Young Writers Society

We all are capable of good or evil, simply by our own choices. But with me, I don't know what to choose, the time nears, but I am stuck between the two choices. Either one means hurting someone I care about.

How can I choose when I know the stakes of choosing wrong are grave?

There is a thin line between good and evil, but I'm not sure of the way I'm going to fall, at least not yet.

***

Funerals, they're an inevitable part of life, but we all hate them. Nobody wants the tears and the pain that comes with it, yet we can't avoid them. I thought about this as I gently placed the white carnation on the gleaming dark brown coffin. Tears that I refused to let fall stung behind my eyes. I would remain strong, for my family. My little brother and sister, for my mother.

I know that everyone was expecting me to break down, that meltdown that would come eventually, but so far it hasn't. People were giving me sidelong glances, hugs, and their condolences. I didn't hear a word they said to me. I could barely comprehend anything beyond the fact that I was trying not to cry.

I looked at the picture sitting next to the closed coffin and fresh grief racked through my body, making my efforts not to cry almost completely futile. That wasn't going to happen, not now.

I had looked down from the picture, but now my eyes went back at the man staring at me, smiling his famous smile. Dad. I looked a lot like him if I wanted to admit it to myself. From my straight, light brown hair, to my bright green eyes that seemed to glow.

I felt a tug on my right hand, and looked down into the tear-filled eyes of Mason, my younger brother.

“I miss Daddy.” Tears fell from his eyes, making his face shine with the wetness.

I bent down and hugged him to me, and whispered into his ear, “I know, I miss him too.”

I thought of all the things he would miss out on. Seeing me graduate, walking me down the aisle, meeting his grandchildren, or mom's favorite joke, sitting on the front porch with a shotgun when I brought my first boyfriend home to meet them.

Fresh tears stung around my eyes, and I blinked them away, my hand still on my little brother's shoulder. He was shaking slightly with the crying he was doing.

Mom was sitting down in the front row, where people were lined up to see her, and give her their condolences. She was crying her eyes out, and I hated to see her like this. Crying, and nothing I could do to comfort her.

How do you comfort someone who just lost their husband in a car crash? I knew she was expecting me to break down any minute now. Maybe she was too lost to notice anything else around her.

I picked up Mason and sat down next to Mom, with him sitting in my lap. The services went on, and we sang sad songs, and there was words from a preacher. I watched this all go on, but I never sang a word, never listened to anything but my own thoughts spinning around and around in my head. Maybe I was broken, maybe my breakdown wasn't going to be external, but internal.

Everyone in the church got up, and walked out the doors, to their cars where they would follow the hearse to the graveyard. I got in my own car, by myself, and started the engine. For the first time all day, a lone tear slipped from my hold.

I wiped it away and cranked up the radio, trying to drown out my own thoughts. One minute it was blaring some rock song, and the next it was playing Just a Dream, by Carrie Underwood.

Growling, I turned off the radio, I didn't need this right now. I just needed to drive and not think about where I was going. I turned with the other cars, filing into the tiny gravel parking lot. Turning off the car and running a hand through my hair, I stepped out into the bright sunlight of midsummer.

I went to join my Mom under the shady cover of an awning. I sat down and pulled Mason into my lap where he curled up, putting his face in my hair.

More words, more tears from everyone around me. I wanted this to be a dream. I wanted to wake up tomorrow and know that none of this was real.

But as the coffin was lowered into the ground and everyone was allowed to throw a handful of dirt on top of it, I knew that this was no dream.

And that's when I saw him, the figure in black staring at me from about ten feet away. He gave a half smile, then with a wink, he disappeared into nothing.