Loose (3 page)
Authors: Coo Sweet
“We don’t have to do this, you know? Everyone would understand if you skipped the service,” she assured him.
Sage pulled away from her with more force than he intended. Nadine staggered back a few steps. Sage took some measured breaths to calm himself.
“No. I’m going,” he said, glancing at Peyton, who nodded slightly. “I mean we’re going. It’ll be okay, Mom.”
Hearing the resolve in her son’s voice, Nadine chose to back off.
“Alright. Your dad should be here soon to pick us up. You guys want something to eat before we leave?”
“No!” the boys said in unison, both having been repulsed by even the thought of food for the past week. Nadine raised her hands in apology.
“Okay. Just checking,” she said.
The second she left the room, Sage pushed the door partially closed. He flopped back on the bed. Peyton joined him.
He turned a serious eye toward his friend.
“Sorry for pushing you,” Peyton said.
Sage shrugged. “Sorry I yelled at you.”
“It’s okay. I know this is hard for you. Serenity being your girl and all.”
“She wasn’t my girl,” hissed Sage. He shot upright from the force of the words.
Peyton tensed, balled up his fists, ready to defend himself again if necessary.
“Oh, yeah? Then why’d she let you do all those things to her, huh? That stuff you told us about,” Peyton taunted.
“I didn’t do anything to her, stupid. I only said that so you guys would leave me alone.”
“So all that stuff about you being in her room--what her titties looked like--that was all a lie?”
Sage didn’t answer. He focused on a microscopic speck of dirt beneath one of his fingernails, letting his mind drift back to that day at Serenity’s.
Serenity hadn’t been expecting him to just show up at her house, that was plain to see by her shocked expression, and by the way she blocked the door when she’d realized who was standing there.
“What are you doing here, Sage?”
He shuffled his feet, not sure how to answer the question. Should he tell her he was there to declare his undying love? That even if he lived to be a hundred, she would always be the only girl in the world for him?
When he finally did open his mouth to speak, Serenity had no use for social niceties.
“Look, I’m busy right now. You have to go, okay? I’ll talk to you later.”
Before she had a chance to close the door--and he had a chance to apologize for his unexpected arrival--a voice came from the back of the apartment.
“Girl, what’s taking you so long? Get your fine ass back in here.” Serenity blushed, pushed on the door.
“I’m sorry. I gotta go. Please don’t be mad.” She squeezed his hand to make amends for the pitiful look spreading across his face. Then she gently closed the door.
When he heard the lock click, a gang-load of emotions tackled his body all at once. He wanted to cry, but knew he was supposed to be too big for that. He wanted to strike out and hit somebody... Serenity...the boy waiting for her...even himself for being such a fool in love.
Most of all he wanted answers. Who was with her? Were they doing what he thought they were doing?
He knew her bedroom window faced the front of the apartment. She’d open it sometimes and converse with friends there. With just enough cover from the shrubs planted near the window, he could probably get a peek at whatever was going on in the room. His heart pumping furiously, he crept into the bushes and raised his head to the edge of the windowsill.
What he saw hit him in two places. His gut and half a foot lower, in his groin. His stomach lurched at the sight of Serenity. Topless. In the arms of an older boy he didn’t recognize. And with no warning, but a heavy dose of guilt and shame, he felt himself stiffen across the crotch of his jeans.
Peyton’s voice in his ear snatched Sage back to the confines of the room.
“So you didn’t get her preg--”
“No! Are you crazy? I didn’t even know she was pregnant,” said Sage, pressing his legs together like he had to pee. Or maybe suppress a reaction to the memory he’d just had.
“You think it’s true? About the abortion, I mean,” Peyton asked.
“I guess so. You heard what my mom said didn’t you? But why would Serenity do that? She should have told me. I would have helped her!”
“Helped her how, dodo? You’re eleven. What could you do?” Peyton huffed and rolled his eyes.
“I don’t know, but she didn’t have to hurt herself like that,” Sage whispered.
Just then, a tidal wave of unrelenting emotions pushed down on the boys’ bony shoulders. They began to feel like the weight of their ordeal might actually be strong enough to swallow them up and drown them.
The sorrow they’d endured for the better part of a week dragged them to a place where they were literally forced to lean into one another just to gain enough strength to rise above the memories of that awful bloody day. And to grab a sip of fresh, clean air...to get some tiny sliver of relief from the lurid recollection of Serenity’s violated body.
She rested in a lavish coffin on display in the chapel of the funeral home. The room was filled with extravagant flower arrangements, and the unmistakable aura of Sage’s grief.
He’d lied to his mother and said he needed to pee. Instead of going to the restroom, he’d sneaked into the chapel before the service was due to start.
It took him a minute to gather his nerves enough to walk to the casket. When he got close enough, he stretched on his tiptoes and peered inside. Tears flooded his eyes. Funny how there seemed to be an endless supply of them no matter how hard he wished they’d dry up and stop ambushing him. He snatched a tissue from his pocket and pressed it to his face.
Serenity looked surprisingly normal. Not at all what he’d expected for a corpse. Instead, she embodied her name. From all appearances she could have been taking a pleasant afternoon nap. Except for the coffin. And the flowers. And the dead part.
