Soul not Included

Final Chapter

There was a moment of confusion turning the world a shade of orange, as Theo opened the door to allow Sue to come in to assist us in the bath. He hadn't want to but Sue wasn't about to let a boy in to help. Theo was worried about Sue's response to the rest of our body but that was just something that we all would have to deal with it seems.

Her face, when the bruises only got darker and darker the more centralized it traveled on our body, we might have just appeared to her as a giant black hole  that was growing and growing. No matter what we said it wouldn't make a difference to her so we remained silent as she took us in. We were swollen and her touch worsened the pain.

"Mari, what is all this?" She asked with a gasp.

"Compartment syndrome, it will be fine."

"we need to go to the hospital! Mari, this isn't—"

"We cannot go. It will heal. In time."

Her face crumpled once again and she cried more tears.

She handed us clothes to dress in. Making sure not to pick anything closely related to Charlie. She didn't want us to wallow, us included her as well. We both had to be okay. Just for a few hours. At night, when we tuck ourselves in our rooms, she said it was fine for us to break but right now, when the morning has come and the world keeps going, we too had to keep going. We will go together. She will be our strength. We will be hers.

She opened the door to her car. Immediately we were wishing to step back home. We didn't want to go in. Too many bad things happened in vehicles in our lifetime. We would rather rid all automobiles from the world as a whole.

She sighed, "please. Be with me."

We shook our head and pressed ourselves against Theo who held a steady hand against our back. "We could take her," he said.

Sue looked between us and frowned. She really wanted us to go in. So we could be together.

"No, it's fine," we muttered.

We didn't wait for the car to begin moving before we pushed the seat back and immediately urged sleep to come. Theo joined in the back seat. He brushed his hand through our hair until we relaxed with the motion of his contact. 

But, even though we were trying to sleep it wasn't coming. We were on edge even if we knew nothing wrong would happen. Theo was there to protect us if it did. We tried to find comfort in that. We couldn't.

"You know who stopped by last week?" Sue asked. She waited but after a little moment she continued, "Angela Weber and her husband Ben Cheney," she inhaled deeply and nodded to herself. "I don't know many of your high school friends but Charlie told me a lot about your time in school. He really worried when you didn't want to attend high school again with your new friends. They asked about you. How you were. What you've been doing. They left a message, they said, whenever you want to talk, you can call them... recently, I got calls from Jessica Stanley, too. Sweet girl. Mike Newton. Erik Yorkie... your teacher also stopped by."

"News travelled far," Theo muttered. As it does whispered harshly under his breath. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Because he doesn't. Neither do we.

This wasn't surprising, we wanted to say. Charlie is loved by everyone. There was bound to be more gatherings eventually. For everyone in Forks. For those that knew him in the reservation. For those that didn't make it to the funeral.

Sue nodded. "Being surrounded by those that love you helps."

Theo rolled his eyes having much to say about that. Probably the same things we had to say about it. But we both just shared a look and kept our thoughts to ourselves. Sue was trying to be helpful by being positive. She was also in pain. She was also in mourning. We had to put in the effort for her just as much as she was putting in the effort for us.