Page 150 of Swallow Your Sorries

But when I make it to the lightning bolt splintering the glass, no one’s there. All I spot are the shimmering crystals on Rin’s headband, and her heels kicking up dirt as she runs back toward campus, Zoi nipping at her skirt.

I knew it was a possibility she’d follow us from the studio. From the window where she’d been hiding with my phone. My phone that I’d disabled the Wi-Fi and mobile data settings on, only giving her access to my camera. To what she needs for Beaussip. Her phone’s in my gym bag.

Still, I’d hoped the dark forest would deter her.

Slowly, I turn around to face Gant, wondering what lie I could conjure up to explain why Rin had been trailing us. Maybe I could gaslight him and blame Rin’s presence as his doing since she must be obsessed with him to always do his bidding. But I quickly realise there’s no need to lie at all because Gant isn’t here anymore. He’s physically present but his mind is far away.

The moment between us is gone.

He’s gone.

Literally.

Gant

BANG!

“Why did you close it?” my father barks at the hasty funeral director.

The elderly man blinks at me as if I’m the answer. “I’m sorry, sir. I was told it was a closed casket funeral considering…” His eyes drop to the casket where I know my mother’s mangled remains are now hidden.

He’d been sure to hide her the second he saw me in tow.

“For the public,” my father says icily. “But the family hasn’t had their viewing yet.”

The director’s eyes trail to me again. “But sir, the boy—”

“Is sixteen. A man now,” my father says, beckoning me to come closer with his cane.

It isn’t enough that I’ve already seen her before I blacked out in the accident, but I know better than to argue. Each click against the hardwood floor pounds in my ears in tune with my heartbeat as I move, standing shoulder to shoulder with my father over the casket.

“Very well.” the director nods at his assistant, who’s standing quietly in the corner of the room, but his eyes are fixed upon me pitifully.

He could just open it.

My father could just open it.

But someone else has to bear the blame for traumatising me.

Me.

“Open it, Gant,” Bart says, halting the shuffling assistant.

The director wants to protest and so does the assistant, whose worried gaze moves from his boss to my father to me. But neither say anything. They’ve been paid too handsomely to question their top client of the decade.

I don’t want to prolong the inevitable, so I reach for the heavy lid, quietly draw a breath and heft it open.

Despite my internal bracing, my knees buckle and I recoil, right into my father’s shoulder.

“What?” he asks, feigning innocence and knocking me hard, so I stand up again on my own. “Don’t you want to say goodbye to your mother officially?”

Somewhere in the distance, I can hear the retreating footsteps of both workers as they ease from the room, but my attention is fixated on the mangled meat staring back up at me.

It feels more than cruel to put something so unrecognisable into such a charming box. A beautiful illusion of what may lie inside.

She should be cremated, but then, how could I ever see her for what she truly is–was–according to my father?

“That’s not my mother,” I rasp, trying to stop my stomach from convulsing, but the contractions prove too painful and I double up, falling beneath the casket.

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