Loving Mr. Daniels

Guess who that was?

She loved me enough, but she sure as hell didn’t like me. I was okay with it, because I loved her enough for both of us.

Jeremy was a decent man, and I secretly wondered if he would ever be able to bring back the mom I had before Gabby had been ill. The mom who used to smile. The mom who could stomach to look my way. The mom who loved me but didn’t very much like me. I really missed that mom.

Chipping away at the black nail polish on my fingers, I sighed. The priest kept talking about Gabby as if he’d known her. He hadn’t known her. We’d never gone to church, so the fact that we were in one right now was a bit dramatic. Mom always said that the church was inside us and that you could find God through anything, so there was no reason to go to a building every Sunday. I thought that was just her way of saying, “I’m sleeping in on Sundays.”

There was no way I could stay inside the church for a second longer. For a place of prayer and faith, it sure held a feeling of suffocation.

I turned my head to the church doors as my ears were hit with another hymn. Ohmygosh. How many hymns are there?! Pushing myself up from the pew, I walked outside, feeling the summer heat slap my skin. It was hotter than the previous years. A few specks of sweat started rolling from my forehead before I even reached the steps. Tugging on the black dress I was obligated to wear, I tried not to teeter around on the unfamiliar height of my heels.

Some people would probably think it was weird that I was wearing the dress that my dead sister had picked out. But that was Gabby. She’d always been a bit morbid like that, talking about her death before it had even arrived, before she had even been sick, and wishing me to look my best at her funeral. The dress was a little too small for me around the waistline, yet I didn’t complain. Who was there to complain to anyway?

Sitting on the top step of the church, I rested my elbows against the sides of my body, tucking them in so I could feel a slight bit of pain from the pressure I was applying. Funerals were boring. I watched an ant scatter across the top step, looking to be dazed and confused, running back and forth, left and right, up and down.

“Well, it appears you and I have a lot in common, Mr. Ant.”

I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked up to the blue sky. Stupid blue skies, all happy and stuff. Even though I covered my eyes, the sun burned down onto me, heating me up with remorse and guilt.

My head lowered as I studied the cement steps, circling the tip of my heels in a redundant pattern. I wasn’t sure of it, but I was almost certain that loneliness was a disease. An infectious, disgusting illness that was slow to creep into your system and overtake you, even though you tried to fight it off the best you could.

“Am I interrupting?” a voice said from behind me. Bentley’s voice.

Turning around, I saw him standing there with a treasure box of sorts in his hands. He smiled my way, but he looked so sad in the eyes. I patted the spot on the steps next to me, and he was quick to accept my unspoken invitation. Gabby had dressed him, too. In a blue blazer covering his worn-and-torn Beatles t-shirt. People inside were probably giving him weird looks for his outfit of choice, but Bentley didn’t care what others thought. He only cared about one girl and her wants and needs.

“How are you doing?” I asked, resting my hand on his knee.

His blue eyes found my greens, and he chuckled at first. Yet we both knew it was a chuckle of suffering. My lips turned down. Poor guy. It wasn’t long before he placed the box next to him and his shoulders slumped down. His hands found his face, and he huddled up into a tight ball on the steps. I gasped lightly, almost feeling his heart breaking into pieces. I’d only seen Bentley cry once before, and that was when he’d scored tickets to see Paul McCartney. These were very different types of tears.

Watching him break down made me feel so helpless, and all I wanted to do was soak up all of his pain and send it into outer space so he would never have to feel that way again.

“I’m so sorry, Bentley,” I softly stated, wrapping my arms around him.

He continued to sob for a few more moments before he wiped his eyes. “I’m some kind of idiot for breaking down like that in front of you. The last thing you need to see is someone falling apart. I’m sorry, Ashlyn,” he sighed. He was the nicest guy I’d ever met. It was a pity that nice guys could hurt, because everyone knew that their hearts hurt the most.

“Never apologize to me.” Wrapping my fingers together, I rested my chin on top of my hands.

He tilted his head in my direction and nudged me in the shoulder. “How are you doing?” he asked, giving me those same caring eyes he always had. My sister would have been super in love with him for the way he came to check on me. In the world that came after this one, I was sure she had a grin on her face while she hung out with Tupac and Nemo’s mom.

A smile crept on my lips and a simple reminder that I wasn’t the only one hurting slipped into my mind. Bentley had meant the world to Gabby, but Gabby was Bentley’s universe. He was two years older than we were. We’d met him when he was a junior in high school. Gabby was a sophomore and I was a freshman since I had been held back a year due to my health.

Within a few weeks, Bentley would be starting his second year of college, going back up north to study to become a doctor—which was ironic because he was currently suffering from a broken heart that no medicine could ever heal.

“I’m doing okay, Bent.” It was a lie, and he knew it was a lie, but that was okay. He wouldn’t question me about it. “Did you see Henry in there?” I asked, turning back for a moment to glance at the church doors.