Greta quickly changed the subject to Randy and my mother.
It was starting to rain, so I used that as an excuse to tell her to go inside.
She wouldn’t leave.
Then, her eyes started to water.
All of a sudden, my heart felt like it was breaking. I needed to fight these emotions, and there was only one way I ever knew how to do that with Greta: by being an asshole.
I snapped at her. “What are you doing?”
“Chelsea’s not the only one who’s worried about you.”
“She’s the only one that has a right to be. You don’t need to be worrying about me. I’m none of your concern.”
My heart was pounding faster in protest of what had just come out of my mouth because deep down, I wanted her to care.
She was hurt. I’d hurt her again, yet I needed to fight these feelings.
“You know what? If I didn’t feel so sorry for what you’re going through right now, I’d tell you to kiss my ass,” she said.
Her words had gone straight to my dick. I had the urge to grab her and kiss her senseless. I had to nip this in the bud.
“And if I wanted to be a dick, I’d say you were asking me to kiss your ass because you remembered how much you fucking loved it when I did.”
What the fuck had I just said? I needed to leave before I did something even more stupid, although that one would be hard to top. As I walked past her, I said, “Take care of your mother tonight.”
I left her standing in the garden. When I opened the door, I pulled Chelsea into the hardest kiss I’d ever given her in a desperate attempt to obliterate Greta from my mind.
***
The wake had been tougher than I even expected in more ways than one. I refused to look over at the coffin. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t belong there.
Voices blended together. I heard nothing. I saw nothing. I was counting the minutes until I could be back on that plane.
Chelsea was keeping me standing.
The only time I ever felt pain was when I’d look over at Greta. The single instance I left to escape everything, I’d ended up running into her downstairs in the basement of the funeral home. She tried to pretend she didn’t see me after she exited the bathroom, but I knew it was my one chance to apologize for my earlier behavior.
I hadn’t expected her to use that moment to tell me she still had feelings for me.
It had broken all my resolve. Everything about this day had weakened me. Her hair was up, and at one point, I wrapped my hand around her neck. The trauma of this whole experience had totally clouded my better judgment. It felt unreal, almost like I was dreaming. But there was nothing I needed more in that moment.
Chelsea’s footsteps interrupted my trance. She’d come down to check on me, but she didn’t see anything. I felt ashamed when I looked into my girlfriend’s loving eyes. She’d been worried about me and meanwhile, I was in the middle of some kind of wet dream.
I hated myself.
Soon after we went back upstairs, I insisted we leave early and hitch a ride back to Greg and Clara’s house. Desperate to wash every shred of Greta off my hands and out of my mind, I practically attacked Chelsea when we got to the bedroom.
I told her I needed sex right then and there. She didn’t question it, just started to undress herself. That was the kind of girlfriend she was. She loved me unconditionally even in my manic state.
The problem was…what my body really craved in that moment wasn’t in the room.
As I moved in and out of Chelsea, I closed my eyes and saw nothing but Greta: Greta’s face, Greta’s neck, Greta’s ass.
This was the lowest thing I’d ever done. Guilt consumed me, and I stopped abruptly. Without explanation, I ran to the bathroom and turned on the shower. The need for release was enormous. I started to jerk off to a visual of Greta on her knees looking up at me as I dressed her neck with my cum. It took me all of a minute.
I was sick.
After I’d come down from my orgasm, I felt even worse than I had before.
That night, my thoughts seemed to be taking turns obsessing over Greta and Randy. I didn’t sleep a wink. Randy won most of the night as flashbacks of him tormented me.
Chelsea would be leaving early to fly out to California in the morning for her sister’s wedding. I couldn’t fathom how I was going to possibly handle the burial tomorrow without Chelsea there to lean on…or to keep me away from Greta.
***
Scramble the letters of the word funeral; you get “real fun.” Of course, it was anything but that.
Just don’t look up. That was what I told myself. Don’t look up at the coffin on the altar. Don’t look up at Greta’s back. Just keep looking at the watch, and every minute will be one step closer to this being over.