Fast Lane ━━ Brian O'Conner ¹

𝟭𝟰. monsters among men

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
no grave can hold my body down

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

     𝐈 suppose funerals were meant to look beautiful and peaceful but there was nothing beautiful about burying the dead twelve feet underground. A body to leave for the Earth to consume. There was nothing about the tear-stained faces and ugly sobs coming from the people around her was peaceful. Despite it all, it was now something that Josephine Torreto found herself terribly familiar with when it shouldn't.

     These grounds had been one of the places she visited the most in the past few years. To give her best friend, Jesse, flowers made out of scrap metal and tin coils. Something that never dies so his tombstone will look alive unlike most of them around her. Now, as she watched another of her closest friends get lowered down into a casket━Josephine had never felt so empty.

     She wanted to sob and scream until her lungs gave out. But she could only stare into space, trying her best to comfort everybody else but herself. She had been the one who delivered the news to Dominic through a phone call. For the first time after months, he finally answered. The only problem was she didn't exactly have the best news for him.

     Her brother ended the call after that. He didn't say anything else. And frankly, Josephine had ran out of words to convince him to see her and Mia. So she let the phone line die and began to prepare for another funeral.

     A few of Letty's relatives and close friends from the street racing scene attended the burial. Their cars lined up alongside the grassy area on the concrete path. The priest read scriptures and recited prayers that Josephine had long forgotten. I suppose after praying to God so many times to keep her family safe and only receiving the opposite━she began to forget how to pray. 

     God never heard her and so she stopped trying to be heard.

     Josephine kept her gaze on the ground, feeling the unwanted eyes of strangers on them. On the other side of the cemetery were a line of black sedans, obviously FBI-issued cars, and there were a few agents scattered around in their black suits. She almost wanted to confront them and make them leave. This was a private ceremony━their family was getting buried. They couldn't even let her rest peacefully for the last time. 

      Then again, she knew why they were there. The cops were expecting Dominic Toretto to show up just because they knew he wouldn't be able to help himself not to stay away from the funeral of his loved one. Josephine hated that they knew how important Letty was to her brother. It was almost invasive. But they were criminals. They ought to know a few important things about them.

     Josephine wasn't blind. She could very well see Brian O'Conner standing among the agents, and she hated to admit that he did blend in well with the crowd. Brian looked like he belonged there, and Josephine felt bad that she disliked him because of it even though it was probably one of the best achievements he had in his thirty years of life. God, they'd grown so much. Both of them.

     Now, she was near the age he was when he met her for the first time. Twenty-six. It felt like she was just nineteen a minute ago. Now she was this grown woman that Josephine could barely recognize whenever she looked in the mirror. Honestly, she shouldn't be this tired at her age. But the evidence was there on the faint wrinkles on her face from frowning so much and the dark bags under her eyes from sleepless nights.