Raine thought about that while she chewed.
“Yeah, that makes sense, actually. It’s always a good thing when you find out someone’s flaws, because people aren’t perfect. And those who seem like they are often have the worst secrets.” That was definitely true. “And now he knows you’re not perfect. Do you think he loves you?”
I nodded.
“But I don’t think he’s going to let himself feel it. We already talked about how this isn’t serious and he’s terrified of being hurt again. He’s built those walls up and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to break them down. I don’t want to force him to be with me if it’s going to make him unhappy.” Raine raised her eyebrow and scoffed.
“You’re crazy. He’s just scared of getting hurt, but you can’t stop yourself from falling in love. And the more you fight it, the worse it gets. It haunts you for years. And it doesn’t go away. Especially if it’s the real thing.” The real thing. I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this was the real thing. I’d never felt this before. There was truth to the saying “When you know, you know”.
“I feel like, with him, I can just be . . . me. Tattoos and cursing and awkwardness and all. And he loves it. Loves me the way I am. Only you’ve ever loved me like that. My family was always trying to change me. He doesn’t.”
“Then you have to tell him, Walt,” Raine said as she unlocked the door to the apartment.
I dropped my stuff and went right to the couch.
“I don’t want to,” I said.
“Buck up, babe. I have faith in you and faith that it’s going to work out. But if it doesn’t? I’ll be here. Always. I’m your platonic life partner and I’ll never abandon you.”
I guess that was something.
I closed my eyes, wishing I could sleep for a week and then wake up.
“Babe?” I cracked one eye open. “Deadline,” she said with a sad face.
Fuck. Stupid book.
That stupid book consumed my life for the next several days. I only took breaks to shower, talk to my parents and help with Gran’s funeral. And text Declan. I’d wanted to see him, but the edits were proving more difficult than Raine and I could have imagined and I barely had time to eat and get a few hours of sleep.
By Saturday, we finally got somewhere and I was seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
I had a dress for Gran’s funeral, I’d picked a piece of poetry to read at the ceremony and the money Gran left me had been transferred to an account in my name. I still had no idea what the hell to do with it, but I had taken one step and bought a Keurig for Raine and me. And I’d gotten Gran’s jewelry. I was planning on wearing a lot of it to the funeral. She would have liked that.
Part of my reason for throwing myself into the book so much was so I didn’t have to tell Declan I loved him. Of course, it didn’t stop me from loving him and it made things worse because I missed him so much. But he was busy too, with work and his classes, and with trying to find someone to watch Drake.
“So how are you going to tell him?” Raine said on Saturday afternoon as we took a break from the computer to watch a television marathon and eat some junk food.
“I don’t know. I’m going to see him tomorrow. He’s meeting us there. I’m not sure a funeral is the best place to do that. But maybe . . . I don’t know.” I’d thought about it over and over. “You’d think we’d be able to do this. We’re romance writers after all.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you this whole time,” Raine said. She had. She’d wanted me to do some grand gesture to show my love, but that had seemed so cheesy. That stuff was all well and good in books, but in the real world? Not so much.
“You should write him a letter. Tell him all the things you told me. Nice and simple. It doesn’t even have to rhyme.” I’d thought about that. I wasn’t necessarily good with my words when I was under pressure, but I could write my thoughts down. I could do that.
So I got out some of the stationary Raine had bought me a few Christmases ago and I started a letter to Declan. Of course the first one didn’t come out right, so I started again. And again.
It was on my fifth draft that I thought I had everything I wanted to say. Raine asked if she could read it.
“I think this is for his eyes only,” I said, folding the letter up and discarding my previous drafts.
“You’re no fun,” she said with a pout.
I gave her a look and them my phone rang. I checked to see who it was before I answered.
“Hey, Mom. Everything ready?”
“I hope so. Listen, can you come over early tomorrow and give me a hand? Oh, and can you be responsible for the guest book?” I took a deep breath before I answered, wishing she’d asked me this earlier in the week. I’d made plans with Raine to go over at a certain time and meet Declan, but now that wasn’t going to work.
“Yeah, sure Mom. I can do that. What time do you need me?” The service was at noon, but Mom wanted me there by ten thirty. I said I’d be there and then hung up.
“What now?” Raine said, taking her hair down and then putting it up again.
“Mom wants me there at ten thirty to help with setting up or something. I have no idea. And she also wants me to help with the guestbook. I have no idea what that means.” Was I supposed to guard it or something?
“That’s fine. I can go with you. Help defuse the situation. I’m also very helpful.”
“Are you sure?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“You’re the best.” She gave me an air kiss and I texted Declan to tell him that I couldn’t meet him when I wanted to. He messaged back asking if he could help as well. Now that would be weird.
No, you really don’t have to. Raine is coming with me.
He responded right away.
I want to be there for you.
I wanted him there. Needed him there.
Okay. But you’ll have to meet my parents.
