CHAPTER 3
I park in the back of the cemetery and walk the long way toward the small group of people I know are gathered for Willow's service. I saw in the paper that a fund had been set up for the burial costs for the girl they described as having no family, and no friends who could afford the expenses. I called the funeral home and covered it all, including a granite headstone. Willow deserved more than an unmarked grave. I hadn't been there for her over the years, but I could do this small thing now.
I hang back a little, leaning against a tree several feet from the rest of the gathering as I wait for it to start.
My mind wanders to Willow as a little girl. Her eyes had held a wariness too deep for her young age. I had wanted to protect her, just like I had wanted to protect Evie, but Willow was always one step ahead of everyone when it came to her self-destruction. I didn’t have the words back then, and I don’t know that she’d have listened even if I did. But I wish I could tell her now that I understand. I know that you don’t want to take your own life because death is appealing – but because life is excruciating. And you wonder what it’s all for – all the struggling and suffering – what is the f**king point? Day in and day out, what is the point of hurting so damn much? She didn’t want to die. She just didn’t want to be in pain anymore. I know. I know. I’ve been there, too.
I think back to one of the times Willow showed up at my foster home, drunk and high on who knows what. I think she was twelve, maybe thirteen. It was right before I left for San Diego. I snuck out and walked her back to her foster home, only ten blocks away. I remember being so frustrated with her that night. It was like, no matter how many times I tried to make her safe, tried to protect her from the kids who didn’t give a shit about her, she always ended back in the same spot anyway. It was exhausting.
As I was walking her home, she had looked up at me, eyes glazed and her voice slurred and said, "Leo, why are you nice to me?" And the expression on her face said that it was honestly a mystery she couldn’t explain.
I had looked at her for a minute and finally answered, "Because I care about you, Willow."
"But, why?" she had asked.
"Because we’re friends, okay?" I had said.
But really, I think the thing that made me feel protective of Willow was different than the thing that made me feel protective of Evie. I think I saw a part of myself in Willow. And that’s how I knew that no matter how many nice things me or Evie or anyone did for her or said to her, she was going to keep believing the things that all those others who came before us had told her. My dad had beat my ass and told me I was a worthless waste of space and Evie loved me. Why was it so easy to believe that I deserved the former and that I didn’t deserve the latter? I didn’t know, but I knew Willow and I had more in common than I cared to think about at the time. I got her, even though I wished like hell I didn’t. Still, I had thought I was stronger than her – until I wasn’t.
I come back to myself as I see Evie walking toward the group from the opposite direction from where I came in. She's wearing a sleeveless, black dress and black heels and she has her hair pulled back. I can see the outline of her shape perfectly in the form-fitting outfit and I wonder what it would feel like to move my hands up her slightly rounded h*ps until they met at her small waist. I want that so badly it almost physically hurts.
The minister begins speaking and I'm listening to his words, but I can't move my eyes away from Evie. Every few minutes, she wipes tears out of her eyes with a tissue and it costs me not to run to her and comfort her in some way. I press my body into the tree to keep myself from going to her.
Fifteen minutes later, Evie moves to the front of the group to deliver the eulogy and as she takes her place, she looks straight at me, her brow furrowing slightly. Shit, what is she thinking? There's no way she could recognize me from this distance, could she? The more likely reason is that I look out of place in this motley looking crowd. Willow's taste in friends hadn't changed much over the years, I see. Evie stares at me for a beat or two and then her eyes shift back to the people in front of her. It's the first time our eyes have met in eight years and I feel it in the depth of my soul, the moment seeming to stand still and shimmer around me.
Still, my undoing happens several minutes later when Evie starts speaking and tells one of her stories for Willow. Fuck me.
"Once upon a time a very special, beautiful little girl was sent to a faraway land by the angels to live an enchanted life, full of love and happiness. They called her The Glass Princess because her laugh reminded them of the tinkling, glass bells that were hung on heaven's gate and would chime each time a new soul was welcomed. But her name was also appropriate for her because she was very sensitive and loved very deeply, and hers was a heart that could be easily broken.
"During the arrangement of her trip to this faraway land, one of the newer angels made a mistake, and a mix up occurred, sending The Glass Princess to a place that she wasn't supposed to be, a dark, ugly area, ruled mostly by gargoyles and other evil creatures. But, when a soul is placed in human skin, it is a permanent situation that cannot be changed. Although the angels cried in despair for the fate The Glass Princess would have to bear, there was nothing they could do, other than to watch over her and try their best to lead her in the right direction, away from the land of gargoyles and evil creatures.
"Unfortunately, very soon after The Glass Princess arrived in this land, the cruelty of the beasts around her created the first large crack in her very breakable heart. And although many other less-evil creatures tried to love the princess, for she was very beautiful and very easy to love, the princess's heart continued to crack until it crumbled completely, leaving the princess heartbroken forever.