𝒓𝒉𝒚𝒔
With virtually all of my friends having mental illnesses, I have a lot of sympathy for a lot of people. Still, it's always hard to understand the extent of the problem when you haven't experienced it, the feeling, and the one I wondered the most about was how the hell Aiden has managed to make himself throw up from anxiety multiple times a week for months.
I get hyperventilating. I get heart beating so fast you think you're having a heart attack. I get feeling nauseous.
But actually throwing up?
I've never been at that point, not even when I'd locked myself in my room on the second floor with a broken jaw and tried to figure out how to pass my dad without making it worse.
It's only now that I'm seeing that dad again that I know what that feels like, because my vision is so blurry and my head is a complete mess and if Eli didn't hold my waist, I'd collapse down the stairs up to the church.
I know he feels awkward. He's tense, his arm is stiff, he has this uncertain look on his face, but when I try to open my mouth and tell him that he doesn't need to help if he doesn't want to, I'll just wait for Owen... I can't even open my fucking mouth. I'm paralyzed with fear. He's not even here as far as I can see and I'm paralyzed with fucking fear.
I don't know if I feel like fainting or throwing up or both. Really, I want to just leave, but that'd be admitting that I couldn't handle my dad being there, that I should've told Owen earlier, and I can't put that guilt on him.
The only people in the church are people I've never met, all of them my grandpa's age, dressed in over the top black clothes. I doubt grandpa would've wanted that. He liked simple. Hell, he usually gave good compliments when he did give them, but I'd get a backhanded The dancing was good, but the clothes and makeup were a bit too much after every performance.
It needed to be easy, straight-forward. He didn't need perfection, but he liked me dancing ballet more than any other genre because of the preciseness, slowness, subtleness. Not that he ever said that out loud—he'd tell me to do what I wanted to do—and right now, I don't want perfection or simple when it comes to dance. I want to thrash around, to be a violent storm in front of thousands of people who will never know the origin of my pain but they'll get it, they'll feel it, and then they'll move on with their lives.
For the funeral, simple is fine. I'm wearing a high-neck shirt, Eli a button-up, both jeans, all black. No long, laced dresses or ties or layers. Simple.
I take Eli to the front pew. He hesitates to sit. "It's fine," I manage to say. It's hoarse and shaky, but at least something came out.
"But—"
"Sit, Eli, it's just me, Owen, my grandma, and my dad." We're not just the closest relatives—we're the only relatives. My family always seemed small, but realising we're only four, and one of them is an abusive piece of shit who shouldn't be allowed to attend...
Eli sits close, making me want to pull him up in my lap and just hold him even though it's a bit too much for the public, especially a funeral, but I need that, I need to not feel so lonely, hell, alone, because I do, and it's too much. "Your..." Eli whispers, so quietly I could've confused a breath for a word.
I swallow. "Yeah."
His eyes fill with tears. Only then does he blink, sending several down his cheek. Whether he's crying over my grandpa or my dad, I don't know. Either way, he's crying, and I'm not, and usually I don't care—I'm just not a crier—but now I feel cold and heartless and apathetic. I feel nauseous and lightheaded right now. Nothing else.
Guess it gives me more attention to devote to him.
I hug him, pulling him close, letting him rest his head on my shoulder. My shaky, weak arms barely allow it, and it takes all my strength, but it's well worth it if it makes Eli feel just a little bit better.
It doesn't help me, not this time. I sit here and stare at the casket. With the flowers surrounding it, it almost looks like a ship in a weird, colorful sea, surrounded by a completely white sky.
Seeing that should hurt, but all it's doing is making me more and more convinced I'm going to hurl.
"Do you think—" A sob interrupts Eli. "Do you think he'll, like..."
I'd hoped that was an irrational thought to have, that he'd hurt me at a funeral. Apparently, I'm not the only one who has it, and now I'm wondering if he'd attempt to harm Eli. He must've known we were together, and I don't think he faked the supporting LGBT thing, but why wouldn't he want to hurt something that makes me happy?
My voice shakes as I say, "We'll stick together, and we'll be okay, alright?" I rub his arm. "Breathe, Eli." That reminds me to take a breath too. It doesn't do shit. Nothing does anything.
Owen and grandma come before my dad, and thank fucking god for that or I'd run the fuck away. Once instincts kick in, I'd leave Eli just like that.
I swallow when I see the way grandma looks. With two early pregnancies in a row, she's far younger than a regular 21-year-old's grandma, and she looks even younger. Usually she looks healthy, she's glowing, her hair is healthy enough that the red hair dye looks natural.
Her outfit looks well put together. They don't go with her blank eyes, though. It almost looks as if she aged 20 years in a few days, and she doesn't give me a single glance or a single word.
Owen, who's holding her arm, helps her sit down. I can't focus on her anymore once some amount of relief washes over me. He sits next to me, then grandma, then my dad. I won't see him well from here, he definitely won't see me because he's closer to the casket, and Owen's between us and, again, next to me.
"You're still okay with this?" Owen asks lowly.
Eli moves a little on my shoulder, probably reacting to the still. I had the choice. I put myself in danger. I put Eli in danger.
I want to bend over and clutch my stomach. It feels like this heartache is never going to end. I never quite understood the feeling of being suicidal, and I'm not there and probably won't be, but I understand now, when emotions become overwhelming and eternal, when it feels like there's no way out.
"Yeah," I say.
Then I turn my attention back to Eli, almost automatically kissing his hair.
And he walks into the church. My dad.