I definitely wasn’t going to give him the letter tomorrow. It would make things awkward. Besides, this wasn’t about me. It was about Gran. Mom had turned the funeral into an all-day affair, but that was probably what Gran would have wanted. No Celebration of Life for her. I’d put together a slideshow of some of the best pictures from the albums so that was ready to go for the lunch we were having after the service.
I think I can handle it. See you tomorrow.
“He’s coming to help tomorrow. He said he wanted to be there, so how could I say no?” I said to Raine, relaying the texts.
“You can’t. You going to give him the letter?”
“I don’t think so. Not tomorrow. That would just be weird. ‘My Gran’s dead. Oh, by the way, I’m in love with you. Please sign the guestbook.’ No. Definitely not,” I said.
“Good plan. Probably wise.”
I stood in my bedroom, staring at my dress. I’d picked out jewelry to go with it, so all I had to do was blow dry my hair, put my makeup on and get dressed.
Raine knocked softly at my door.
“Hey, you okay?”
I shook my head side to side.
“Not really. I guess it’s, um, finally hitting me. Like, after you graduate from school and that first year when the Fall comes you keep expecting school to start and it doesn’t. It’s like that, multiplied. I keep waiting for Sunday to come around so I can go to her house and have tea and be criticized. I hated it so much. But now I’d give almost anything to get it back.”
There they were. The tears. They’d finally arrived.
I was so surprised I started laughing as the tears dripped down my cheeks and fell onto the towel I’d wrapped around myself after my shower. Raine put her arms around me from behind, hugging my shoulders.
“See? I knew you could cry,” she said. I hadn’t told her about the not-crying but she’d known anyway, the way a platonic life partner was supposed to know.
“I picked a good day,” I said through sobs.
“Yeah, you did,” she said, holdi
ng me until I could get control of myself again.
“I’m going to have to wear sunglasses to the funeral like my mother.” I sniffed and wiped my face on the edge of my towel. “Are my eyes really red?”
“Uh, nothing a little concealer and maybe putting something cool on your eyes for a little bit can’t cure.” I followed her to the kitchen and she took two metal spoons and put them in the freezer.
“Now, go dry your hair and then come back out and we’ll get you ready.”
“Thank you.” She just shooed me toward the bathroom and went to get ready herself.
Fifteen minutes later we were both in our black best, and Raine had the spoons pressed under my eyes to reduce the redness and swelling.
“We’ll just do this for a few minutes and then you can do your makeup and we’ll be ready to go. Oh, and I found those giant sunglasses we bought when we went to Cabo a few years ago. I thought we could wear them ironically.” I could do that. Damn, now I wanted to cry again.
“No, don’t cry again. I can’t bring the spoons with us.”
“I can’t help it,” I said. Now that the tears had started, they seemed nearly impossible to stop.
“Dry it up, babe. Dry it up.” I tipped my head back and took several deep breaths to chill out.
“Okay, I think I’m good,” I said. “And we need to get going.”
“Do you want me to drive so you can do your makeup in the car?” Raine asked.
“Yeah, that would be great.” We headed down to the car and I put mega amounts of concealer under my eyes as Raine drove slowly to the funeral home. There was talk of doing a service down south, but most of Gran’s family was here and it would have been a bitch to get everyone together and organized a second time.
My parents were at the funeral home when we arrived, and so was someone else.
“Oh my God, he’s early.” Declan’s car was unmistakable, as was his brilliant head of hair.
“What do I do?” I said to Raine, panicking.
“Jeebus, calm down. Get out of the car, say hello to your parents. I’ll take care of the rest.” She patted my arm and put her enormous sunglasses on.
I did the same and got out of the car, heading for where my parents were waiting for me under the awning of the building.
“There you are, where have you been?” Mom said. She kept twitching from side to side. She probably hadn’t taken one of her mood stabilizers or whatever it was she was currently on. I hoped she had some in her purse, or else this was going to be a very long day.
“I’m here,” I said, swallowing any and all snark. Today was not the right time for it. I was going to leave my snark at the door.
“So, what can I do to help?” I said, putting a smile on my face. Mom started to say something, but then she looked over my shoulder.
“Who is that?”
I turned and saw Raine leading Declan over. Oh, hell. It was happening. I’d been trying to avoid this from the beginning and now here we were. I floundered for a moment and Raine helped me.
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Walton. I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m more than happy to do anything I can to help during this difficult time.” She gave my parents hugs and they were momentarily distracted from staring at Declan.
“Mom, Dad, this is Declan Bennet. He’s, um . . .” Why hadn’t we talked about this?!
“I’m your daughter’s boyfriend. It’s nice to finally meet you, even though it’s not under the best of circumstances,” Declan said, extending his hand to my dad, who just stared at Mom and then looked back at Declan.
“It’s nice to meet you, Declan,” Dad said, enunciating his name. Mom smiled at him, but tugged at my arm.
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Blair, dear, can I speak with you for a moment?” Way to be obvious, Mom. Very subtle.
“You never told us you had a boyfriend and you show up with him on today of all days?” she hissed, her hand digging into my arm. Yeah, I hadn’t told my parents that Declan was coming with me. They just knew about Raine. In hindsight, it might have been a better idea to warn them, but then that would have involved a lot of questions I didn’t want to answer at the time.
