Page 7 of Sunshine

The last forty-eight hours are a total blur.

Lost in the darkest depths of a weird, bizarre haze . . . nothing feels real. It’s like I’ve disconnected from my body and mind, forced to disentangle myself from anything resembling feelings or emotion so I don’t shatter. I haven’t been able to eat or sleep or get a real deep breath into my lungs since that call two nights ago, and I know I can’t run on fumes for too much longer, but I just . . . I can’t do anything else.

Because Jason’s dead.

The man I planned to spend the rest of my life with.

He’s . . . gone.

I’m suspended in time, unable to feel the ground beneath my feet or the freezing wind on my face as I exit the taxi at the airport terminal. It’s like being lost in the cosmos, spinning and weightless with nothing to grab on to, nothing to hold me steady as I brace for the impact of what I know is going to crush me. But the moment the words spilled from my mother’sthroat and into the phone line, I slipped so far out of my body that I haven’t been able to return to it, only barely having the wherewithal to get myself to the airport for this flight.

My mind is a loop of memories, every one of them featuring Jason: the striking blue eyes I thought I’d have forever to look at, the warmth of his smile I believed would carry us—carryme—through the hardest times. I’m stuck in a culmination of so many small moments of love and laughter and life that made whole who I was with him, the girl I became with him by my side.

Maybe I’ll never be able to feel again—I’m not sure I’d mind if it means never having to face the pain I know is waiting in the periphery for me. I’ve spent hours staring blankly at the walls of my dorm room, stuck inside the labyrinth in my mind, a steady stream of tears slipping down my face.

Those tears are still going strong. I can tell it makes the TSA agents nervous at the airport’s security line, three pairs of dark eyes watching me carefully as I pull my laptop out of my suitcase and toe off my shoes. They look at me like I might need help, debating whether they need to step in. I pray they don’t . . . I wouldn’t know how to explain the tears when I can’t fucking feel anything.

I manage to get through security, clearing the body scanner to find my suitcase and shoes waiting on the other side. Sighing out some of my pent-up tension, I tug my sneakers back on my feet and continue toward my gate.

The flight to Texas is four hours long, and I do nothing but stare out the small square window the entire time. As the plane dips between scattered clouds, I wonder if Jason might be inside of them somewhere, watching me. Maybe he’s looking for some shred of evidence of my devastation from his loss.Maybe he’s unhappy to find that all I am is numb. It gives me an odd sense of proximity to him, as if we might be able to share a secret moment together in the wide-open sky of bending light and sunset hues before this steel cage brings me back down to earth. Back to my home—our home.

I only have a small carry-on with me, so after deboarding the plane I’m able to move right past baggage claim. The humidity from what must have been a recent rainstorm caresses my face before the automatic doors even finish opening—the sun has been set for almost an hour now, but the evening air is still so much warmer than where I just came from. December can get pretty chilly here on the Gulf Coast, but nothing like the freezing cold of New York.

As I peer around the dimly lit traffic lane that veers up toward the curb I’m standing on, I watch a cluster of vehicles fight for space to pick up their loved ones standing nearby. I forget where I am or what I’m doing, so distracted by commotion that it takes me a few extra moments to realize someone is approaching me from the left, and I startle when my mother’s arms wrap me in a hug.

“Oh bug, you made it,” she murmurs into my hair with a voice that’s frayed and tired. She pulls back, eyes sweeping over me intently, as if she might be able to pinpoint all the places I’m broken. “Are you okay? How was your flight?”

Her assessment puts me on edge. I feel another tear escape, curving along my skin until it disappears somewhere below my jaw. “Where’s Annie?” I ask, ignoring her questions. All I want is my little sister.

Mom frowns. “She’s at home, with Barry.” She purses her lips together, brows worrying. “I figured we could have some alone time toprocess things.”

I deflate, the claws of anxiety clutching deep inside my gut. It’s an hour’s drive home from the Houston airport, and the last thing I want to do is processanything.

Not trusting myself to speak, I simply nod.

“Come here, angel,” my mother coos as she takes the handle of my carry-on and pulls me in close to her side. I’ve got an inch on her, so our shoulders bump in an awkward tangle. But I do my best to relent and lean in, to accept what she’s trying to give me.

She’d called me a dozen times that first night, after I’d initially hung up on her in my state of disbelief. My phone rang incessantly from where it lay discarded on the coffee table. The distance combined with a lack of control shoved my mother into a tailspin. I know she didn’t want to leave me alone to face the initial brunt of the news, but it took a long time before I could get myself to answer.

In some inexplicable delusion, I thought maybe I could just ignore it. Maybe if I just went to sleep and let the darkness of that cold winter night claim me, I’d wake up and realize it had all been some agonizing dream. But by four the next morning the phone still hadn’t stopped ringing and I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed answers.

Apparently, those would prove harder to come by.

All we know is Jason’s prized red Mustang lost control on a two-lane highway and drove right off an embankment, catapulting into a deep, rocky ravine below. There’d been no skid marks on the asphalt save for his, no weather to blame. But the road he’d been on was an easy straightaway—so why did he swerve?

The unknowns only left me reeling all over again.

I’m jolted to the present when Mom shoves my bluesuitcase into the back seat of her Mercedes then holds the passenger door open, guiding me in. “Let’s get you home, bug,” she says softly, eyes shimmering with emotion.

And ready or not, I realize it’s time to face it all.

I stareat myself in the mirror, eyes fastened on the black linen dress that hangs from my shoulders, on the small pearl-white buttons that stack along the front. It’s one of my mother’s, and though it’s a little big on my thinner frame, I don’t have it in me to care. Black has never been my color and I don’t own anything else like this—it’s much more sophisticated than the sundresses and jeans I’m used to wearing. But after today, I’ll have no reason to wear something like it again, so it only made sense to borrow from my mother’s closet.

I’ve never been to a funeral before. My grandparents are still alive and well in their retirement community down in Florida, and besides losing some of the older folks in town, death hasn’t had much of an impact on my life.

Until now.

Jason would hate this dress. He’d hate how stuffy and proper it looks, the way my hair is twisted up into a simple bun at the top of my head. He loved my long hair, always wanted me to wear it down and let it flow freely along my back. I’d feel his fingertips dip underneath it as we walked together, a whisper of a touch across my neck before those fingers tugged the length of my wild brown locks. Tiny moments I’ll never know again.

---