Heroism (h.s.)

22.

I don’t eat.  I don’t sleep.  I stay locked in what used to be our apartment for three weeks straight.

Within the first few days, I never stop crying.  I keep expecting Lisa to pad around the corner and make dinner or nag me about life or something.  But she never does.  And this is something I will never get used to.

I call our parents multiple times but they never pick up; too busy gambling away their money to give a shit that their oldest daughter is dead.

So, I’m left to plan her funeral all by myself.  Because her death was suspicious, the coroners order an autopsy on her body and I’m forced to move her funeral to the latest date possible. 

Harry doesn’t call.  He doesn’t visit.  For all I know, he could be dead too.  I still have no idea where he vanished off to when the ambulance showed up and honestly, it still breaks my heart.  Just when I need him most, he darts off into oblivion.

But doesn’t everybody?

*

The day of Lisa’s funeral, I avoid everyone.  I stand above her grave, tears still trickling down my cheeks.  Our parents should be here, weeping and mourning, feeling just as helpless and distraught as I do.  We should be holding onto each other for support.  I shouldn’t have to do this alone.

But I do.

I wear Lisa’s nude pumps for nostalgic reasons and they sink into the earthy ground as I stand beside the perfectly rectangular hole cut out for her coffin.  The mahogany casket is suspended carefully but precariously above the dark pit, beginning its descent slowly into the rest of eternity.

As my sister drops out of sight, I focus my gaze on the horizon.  I don’t know where else to look.  I’m numb from head to toe, the action of her body finally being buried beginning to hit me hard.  A figure catches my eye and I realize it’s Harry, leaning ominously against a nearby tree, watching.

The combination of both Harry’s presence and the totality of Lisa really being gone is too much to handle.  As soon as the last shovel of dirt is piled onto her grave, I spin wildly on my rooted heels, pushing my way through the crowd of my sister’s hospital friends.  They give me sympathetic, sad smiles as I pass by and I feel like punching every single of them right in the face.

As I walk out of the cemetery with furious, painful strides, I take a last look over my shoulder to find that Harry’s not there anymore.  He’s gone just as quickly as he arrived.

Before I can get away, though, the surgeon from the hospital who tried to save Lisa catches up to me and he gently grabs my arm.

“Alexa?” 

I whirl to face him, no longer embarrassed by how exhausted and destroyed I look.  “What?”

“I am so sorry.  I really needed to tell you-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I say harshly.  All I’ve been hearing from everyone all day is sorry and sorry is just a bullshit way of saying I’m glad what happened to you didn’t happen to me.

The surgeon looks at me as if I’ve wounded him but I don’t care. 

I walk the rest of the way home with a heavy heart.

*

The next two weeks are uneventful.  I try to cook myself something but as soon as I open the drawers of pans, I’m reminded that Lisa’s fingerprints are all over them.  I want to preserve her for the rest of eternity.  So I close the drawer every time.

I eventually begin to eat bread and drink water.  I always sit on the floor and never on any furniture, because Lisa designed this place from top to bottom.  Even sitting on the couch or eating at the table throws me into hysterics.  The floor is the only place she never really cared about.  So I sit there.