And here I was in a terribly awkward situation.
“I know, I’m sorry. It’s complicated. He met Gran and he wanted to come. He said he wanted to help,” I added.
Mom narrowed her eyes and then sighed.
“Well, I suppose I can’t begrudge him being willing help. But we’re going to have a talk about this later, when everyone’s gone.” Fun. That would be so much fun.
“Sure, fine.” Anything to end this right now.
We went back to the group and I flashed Declan an “I’m sorry” face, but he just smiled at me.
“Well, we should get inside,” Dad said and held the door open. Declan put his hand on my back and walked behind me.
“Missed you,” he whispered.
“Ditto,” I said over my shoulder.
It turned out what Mom needed help with was moving everything around a hundred times. The chairs. The flowers. The picture of Gran. Even the urn with her ashes in it.
She wasn’t happy where anything was placed. And a few minutes after we arrived, Gerald and Pearl showed up with their respective spouses and families and the funeral home, which was probably supposed to be a quiet place, but turned into a circus as my younger cousins ran around and pulled at their stiff clothes and generally made a racket.
Raine worked at reining them in as Mom and everyone else argued about where this vase of flowers should go and if they needed more chairs.
I stood to the side with Declan.
“So, yeah. This is my family. I share genetic material with these people.”
Declan reached for my hand and held it in the folds of my dress.
“They seem lovely,” he said and I gave him a look.
“You’re so lying.”
“No, I’m not. My family is so quiet. Yours is full of life.” Well, that was one word for it.
“Crazy. My family is full of crazy.”
“But they’re your crazy.”
They were. You only got one family.
“And you’re my sane,” I said, squeezing his hand. I had the letter in my purse. Just in case.
“And I’m used to crazy. You remember my son, correct?” True. He did have to deal with his share of insanity.
“True.”
By the time everything got settled and Mom gave me the instructions on how to deal with the guestbook, it was time for the service. Raine and Declan stayed with me and I was so glad to have them.
“I have never seen at least twenty percent of these people. Is there such a thing as funeral crashing?” I whispered as a new batch of mourners walked in.
“I’m sure it’s a thing,” Raine said. “We should write a book about that.” She got some paper out of her purse and scribbled down the idea. I didn’t think it was going to fly, but I kept my mouth shut.
Declan got more than a few looks as people walked by to sit down. Even at a funeral, he caught people’s eye.
Mom came out and grabbed my arm.
“It’s time to sit down.” I gave Raine and Declan a helpless look.
“We’ll be in the back,” Raine said, giving me a thumbs-up which earned her a glare from my mother.
Declan gave me a wink and patted his heart. I blew a kiss at him as Mom dragged me up the middle aisle to the front row. Wow, there were a lot of people here.
“I knew there weren’t going to be enough chairs,” Mom hissed in my ear. People were starting to form rows in the back, including Declan and Raine, who gave me a subtle wave.
I gave Raine a look that said “help me”.
Mom planted me in the front row between her and Dad. The rest of the close relatives filled our row, and then the second.
The minister from Gran’s church (who looked like he was at death’s door) hobbled up to the podium and started speaking.
We all bowed our heads for
the prayer and I already heard sniffing. I’d packed some tissues in my purse, but Mom had a lace handkerchief she kept dabbing her eyes with. I reached out and rubbed her back because it seemed like the right thing to do. I could feel the tears pricking at the corners of my eyes, and if I let them, they’d fall.
Dad was first to get up and talk about Gran. He spoke about her life growing up and school and marrying Gramps. The way he spoke I almost wondered if Gran hadn’t written this herself. It was very respectful and completely non-humorous.
I had my turn after Dad. I’d picked a poem by E. E. Cummings. It was one that Gran probably would have hated and she would have given me one of her looks if she knew I was reading it, but that’s why I did it. It was called “Nobody Loses All the Time”. It was sort of a funny poem and as I read it, I could see the urn out of the corner of my eye, and Gran’s picture. I lost it again and barely made it to the end of the poem.
When I was finally done, I didn’t sit back down in my seat. I knew I was only in for a reprimand if I sat back down with Mom for the content of the poem, so I headed out the back to get some air, giving an eye signal to Declan and Raine. I headed all the way outside and I could feel them following me.
I nearly fell into Declan’s arms.
“Oh my God, I never want to do that again. Neither of you is allowed to die,” I said as Declan held me and stroked my hair. My body shook and all I wanted was to get away from the smell of the flowers and the music and the whole thing.
“I felt like I couldn’t breathe,” I said. “That was awful.” Raine handed me a tissue and I blew my nose. “How’s my mascara?”
Yes, it seemed like a stupid thing to be worried about at the present moment.
Raine gave me two thumbs up.
“Looks good. That waterproof stuff we paid an arm and a leg for really works.” I looked up at Declan.
“I’m sorry. I’m a mess.”
He laughed.
“You’re not a mess, love. Come here.” He hugged me close again. “You finally cried,” he said in my ear.