Late April
Isla’s funeral was a quiet, simple event.
That didn’t go to say it wasn’t crowded though. Because it was. Almost the entire school seemed to be there, along with her family and other relatives that Asa had never seen before.
It was a sea of black clothes, pale faces, and puffy red eyes.
Asa didn’t know what he looked like. Asa didn’t know what he was supposed to feel.
He’d lost the Isla he knew a long time back—long, long before she’d taken her own life. Asa had already dealt with her loss, with her absence from his life. He’d grown accustomed to that space in his life that she had once occupied.
And yet there was something about death that made it all permanent.
Asa couldn’t cry because his heart had already mourned losing her when she’d been alive.
“He’d already lost her. He’d already lost her. He’d already lost her. He’d al—” Asa squeezed his eyes shut. He’d already lost her, hadn’t he? So why did it hurt so much now?
A warm hand slipped into his, soft palm caressing his own rough one.
He glanced sideways to find Carmen standing by his side, a tired smile on her face, her eyes a little hollow.
Asa blinked. “Carmen,” he said hoarsely, sounding like he hadn’t used his voice for days. “What are you doing here?”
“Where else should I be?”
Asa shook his head, his mind averting its attention from the pallbearers carrying the coffin towards the spot that was chosen for Isla. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” he told Carmen, eyes softening. “I thought we’d agreed already. If Isla knew about the nature of your mother’s death, she would never have wanted you to attend this funeral too. Not when it would mean making you relive your worst memory.”
Carmen had already lost someone to suicide, and Asa thought she had every right to sit this one out. That was a kind of selfishness that had to be permitted, right? He didn’t want to know what it must be like for her to have to see another family crumble and break the way her own did.
“I’m sure she was the kind of person who would’ve understood,” Carmen said in a small voice, her grip on Asa’s hand tightening. “But I didn’t want you to be alone.”
Carmen’s palm slid down his, her fingers finding home in the spaces between his own ones. She locked their hands together, never letting go.
“I’m selfish enough to put my emotional state of mind first and avoid this funeral,” she murmured, then met Asa’s eyes. “But still selfless enough to keep the panic attack at bay and be here with you.”
“You’re having panic attacks?” Asa’s breathing faltered.
“Had it the day mum died,” she replied matter-of-factly. “And then had it the night of Thanksgiving when I was about to fall asleep.” She shrugged. “I’ve been feeling like I’m going to get hit with one ever since I woke up this morning.”
Asa frowned hard. “You really shouldn’t be here.” He sounded almost pleading.
“I want to take care of you right now,” she told him, repeating his words from a memory that seemed to be a lifetime away now. “Please just let me.”
And so he did.
They stood there together, side by side, under a cloudy, pale blue sky. The sun peeked out from behind the fluffy clouds every once in a while, the light spilling through the cracks in between branches and leaves that hung above them.
Asa watched as they lowered the casket into the ground. Asa felt as the dirt in his fist made an imprint against the inside of his palm before he dropped them into the grave. He listened as a mother’s strangled cry flooded his ears and ripped out his heart.
And all along, Carmen never let go of his hand.
Both of them stood and watched: Asa, unable to cry, because he no longer knew the person being buried into the ground but now suffered a new kind of heartbreak he’d never imagined experiencing; and Carmen, who was too still and too frozen, because she may be physically here but her mind had taken every other part of her to many years back, to another funeral just like this one, except it had been raining heavily that evening.
The grief was overwhelming, unbearable even, hitting the two of them in completely different ways.
Still, they held on.
•••
Late August
It was a bright sunny afternoon, and Carmen was seated in a familiar room.
Gloria had changed the curtains. Gone were the plain white ones. It was a gold, cream, and white polka-dotted one that swayed in front of the window now. And there seemed to be two new additions to the collection of flowerpots that sat on the ledge at the bottom of the glass.
Carmen’s eyes swept over every inch of the room, a small smile playing on her lips. “I like the curtains,” she told her therapist softly. “And the flowers are great, too.”
“I’m glad you like them, Carmen,” Gloria replied, that same laid-back tone present in her voice, consistent as it had been since the very first day Carmen had stepped foot into this office.
“Whenever you speak, you sound like you have all the time in the world,” Carmen said suddenly, clapping her hands together and grinning at Gloria. “Like you’re in no hurry to go anywhere. I like that.”
Surprise flickered in those rich, dark eyes of the older woman sitting across her. “Thank you,” she said pleasantly, shaking off the surprise. “I’m happy you’re more comfortable here than you were in the beginning.”
Carmen shrugged, the smile not leaving her face as she noticed that Gloria no longer had those caramel lowlights in her dark hair. She still wore it in a bun, though, letting the usual few strands fall loose and frame the side of her long face.
