I’m okay.
Whenever people walked by me, they took that breath of hesitation, thinking that they were, in fact, staring at Gabby. “I’m not her,” I whispered to them before they would frown and keep moving. “I’m not her,” I muttered to myself, shifting around on the wooden pew.
I was sick when I was younger, in and out of the hospital from ages four to six. I guess there was a hole in my heart. After too many surgeries and too many prayers, I was able to go on to live a normal life. Mom had thought I was going to die back then, and I couldn’t help but think that she was disappointed that Gabby was the one gone now, not me.
She’d started drinking again after she found out Gabby was sick. She had done her best to hide it, but one time I’d checked on her in her bedroom. She was crying and shaking in her bed. When I climbed next to her to hold her, I smelled the whiskey on her breath.
Mom had never been good with hard situations, and alcohol was always the way she dealt with her issues. It hadn’t made for the best outcome when Gabby and I had to go stay with our grandpa during her rehab visits. After her last one, she’d promised to put the bottle down forever.
Mom sat in the front row with her boyfriend, Jeremy—the only person who was able to make sure she was getting dressed every day. We hadn’t spoken much since Gabby went all selfish—dying and stuff. She’d always liked Gabby more. It wasn’t a secret. Gabby had been into the things Mom was into, like makeup and reality television. They’d always laughed with each other and would have a ton of fun while I sat in the room on the couch reading my books.
I knew parents always said they didn’t have favorites, but how could they not? Sometimes they got a kid who was so much like them that they swore God had made them in his own image. That’s what Gabby had been to mom. But other times, you got a kid who read the dictionary for fun because, “Words are cool.”
Guess who that was?
She loved me enough, but she sure as hell didn’t like me. I was okay with it, because I loved her enough for both of us.
Jeremy was a decent man, and I secretly wondered if he would ever be able to bring back the mom I had before Gabby had been ill. The mom who used to smile. The mom who could stomach to look my way. The mom who loved me but didn’t very much like me. I really missed that mom.
Chipping away at the black nail polish on my fingers, I sighed. The priest kept talking about Gabby as if he’d known her. He hadn’t known her. We’d never gone to church, so the fact that we were in one right now was a bit dramatic. Mom always said that the church was inside us and that you could find God through anything, so there was no reason to go to a building every Sunday. I thought that was just her way of saying, “I’m sleeping in on Sundays.”
There was no way I could stay inside the church for a second longer. For a place of prayer and faith, it sure held a feeling of suffocation.
I turned my head to the church doors as my ears were hit with another hymn. Ohmygosh. How many hymns are there?! Pushing myself up from the pew, I walked outside, feeling the summer heat slap my skin. It was hotter than the previous years. A few specks of sweat started rolling from my forehead before I even reached the steps. Tugging on the black dress I was obligated to wear, I tried not to teeter around on the unfamiliar height of my heels.
Some people would probably think it was weird that I was wearing the dress that my dead sister had picked out. But that was Gabby. She’d always been a bit morbid like that, talking about her death before it had even arrived, before she had even been sick, and wishing me to look my best at her funeral. The dress was a little too small for me around the waistline, yet I didn’t complain. Who was there to complain to anyway?
Sitting on the top step of the church, I rested my elbows against the sides of my body, tucking them in so I could feel a slight bit of pain from the pressure I was applying. Funerals were boring. I watched an ant scatter across the top step, looking to be dazed and confused, running back and forth, left and right, up and down.
“Well, it appears you and I have a lot in common, Mr. Ant.”
I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked up to the blue sky. Stupid blue skies, all happy and stuff. Even though I covered my eyes, the sun burned down onto me, heating me up with remorse and guilt.
My head lowered as I studied the cement steps, circling the tip of my heels in a redundant pattern. I wasn’t sure of it, but I was almost certain that loneliness was a disease. An infectious, disgusting illness that was slow to creep into your system and overtake you, even though you tried to fight it off the best you could.
“Am I interrupting?” a voice said from behind me. Bentley’s voice.