What If Instead Of...

7 Vivian

"What are you even for?"

These words of my mother, popping up in my head at the wrong time, cover me with a new avalanche of emotions.

It feels like my mind is deliberately dumping all the problems and worries like lethal bombs, but I won't let it torment me either – it's enough that I have to go through now and what I will have to go through in the near future.

I close my eyes and begin to gently rub my temples, as if to banish uninvited thoughts.

"Vivian, are you all right? Do you want me to take you home?" sounds Leo's anxious question.

I take a breath in and out before looking at him. "It's okay, I was just trying to get rid of the voices in my head."

He probably thinks I'm going crazy.

"That's right, get rid of them before they get rid of you. Look at how those things are still devouring Aiden. How much shit he did, pushed by them," the guy sadly states.

When we have almost reached our destination, Leo notices that he has nowhere to park his car because of the huge number of people who want to say goodbye to Grace.

"We'll have to walk a little"

"It's okay," I assure him.

While we are heading to the shop, I make a decision at all costs not to look at people's faces and not to look at anything at all, so that it doesn't haunt me later at night.
I know my heart and I know what will make it suffer.

The only thing I don't know is what to expect.
I have no idea how such ceremonies go, what the rules are, what I need or don't need to do.
Hence the second solution comes out – to stand as far away as possible, to be inconspicuous, so as not to spoil anything.

Leo has to push himself and me at the entrance because of the pandemonium.
He goes straight to Aiden, probably expecting me to follow him.

My mistake is to follow him with my eyes.

Right in the middle I notice a coffin standing on a pedestal of flowers.
It's probably inappropriate to think so, but it looks very beautiful.
Frighteningly beautiful.

Aiden is standing not far from there.

I lower my eyes so quickly that I don't notice if he sees me.

In any case, I don't belong next to him – I'm nobody for this family.

My idea of not looking up turns out to be practically meaningless.
Tears, lamentations, screams have no less effect on me than the fate of an eyewitness.

During the service, I try to abstract myself in every possible way, closing my eyes.
The tension makes me feel sick, I feel my cheeks burning.

And I also feel someone's eyes on me and I know exactly who they belong to.

Sometimes I also sneak a glance at Aiden to determine how he is.
His face is haggard, large dark circles have appeared around his eyes, which are empty and dull.

I tell myself that I have no right to fall apart, because it's much harder for him now, so I try my best to stay strong.

I don't know how this is possible, but it's as if the pain of several dozen more people was transmitted to me wirelessly, as if mine alone is not enough.
I absorb the feelings of people around me like a sponge.

It gets to the point that I feel some pain in the heart area, and this makes me panic.

As soon as everything says the service is over, I immediately run outside to get a breath of fresh air.