Page 90 of Tell Me You Love Me

I’m not sure I have words, so I chew on my trembling lips and nod.

“You need to sit down?”

I shake my head.

He drapes his arm over my back anyway, not to hug, though it may appear that way to those who watch on. He takes my weight and makes it so I’m barely standing of my own accord at all.

“You ready for the long line ofI’m sorrys?” he murmurs. “They’re about to begin.”

I choke out what I think is half sob, half smile. And because I can, because I feel safe enough in his arms, I lean against his chest and find comfort in the constant beat of his heart. The rhythmic bass. The gentle thrum that remains consistent as the line starts and mourners say the things expected at a funeral.

I’m sorry.

Thank you.

So sorry for your loss.

Thank you.

She’ll be missed.

She will. Thank you.

Touching eulogy.

Thank you.

She would be proud of you.

Not sure she was capable. But thank you for saying nice things.

For a hundred or more faces, the tone remains the same. Muttered words, soft appreciation, and then they move along to make room for the next. It’s a production even the least experienced know how to fulfill. Expectations are put upon those who live, on behalf of the one who died.

In my case, I doubt the one who died even likes half of the people here, and I’m certain half of those here feel the same for her in return.

I allow myself to slide into a comfortable, meditation-like state. Nodding. Cheek kisses. Hugs, when I must. Fake platitudes and promises tocatch up soon, though everyone knows we lie. But when Tommy’s pulse scatters, I wake again. When his heart pounds and his hold turns to iron, adrenaline spikes in my blood and brings me charging back to reality.

Tommy’s hands bruise my skin, holding me close and allowing me no space for freedom, but it’s not until Chris shoves nearer, his broad form shielding Franky’s and his shoulder almost touching mine, that I realize what I so stupidly allowed to approach.

If I was paying better attention, I could have prevented it.

Maybe.

I don’t know.

Nausea spears through my stomach and up to touch the base of my throat when Grady Watkins steps forward. With dancing eyes and lips curled into a disgusting smile, he stops in front of me just as everyone did before him, but unlike those who know to pretend to be sad, he practically does a jig.

Tommy’s father. Returned from what I was so hopeful was the seventh circle of Hell.

His grin is rotten, his teeth chipped. His lips are thin, crooked, and taunting as he leans forward and attempts to take my hand. But before Tommy has a chance to smack the prick away, that strength I discovered when I became a mother comes rocketing back into my blood. I have a son to protect now, and before him, I was a child, tending to broken boys and the wounds this piece of shitinflicted upon them.

Franky will witness my ferocious wrathlongbefore he becomes a victim to Grady Watkins’ existence.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Tommy snarls, mistaking my trembling hands for fear instead of anger. My racing breath for nerves and not rage. He steps in front of me, almost shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother, but a foot of space remains for me to see the vermin and his date through.

The woman on his arm is not even Pamela, Chris and Tommy’s mother. Just some other toothless mole. Sickly thin, jittery, and too far gone to the perils of a hard life and poor choices.

Whether she knows this family’s history, or even cares, remains unknown, but when she stupidly reaches through the gap to touch my son, I slap her hand away with a sharp crack that reverberates through the cemetery.

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