We seat ourselves at the same booth as last time, our cups of coffee in our hands. I shuffle right to the end of the seat and lean my back against the wall so my legs are stretched across the seat and my body is parallel to the table.

I look at her and she grins at me. There's something weird in the air between us, I can't put my finger on it. The way we come to a coffee shop together when neither of us particularly like coffee, just to be in each others company. It's strange—but I like it.

"So, spill" she says crossing her legs on the seat and grabbing a napkin from the pot on the table

"Huh?" I look at her bewildered, she takes a pen from her jacket pocket and puts her coffee to the side

"What's on your mind?" she looks me dead in the eyes and right now I can't even think straight never mind tell her what is 'on my mind'. "You were pretty upset yesterday and I just want to make sure you're okay" her words are serious but her tone is still light and happy as she fidgets with the pen.

"I'll be fine" I mutter and I shrug my shoulders because I want this to be a distraction, not a trip down memory lane. I take a sip of my coffee—yuck, I can never get used to this shit.

"Okay..." she says, sensing I'd rather not go into detail about anything to do with what I admitted to her last night. "Uh, so, you want to play a game?" she asks and excitement flashes in her eyes ever so briefly

"A game?" I question with a raised eyebrow

"Uh-huh!" She scans the room slowly and nods to herself, turning her attention back to me.

"Okay, so what we do is, we pick a person and we have to guess things about them from the way they look." She scans the room again "For example" she leans over the table to whisper to me "The guy in the booth behind us, in the suit? I'm guessing he's divorced, pays most of his ex-wives bills still—just because he still has some common decency—even though she cheated on him and doesn't deserve it at all." she quickly glances over her shoulder at him again and looks back to me, continuing her 'game' in a whisper "He has one child, a daughter. He called work this morning claiming he had the flu, just so he could go see his child but when he arrived to pick her up, his ex-wife decided she didn't want him to see her and no matter how much he knocked on the door, he was ignored. So he stopped off at a shop, bought a newspaper and came here to think about all the many ways he's going to drag her through court and claim full custody of his darling little princess—she has his eyes and his curly hair I bet" the biggest grin is spread across her face through all of that and she looks pleased at her completely made up back story for a complete stranger.

"Wow" was all I could choke out "You got all that just from looking at him?" I ask, confused. She retreats from leaning over the table and nods her head

"It's all in the imagination, Vic!" she grins and taps her temple. Her gaze then goes to the entrance door where a young couple are just walking in. "Here, your turn" she beams and points to the couple.

"What? No" I say shaking my head vigorously

"Aw c'mon! Be a good sport!" I roll my eyes

"Fine" I wait for the couple to take a seat and then I begin to babble "The girl sat near the window and the guy sat next to her, on the same side, but at some distance. So I'm guessing, he doesn't like being closed in—not exactly claustrophobic, but not far off. And I'm guessing they've only just recently started dating because he's sat on the same side as her instead of opposite her—" I motion to me and Hazel "Like you and I are." she raises her eyebrows as encouragement for me to continue "So, he must obviously find her presence comforting and like being around her a lot." I shrug and stop studying the couple at the far end of the place and look back at Hazel

"That's it?" she laughs "Come on. I want juicy details!" she bounces in her seat, almost like a child being told a story about pirates or something. Her enthusiasm makes me smile.

"Okay, uh, the girl looks kind of wary, so I'm thinking maybe she's been messed around a lot and isn't sure if she's ready to put her all into this new relationship. She also looks out the window a lot, which suggests there's somewhere else she'd rather be..." Hazel follows my gaze and studies the couple too

"Yeah, I see that. Maybe there is someone else she'd rather be with too" she cocks both eyebrows upwards a couple of times and then giggles, I laugh too. It's amazing how she can make something so childish seeming, so fun. She's so good at distracting me from my own bitter thoughts, I know I want to spend more time around her—but I can't put my finger on whether it's because of how good I feel when I'm around her or something else.

"She has a ring on her finger, so either they've jumped right into an engagement or their love isn't as new as I thought" I say, eyeing the girls ring. Her laughter ceases.

"It's impossible to see what's underneath when somebody is showing you everything they're not" she whispers, her eyes all glazed over, like she's here with me physically but somewhere a whole lot different, mentally. I wonder if she's talking to me or herself.

"What?" I ask confused at her random words that are not relevant to the current situation at all. My mind flicks back to last night, right before we kissed and she said: 'people show you as much as they want to show you' she always seems to be talking in riddles, as if she is waiting for me to figure something out.

"How are you feeling?" She quickly changes the subject and I feel the weight of the world crash back down onto me—bam! I guess even the best people can only keep the demons away for so long. I sigh. "And don't lie" she narrows her eyes at me and then—oh yep, there's that smile again.

"I'm fine" I shrug and look down awkwardly. She begins to draw on the napkin with the pen that's been in her hands this whole time. I don't ask her what she's doing. After a few seconds tick by she sighs heavily and looks up.

