Page 4 of Severance

“I believe he tried to text you and you didn’t answer. He called the house several times. You don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to.”

A grim silence that’s thick with anguish falls between us.

“Okay,” my mother whispers after a few moments. “I’ll tell him you’re asleep.” She gets to her feet and walks to the door, the sound of her careful footsteps thudding inside my head like a hammer.

“It’s fine,” I push the words out, my voice rusty and foreign. Parts of me still feel dead and I’m wondering if it’s because I haven’t moved since yesterday.

A sigh of relief flutters across the room. “You sure?” My mother pauses, perhaps waiting for me to reconfirm what I just said.

“It’s fine, Mom,” I murmur, bringing my bandaged hand to my face to rub my eyes, my fingers trembling above my cheek. I haven’t looked at the damage since I got home from the hospital, but it feels like the glass is still lodged deep in my skin. However, unlike Dakota’s injuries, my wounds will eventually go away.

“Please have him come up here. I’m a little dizzy,” I mumble under my breath. A little is an understatement. It feels like one terrifying, never-ending freefall.

“Oh…I’m not sure Dad will approve of that, sweetheart…” she counters, her breathy voice cracking.

Something inside me snaps, and the bitter words that have been stacking up in my head start to form a long, ugly speech. The speech I’ve been preparing for my father for years. The only reason I hold it in is because it isn’t meant for my mother, and besides, I’m too exhausted.

“Just tell him to come up, Mom,” I repeat sternly, staring at the light blue curtains above my desk.

She slips out quietly, leaving me alone with my angry thoughts.

There’s a shift in the air when a new set of footsteps enter the room. It’s suddenly cold and uninviting, as if the temperature has dropped below zero.

I’m lying on my side with my left hand tucked between my cheek and my pillow when Mikah stops across from me and leans against my desk, arms folded at his chest, eyes bloodshot and vacant. I don’t need a magnifying glass to see the fracture in him. It’s written all over his uncharacteristically thin face that’s covered with several days’ worth of stubble. I wonder if he can see all the wreckage in me.

As Mikah’s chest slowly rises and falls, accidental streaks of sunlight dance across the window behind him, flickering around the shape of his shoulders. His gaze moves to my nightstand and I can tell he’s avoiding looking directly at me.

“You didn’t return any of my texts or calls.” His voice is rough and indifferent.

“I haven’t checked my phone,” I confess.I haven’t brushed my teeth or showered either. Because I couldn’t force myself to do anything.Must be all the sedatives my mother’s been feeding me.

“The funeral’s on Thursday.”

Dreadful silence fills the room.

I swallow the lump in my throat and let his words sink in. “Okay.”

When Mikah drops his shoulder, the bright afternoon light blinds me. Squinting, I lift my head off the pillow and try to sit up.

“You don’t have to come,” he rasps, staring at one of the posters—probably Black Rose—above my head. “But I think it would be…good. For everyone.”

Funerals and good don’t actually go together, but I understand what he’s trying to say. He just didn’t pick the right words. Although what are the right words that could possibly be said about someone’s death? There are hardly ever any. Unless that person deserves it. Dakota didn’t deserve it.

I swallow past the tightness in my throat and ask the question I’m dreading to hear the answer to, “Do you know how many people died?”

Mikah draws a deep, shaky breath. “Twenty-four.”

A wave of nausea nearly knocks me over. “Oh.” That’s all that comes from my mouth.

The images in my head are suddenly so clear that I can almost smell and hear everything, and this unwelcome case of déjàvu makes me even sicker to my stomach. The burn in my chest ups its game and it feels like someone has shoved a flaming torch into my heart.

“Are you okay?” Mikah’s eyes finally drift to me. They’re vacant and sad, and it’s obvious he doesn’t really want to be here, because he has far more important things to do. Like burying his younger brother.

The space between us sears with agony. The desolation on his face is terrifying. It bleeds across my room, filling each corner until if feels as if there’s no more air left to breathe.

Ignoring his question, I break eye contact and start plucking a stray thread from the sleeve of my oversized sweater. My fingers aren’t cooperating because of the bandages, but I keep at it anyway.

Mikah and I were never what I’d call friends. I suppose I’ve been as much of a constant in his life as he’s been in mine due to the fact that I dated his brother while they shared an apartment. But now, he’s all I have left that ties me to Dakota, and I can’t decide if I want him to stay in my life because he reminds me of everything good I once had…or if it’d be better to cut him loose. Better for everyone—me, him, my parents, his family. In a way, we’re all an assembly of little reminders, shattered pieces of a life we’re no longer going to live. Instead, we’re going to exist in an ugly and wretched imitation.

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