It was stupid and vain to be concerned with something so superficial, but I was mortified at Aria seeing how all my blond hair had fallen out, leaving me looking like the love child of Skeletor and Mr. Clean.
Since I couldn’t sit around in my own sick, I had no choice but to let Dana remove the pretty floral wrap one of the volunteers had made for me.
“So,” I drawled to Aria, already knowing the only color in my complexion was my burning cheeks, “how’s school? I’m sure it’s not as glamorous as all this, but tell me everything.”
The worry never left her expression as Aria gave me the distraction I needed by telling me about her psychology program while people fussed around us to clean up my mess.
“Time to get you changed,” Dana said, helping me sit on the edge of the remade bed before looking at Aria. “Please wait by the door and close the curtain.”
But it was too late.
Aria’s gaze was narrowed, focused like laser beams on where my thin, scratchy gown had rode up to expose my thigh.
Even when Dad was being an overbearing ass or Mom was being… Mom, I’d never seen Aria anything other than pleasant, sweet, and irritatingly calm. But as she stared at my leg, rage and something else burned in her blue eyes.
“Aria, go,” I ordered, harsher than I meant as I quickly yanked the fabric back into place.
Her gaze snapped up to meet mine and whatever the other thing was in her expression, it overtook the rage. I didn’t know what it was, but I still hated it. She stepped back and closed the curtain, her own movements harsh.
Once I was cleaned, changed, and back in bed, Dana opened the curtain and gestured Aria in. “I’ll be back with your meds.”
I barely had the energy to nod.
Getting up and moving to a chair two steps away shouldn’t be so strenuous, but my body ached as though I’d done a triathlon followed by a light 5K. I was exhausted. Nauseous. Embarrassed.
And so damn sick of it all.
I must’ve dozed off because the next time I opened my eyes, Dana was there with my meds and my favorite herbal tea.
Great. I finally get a visitor, and I barf and fall asleep.
I’m an awesome host.
“Sorry,” I muttered to Aria.
She just smiled and waved away my apology. I wondered if she’d follow the Dillon method of ignoring unpleasantness, but as soon as we were alone, she asked, “How long?”
I played dumb. “How long what?”
“You know what.”
She was right, I did.
Even though talking was the last thing I wanted to do, my exhaustion and medication worked together to loosen my tongue. “A while.”
“Why?”
I rolled my head to look at my sister. My beautiful, brilliant sister. I used my floppy, weak arm to gesture down my floppy, weak body. “Why not?”
Like it just struck her as strange, her angry glare shot around the room. “Where the fuck are they?”
I didn’t think I’d ever heard her swear. The crass word seemed bizarre coming from her, which made me smile. At least, I tried to smile. I wasn’t sure if my lips cooperated. “You missed their bi-weekly visit.”
“They only come twice a week?” she hissed, outrage shaking her voice.
“Is that what bi-weekly means? Damn, I’ve been making a fool of myself. No, I mean every two weeks.”
“What?” Lowering her volume and softening her tone, she went full-on shrink. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
I didn’t have a dream job for my future. I was pretty sure I didn’t even have a future. But in that moment, I knew down to my faulty bones that she’d be as good at her dream career as she was at everything else. There was something about her that made people feel safe to open up.
Which was why I blurted, “I’m going to die.”
I had to hand it to my sister, she didn’t light a pair of rose-colored glasses on fire to blow smoke up my ass. She gave it to me straight. Or at least as straight as she could, given my uncertain future. “Maybe. But not if the doctors can help it.”
“I hope they can’t. I’m ready. I want this to be over.”
I was sure Aria had something beautifully inspirational and insightful to say, but I didn’t hear as I drifted off to sleep.
I wonder if this will be the time I don’t wake up.
_______________
Three years later
I WAS SUPPOSED to be sad.
It was a funeral. Funerals called for sadness, right? Mourning. Shed tears. The whole nine.
Except I didn’t feel sad.
I didn’t feel anything.
Thankfully, my hazy, medicated fog came across as somber as I sat at the funeral home. Based on the sympathetic glances everyone had been shooting my way, I must’ve played the part of the grieving daughter well.
But one person wasn’t buying it.
“You okay?” Aria whispered, not for the first time.
“Mmhmm,” I murmured, discreetly checking the time to see if I could take my next dose of meds yet. Usually I loathed the stupor I lived in. Well, I loathed it for the bits I was able to feel something before my next dose kicked in. But that day, I welcomed the escape.
Since it was way too soon, I zoned back out and didn’t hear a word anyone said during the overblown service. I was vaguely aware of Dad’s voice booming from the podium, but it was gibberish in my ears. Wah-wah-wah-wah, like the adults in Charlie Brown cartoons.
I hadn’t realized the service had finished until Aria took my hand and stood, keeping hold of me. Ever the dutiful daughter, she took her place next to Dad, dragging me along for the ride.
There’d be no morbid parade to the cemetery since Mom had been cremated. We were having a reception at the house, but it wasn’t going to be a loving remembrance with potluck casseroles and togetherness. The exclusive, catered affair would be a cold and socially calculating opportunity to see and be seen.
It was the perfect tribute to a cold and socially calculating woman.
We stood together to receive condolences, playing our roles.
The picture-perfect family in our picture-perfect grief.
For a while, at least.
Then Dad took off to wherever to talk to whomever, leaving Aria and me to receive fake sympathy from Mom’s equally fake friends. It was a big fake-fest.
Each offered some variation of the same generic platitudes, daintily dabbing at their eyes despite the fact they weren’t crying. After all, they couldn’t risk ruining their makeup.
Or showing normal human emotion.
That was until one woman reached us. Splotchy faced and openly weeping, it took me a moment to recognize the member of Mom’s country club circle—well, the outer edge of her circle.
“Girls,” Sharon Anderson cried before breaking down into more tears as she threw herself into our arms.
My gaze darted to Aria, who just shrugged and patted the back of the hysterical woman.
“Your mom was a goddess,” Sharon whimpered wetly into Aria’s hair.
Yeah, if there’s a goddess of booze and Botox.
Pulling away, Sharon wiped at her face, smearing her mascara further. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. It was so sudden and now my best friend is gone. Your mother is gone. She loved you girls so much.”
There it was.