"I said don't lie" she's not mad though. "It's okay to be upset, Vic. It's normal even, considering..." she bites her lip and decides not to continue. She quickly continues with whatever she's writing or drawing on the napkin.

I feel irritation swing and punch me square in the face "Considering?" I question, pressing her for the rest of the sentence. She keeps doing whatever she's doing on the napkin and rubs her lips together in concentration—something that I would probably find cute if I wasn't so irritated—why was I irritated again?

She looks up again and shakes her head "Nothing. It's nothing" and she smiles a small smile before returning to her 'creation'.

"What are you drawing there?" I ask, changing the subject. Her eyes dart up and she quickly tucks the napkin into her pocket, along with the pen.

"Nothing, just uh, doodling, nothing really" she smiles and for the first time since I met her, it's not genuine, it doesn't reach her eyes.

Is it just me or is she acting weird?

---

A few days later comes the day I've been dreading—the funeral.

"You look so smart, Victor" my mom says warmly as she wipes her nose with a tissue and straightens my tie. My dad's death has aged her a hundred years, her eyes are swollen and red and her face is decorated in lines I never even noticed before.

I admire her for still attempting to smile, even on a day like this.

"We're going to be okay, mom" I whisper, folding her in my arms tightly, wishing what I'm saying is true. "Where's Mike?" I ask wiping the tears that had made their sneaky way down my cheeks

"In his room. He doesn't want to come" she says sadly

"Listen mom, you go get in the car, I'll take care of him okay? We'll meet you there" she says okay and I nod at Jaime and Tony, a silent gesture for me to say that I'm okay and they can go with my mom if they'd like to. — Jaime and Tony have been amazing this last week or so, constantly checking if I'm okay, helping out my mom, helping her with the difficult stuff me and Mike couldn't bare to do like picking the funeral songs and the casket—it just hurt way too much for me or Mike.

I knock on Mike's door. "Dude?"

"Fuck off, Vic, I'm not going and you can't force me to." he sounds like a disobedient child, but I know he's just hurting, I can hear it in his voice.

"Mike I'm coming in" I say and count to three then walk in, I hear him groan in protest but I ignore him. He's fully dressed in his suit, except his tie and strangely wearing his sunglasses. "Come on, Mike" I say softly, trying my best to convince him "Dad would want you there"

"Don't give me that bullshit, Vic" he sits up and begins shouting "I don't care if he would want me there okay? I want him here. And is he here? No, he fucking isn't" I then realize what the sunglasses are for, to hide his tears, he's crying—Mike, ever the macho man trying to cover up his sensitive side.

"I-I know it hurts, I know that but..." I'm at a loss for words—what can I possibly say?

Then what Hazel said to me while we were drunk pops into my head.

"Everything broken can be put back together. You lose someone who means everything to you and a part of you gets lost with them, you ache and you hurt but then slowly you heal. You stop crying over the fact they never did anything to deserve such terrible circumstances, you stop getting upset over the fact you didn't get to say goodbye and your last words to them weren't all that epic, and that you didn't know they were even going to be your last words to them. You celebrate their life and the way things felt right when they were around, the way their laugh was too high pitched to suit them or the way they always fucked up when trying to cook breakfast. I don't know, it just takes a great deal of time and a whole lot of patience" embarrassingly, I'd learnt her words off by heart, simply because I thought they were an amazing piece of advice. It didn't sound quite as good coming from my mouth though.

"Okay" he replied, standing up, taking his sunglasses off and beginning to put on his tie.

Just like that...really?

---

My mom collapses onto my shoulder as the coffin is lowered into the ground—not everyone can be strong one hundred percent of the time—she's sobbing uncontrollably, mumbling something incoherent.

"It's okay, it's okay" I repeated although my voice betrays how I really feel. Broken. "Do you want to go home now? It's okay if you do..." I say softly, willing her to feel okay, there's nothing worse than seeing your mom upset.

"No, I couldn't do that to him, I couldn't, no" she shook her head swiping at her tears.

It was time for us to all grab a handful of dirt and throw it into the big six feet hole in which the coffin had just been lowered into. Mom went first, sobbing as she did so. Jaime tucked her nicely into his arms while I had my turn. I said a silent prayer as I threw the dirt in.

Dad, I don't know where you are right now
or how you are for that matter,
but I hope it's nice where you are,
I hope the sun shines and it's a beautiful day,
I'll see you soon, buddy.
Thank you for everything.

And then I join my family and all my dad's friends, people cry, others sob loudly, some are on their knees saying prayers, others are just standing there motionless. I stand there motionless, feeling like I'm planted to my earth. Heavy like lead.

It hurt to move,
It hurts to breathe,
I just want the pain to leave.

God you vulture, bring him back or take me with him.

Notes

So uh...I really wasn't happy with this, at all. It kind of sucked.
But I've been really busy and haven't had much time to post so I hope it's not too bad...eh...

I'M IN A BAND MOFOS. :)

Feedback and criticism are really appreciated.

Much looooove x