Sage couldn’t resist touching her. He brushed the back of his hand against hers. Her skin felt cool and dry, like paper fresh from a new ream. Emboldened by those ordinary sensations, Sage bent his head and kissed Serenity’s cold, hard mouth. It was like kissing a smooth stone.
Checking over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone, he removed one of her earrings. Sage held it in the palm of his hand. He marveled at the fact that an inanimate piece of jewelry generated more heat than Serenity’s preserved body. He closed his fingers around the earring and rearranged Serenity’s hair to conceal the theft.
"You're my girl forever, Serenity. Cross my heart and hope to die," he whispered to her, crossing his heart with sure, steady fingers.
Sage placed the earring in his pocket. He pulled a school photo of himself from another. He pressed down a creased corner of the picture and slipped it beneath Serenity’s dress.
The boys sat in the chapel of the mortuary, shoulder to shoulder on a stiff wooden pew. Their body language mirrored the seat’s composition—-cold and stiff.
Curious mourners sneaked peeks at them. From the sly corner of an eye, beneath a false eyelash, or under the cover of a wide-brimmed hat the boys were thoroughly scrutinized. The ones whose mamas hadn’t taught them any better dropped their heads and whispered, gawked, even pointed at them.
Sage responded to their macabre curiosity by shrinking into the cavity of the pew. Peyton preferred to engage them in a menacing game of stare-down.
Nadine draped an arm over Sage’s shoulder. She pulled him closer to her side.
"You okay, baby?" she asked. He nodded.
"This will be over soon," she promised. Sage nodded again, with barely enough conviction to measure any movement at all.
The funeral moved along in a predictable fashion. A choir sang. The pastor droned on about a life cut short too soon. Muffled weeping punctuated the service, and when the time came to file past Serenity's casket, much of the congregation's collective attention shifted to Serenity’s mother. Maybe to break the monotony, but more than likely to see the show.
With her tear streaked make-up, disheveled clothes, and half-combed hair the grieving mother looked like she’d stepped out of some abstract painting. There was a perceptive buzz coming from the mourners nearest to her.
Sage caught a whiff of their morbid anticipation. He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the stink coming off it.
"Do I have to go up there?" he asked, clutching at Nadine’s sleeve.
"No, baby. Of course not," she said, and patted his hand.
Serenity's mother took her place in front of the casket. A concerned relative flanked her. She elbowed the relative aside with such ferocity that it drew a chorus of “Oh, Lord”, from several uncouth individuals craning their necks to get a better view of her.
The distraught woman leaned over the casket. She tried to cradle her baby one last time. Her companion tugged at her with a loud grunt and a visible show of force. Despite his efforts, she almost succeeded in lifting Serenity's shoulders out of the casket.
With hardly a second to spare, two stout funeral directors raced over and pried the woman’s arms loose. She collapsed in their grasp. They managed to escort -- actually drag her to a seat.
Her grief-fueled antics triggered a tidal wave of sobs from many of the mourners; especially Sage and Peyton.
By the time they’d reached the cemetery, and Serenity's casket was lowered into the ground, her mother's fractured sense of decorum was not far behind. She shook a defiant fist at the heavens.
"I hate you, God! You bastard. Why my baby? Why? She was a good girl!" the woman screeched.
Those words hit the pastor like a bullet to the heart. His arms flew straight out from his sides. His knees buckled and he dipped downward. When he regained his balance, he lifted his head skyward in silent apology. The mourners recoiled at the blasphemous slur, too. Folks from the woman’s family grabbed her and roughly forced her to a seat.
"Now, sister...you don't have to--" the pastor stuttered.
Before he could finish the sentence, Serenity’s mother was on the move again. She leaped from her chair and lunged for the pastor with claws extended. She was too fast for the pair of hands that tried to snag the back of her dress. A feral sound exploded from her throat. The pastor barely managed to duck away. He thrust his bible in front of him like armor.
Family members corralled the bereft mother. Several women petted and cooed her into some semblance of composure. They waved paper fans in front of her face and wiped her sweating brow with damp, wrinkled tissues. The pastor looked like he could have used one of those fans. And some tissue, too.
Sage convulsed with sobs. Nadine drew him to her with one hand and reached for Peyton with the other. With a tilt of her head she silently signaled to her husband, Halloran, that it was time to go. The boys simply couldn’t take anymore distress.
Sage’s folks bustled him and Peyton away from the fracas. They walked a tight line toward the parking lot. When everyone was safely in the car and somewhat calm, the weary quartet wound their way out of the cemetery.
As if they’d been silently commanded to do so, both boys unbuckled their seatbelts, kneeled facing the back window, and watched their friend’s eternal resting place until it was nothing but a speck in the distance.
That’s where the video in his dreams always stopped for Sage. His last glimpse of what remained of Serenity. The place where his rollercoaster of a nightmare should have ended; the place where he should have been able to push the safety bar from his lap and jump off the frightening ride.
Except the memories didn’t end there. They never ended there. And Sage never got off the ride. Not even when he was wide awake.
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