One Minute, And The Next || l.h [COMPLETED]

Chapter 20 (Part 2)

"You think you know death, But you don't, not until you've seen it. Really seen it. And it gets under your skin and lives inside you.

You also think you know life. Stand on the edge of things and watch it go by, but you're not living it.

Not really.

You're just a tourist. A ghost.

Then you see it. Really see it. And it gets under your skin and lives inside you, and there's no escape. There's nothing to be done."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As I stand in the middle of the cemetery with my mother to my left and Luke and his mother to my right, grey clouds roll in and the wind picks up. The priest finishes off some of the depressing words that drag some of my aunts and 'family' members to a sobbing mess of tears.

"He was a great man..." The priest says calmly, looking at me and my sober mother beside me. Oh really? He was a good man? He must have seen my father more times than I have in order to pass that judgment. He was a good man... for a good six or seven years of my life. The rest, I barely knew him.

"He will forever be in our minds and prayers and will be dearly missed by all of those who loved him." The priest finishes and closes his book. "Ms. Harper, would you...?" He says and gestures to the shiny brown casket which was already lowered into the ground. My mother nods, tears nowhere to be seen on her make-up filled face. It baffled my mind that she did not cry, not even once. I get they technically were not married, but still. She loved him. They had been married for 17 years. What happened that made the divorce a reality?

My mother crouches down and grips a handful of dirt in her hand and releases it onto the top of the coffin before stepping back in her original place beside me. "Riley, would you like to-"

"No." I answer quickly. There is no way in hell I'm throwing dirt on my father's coffin. He would be alive if it weren't for my mother. She decided he was ready to die, not him.

After everyone had cleared out of the cemetery and were on their way to my house, I stood behind, sitting on the wooden bench in the now silent, eerie cemetery. I cross my arms over my chest in order to keep warm from the cold wind signaling the storm that is to come.

"Why are you still here? Shouldn't you be back at your house where everyone else went?" Luke asks as he approaches me with his hands in the front pockets of his jeans.

"I want to be alone..." I say gently, looking down at the fresh patch of dirt in front of the tomb stone which had my father's name engraved into it.

"C'mon." Luke says, gesturing for me to get up. "It's cold and its gonna rain pretty hard. I'll drive you, my mom's at your house anyways." He says and I simply shrug. "You're gonna get soaked princess, let's go." He adds and I sigh before standing up. The last thing I wanted to do was go back to that house which is now filled with tons of people who pretend to give a shit about me, my father, and mother.

The ride back to my house was silent, thankfully, and I was glad for the heat being turned up in the car. Luke takes a while to find an open spot to park near my house since everyone took all the previously cleared areas. When we finally walk inside, there were people in black formal attire holding wine glasses in their hands as they stand in small crowds gossiping about my family, oblivious to the fact that I had just walked inside. I can't believe that these people were welcomed into my house only to have the nerve to talk about rumors that could not be further from the truth.

I saw my mother speaking with who I assume it is a family friend. She had a fancy wine glass in hand along with pretty much everybody here. I knew her sobriety wouldn't last long. She's never lasted this long, and I was starting to think that she had changed; how naive of me to think that my mother would ever change.