bury me — r&v / in every universe
Feb 2, 2024 21:40:35 GMT -5
Post by lucius branwen / 10 — fox on Feb 2, 2024 21:40:35 GMT -5
Last summer, they spent two days in northern California, arrived for the eulogy of their mother's funeral in a little sunlit church, then left the next day to return to the blistering city.
The service was small, full of family members they'd barely met, milling through the procession and then the internment. There'd been a new husband they only recognized from pictures, speaking at the gravesite.
Then, during the reception, they stood in the spacious Spanish Revival home, and out of politeness, they greeted their aunts and uncles and swallowed the numbness of it into their stomach. There'd been all the stares at this stranger, her child, who had not shown their face in the last four years.
But a man, who introduced himself as his mother's close friend, shook their hand and slid a sim card from between his index and middle into their palm. They felt the touch of coolness and instinctively folded their grip over it, little slip of silicon clenched into a fist the whole reception until, finally, they were alone in their room.
They used a burner phone, one of the many in rotation. In contacts, there was a single number saved.
Your mother, the man said. They listened to the hum of the line.
Wanted you to have this.
This was a Swiss bank account with fifteen million dollars, now held under their name. Not significant enough to draw attention in a world that often traded in millions. But enough to live on for the rest of their life.
She'd known. They remembered. Not my son.
You text when you want it.
His voice was low static in the bathroom of the guest room. They hadn't spoken a word, just listened idly, sitting on the floor against the cold bathtub.
Last words before the line went dead.
The exit.
In the morning, they went home. Their dog was waiting for them.
Then, winter came. Then, there was the gun. Then, there was Roe.
They hadn't thought about the sim card, hidden in the lining of their desk, for a long time. He'd called it the exit. But the truth was, it did not matter if they left through that door or not. A dead thing was already dead. They went through enough identities to know that another one could never bring them back. A corpse with a new name was still a corpse.
But they spent nights staring at their ceiling, thinking of Roe, before they finally met him on the balcony one five a.m. They stared at his hand in theirs, and then at him, skin tinted blue as the sun was just below the horizon. The light shaped his face. And they told him, nothing will happen to you.
They slotted in the sim again.
Glow of the old phone in the hazy morning.
I want it.
They paused for a moment, looking at the door. Then typed again.
But not for me.
The new identity was made by the time they sat down at Valbella's, but there'd been no opportunity to collect it. Life was rigid, Roe was, well, Roe.
But then, the poisoning, and Roe was hospitalized, recovering. And in his absence, they got the documents during the one day they were driving back from a safehouse where the family had held conference in the aftermath. Delivered to a gas station. I need the fucking bathroom, they'd pouted. The secondary guard relented.
When they came back, they read his file. They transferred the bank account to a new owner. The identity.
They took the folder with them to the lake house, inconspicuous with all the other paperwork they didn't like to have digital copies of. Roe slept a lot more, and they didn't really, so sometimes there'd be hours where they would be free to use that sim.
The dinner, where they watched him the whole night.
The car, where they kissed him.
And he kissed them back. Wasn't sweet, not soft. Want, untamed. Unpolluted. Mouthfuls. Alive.
The sim was unused for months, old phone collecting dust in a drawer as the days drifted on outside. They swam through the slow motion beauty of summer. And for the first time, they were thinking they would not need it.
The folder came back with them to the city.
And they were looking at the locked desk, and the ceiling, and the safe on the shelf before Roe climbed through the window. They pulled him into bed, his head against their chest, and stroked through his hair, softly, until he was lulled to sleep.
They were thinking again, hand rested between his shoulder blades, the feeling of his heart beating through the gentle curve of his back.
The exit.
Now, it wasn't so much of a need, as a could they. Could they do it. Could they never see him again. Could they let him go. They had become selfish with it.
Yours, they said. Mine in the under tongue.
Mine to care for, mine to give to, mine because I am yours.
Mine to keep. Let me keep him, please.
A few more days passed. Roe climbed through the window for the last time, because now they are asking for the last time. And he is telling them about the plan. He is telling them he is supposed to keep them calm. He is telling them his orders from their father in the darkness.
"Appeased," they repeat back softly.
Because their father asked.
They grip the sheets.
In the upstate house, standing before their father, and he had told them, did your brother die for us so you could ruin us? So they did what was asked of them.
On the phone, after they shot the gun into the ceiling, hand in their lap, stitched closed. Did your mother die for you to be so pathetic?
So they took their new pills.
And they thought often of the little kid in the halls of the upstate house, dark-haired and laughing. Eleven more years of that innocence. They could do eleven more years. Enough guilt could get them to do almost anything, it seemed.
Must've known. Their father.
Must've just been one more thing.
Give them something good. Something alive. Soft, was his assessment of them at fifteen. So give them something they had to kill if they wanted to leave their leash.
"So at the cabin."
The cabin.
They can't finish the sentence.
They've been bleeding pathetically this whole time. Pitiful little thing. Believed the first person that they thought – they thought –
They get out of bed.
Feeling so fucking sick, and they might laugh. Their mouth tastes like dirt. The air goes cold, skin prickling at the sensation. Sudden horror, then anger.
"He told you to."
Roe was doing a job. And they were the job. And how silly of them. To think anything else. How very pathetic. The room feels like it's spinning. They back away from him, shoulders hitting the wall. All the blood's on the floor. The rain falls down the window pane in shadows.
The dead stay dead.
"You should've let me die." Quiet, voice even. They look at him in the eyes. Little liar, raised to be the best. It slips out of them like it's real. "I will always hate you for it."
