Prologue
Five years ago
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
My mothers colleague squeezed my hand as she offered her condolences. I responded with a polite nod before she found her way to the pews and took her seat.
I hadn’t expected to see a lot of people attend my mother’s funeral, but about thirty people showed up. It was a little shocking, to say the least.
“Didn’t expect to see so many people here,” my best friend voiced her thoughts out loud from beside me. “Do you think half of them are here just to make sure she really is dead? You know, like we are?”
Amanda’s thought process didn’t surprise me, not when it matched my own. And not when those thoughts didn’t surprise me. Because even though some of them did look sad that she was gone, there were more people staring at the ceiling in boredom. And I couldn’t blame them.
My mother wasn’t a good person. I hadn’t cried a single tear from the moment I got the news that she had died.
I was an only child, and she had been a single mother. One would think that a mother would love her only child, but I had seen firsthand that it wasn’t always the case. I didn’t know what I had done for her to hate me as much as she did.
She just wasn’t present. She didn’t encourage me to do good, she didn’t show affection, and she basically just didn’t care if I lived or died.
And while the physical abuse was horrible, the scars and bruises had healed from that. But the scars left inside my heart had never healed, and probably never would.
“What do you think happens after you die?” Amanda asked.
I looked at her as I thought about the words that appeared in my thoughts.
“I don’t know, but my mother once said that every time someone dies, they level up. Like when you die in your human-form, you can’t be reborn with lesser value. Like flies, or koalas. Some stupid shit like that.”
“Ruth said that? Well, did you ask her what would happen to humans? Wouldn’t a human be like the last level in that scenario? Well, that’s depressing to think about.”
I shrugged. “Imagine, you start your life in a poor family, starving, trying to get by. No money, no future, no education. That’s not someone who’s in the last level.”
I painted her a picture with my words. “So the last level has to be you, as a rich, famous person. No money problems. You have everything you’ve ever dreamed of, and more. Love, children, happiness.”
“That would mean we have a long way to go,” I looked at her and we both bursted out laughing.
When the giggles subsided, we lowered our heads for a minute of silence. It wasn’t nice to laugh at a church like this.
“What do you think happens after death?” I asked her.
“Nothing,” Amanda murmured softly. “Just nothing. Like when you close your eyes, and see nothing. Because there is nothing anymore. You don’t exist.”
“And that’s not depressing?” I asked her, but I had to agree with her. Neither of us believed in God or the afterlife. No heaven or hell. So nothingness seemed about right for us.
“I guess we’ll find out sooner or later, won’t we,” she said.
The funeral went on without a hitch. When the priest asked if someone wanted to say something about my mother, no one rushed to the altar. Not even me. No one was surprised about that. There wasn’t anyone in that church who had something nice to say about her. That hadn’t been any different while she had still been alive too, so it was oddly fitting.
After two hours of funeral stuff, me and Amanda found ourselves getting drunk in my living room. We were sitting on the plush, white carpet that felt as soft as a hug every time I stepped on it. That’s why I, more often than not, found myself sitting on the floor instead of the couch.
”How do you feel?”
”Like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders.” I confessed. “Does that make me an awful person?“I asked as I poured myself and Amanda another shot of tequila, salt already coating my wrist and lemon wedges waiting on a plate next to the bottle.
“No.” She downed her shot and bit the lemon. “I hate that you never got to experience what it feels like to have your mother as your best friend.”
I shrugged. “Can’t miss what you’ve never had.”
To be honest, I had been jealous of Amanda’s relationship with her mother. Her entire family was so warm and welcoming, and I had to watch Amanda’s upbringing from the sidelines, wishing I belonged there.
Every time I had made eye contact with her mother, it felt like a blanket full of love had fallen upon me, and I felt that even before we’d exchange pleasantries.
I hated my mother, knowing what we could’ve had. She had robbed me of the chance to be loved by those closest to me. I hated that she had given birth to me at all. Then I never would’ve had to live the life I had.
Amanda eyed me up and down with her kicked puppy-dog look.
“Stop that!” I kicked her gently under the table. “Today we celebrate.”
And that was the last thing I remembered.
