meant the entire world. I knew that. My family knew that for certain...

Somewhere around dawn, I'd found dad in the kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee from his Number One Dad coffee mug that I'd gotten him a few years ago. The two of us hadn't said anything to each other as we stood in the kitchen. Dad simply smiled, recognizing the delicate rhythm of my footsteps walking into the kitchen. Offering me a cup of coffee and an arm to stand under, dad and I had put up with our lack of sleep by watching the sunrise through our kitchen window.

The silence was comforting. Maybe it was what I needed to prepare myself for what lay ahead of me today. The silent nudge of courage I'd needed to make it.

My brothers eventually woke up, Aiden and I's school already informed that we would not be in class until tomorrow morning. Though, I'm sure the administrative office hadn't expected any of the King family to be present at school anyways. We'd quickly eaten breakfast, all of us quickly getting ready, not wanting to hit any traffic on our way towards the cemetery.

Mom was buried at Rose Hills Cemetery, a resting place that spread along a small hillside cliff, the dark and beautiful blue sea lapping at the rocks beneath.

Mom loved the ocean. She loved the smell of salt in the air and the squishy sand between her toes. She loved the seagulls, their calls and cries echoing through the air as if they'd been greeting her return home.

When I was younger, mom loved to take my brothers and me to the beach where we boogie-boarded in the ocean for hours, only stopping when our stomachs began to growl among the bobbing waves. When our cheeks were burnt (much to my mother's displeasure) and our eyes red with exhaustion, she took us to a small hole-in-the-wall gelato shop in town. On the drive home, my brothers and I would pass out in the backseat, all three of us out for the count.

During her final days, when we'd asked her where she had wanted... where she had wanted to be laid to rest, her answer had been so quick: the sea.

Please put me by the sea, she had said. Not cremated and scattered, lost forever in the wind, but buried by the seaside so that a part of her could always be tethered to us and the one place that called to her heart.

My fingers traced the small, embroidered flowers along the front pocket of my jeans. They were tiny little yellow flowers sewn along the curve of my pocket, barely there from afar, but my fingers always found the design. It was a nervous habit.

My heart was thundering in my chest, matching the steady hum of gravel beneath our car as dad drove. Sweat had beaded along my palms and forehead a long time ago. My stomach coiled distastefully, threatening to push up the pancakes I'd eaten for breakfast. I swallowed every time I thought I'd throw up all over dad's freshly washed car. I kept swallowing until that sickness subsided.

Anxiety bit at my heart, chewing at it.

Inhale, Emily.

I sucked in a deep breath as we drove up the gravel road towards the cemetery, the car bouncing a little beneath us as we hit a bumpy patch of road.