Mess Me Up

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  No more doctor appointments or grocery store runs. No more Hiccup or dragons in general. No late-night discussions on the phone about who I thought was the best superhero and why. No more waking up to find that he’d wet his bed or puked on his sheets.

  “Good,” he said softly. “That way you won’t hurt if I hurt.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, willing my tears not to fall.

  The fact that he cared more about me than he did himself fucking sucked.

  I hated that he loved me sometimes. It’d be easier if we’d never met.

  This pain in my chest wouldn’t feel like my entire world was ripping apart piece by piece.

  Then again, if I didn’t have my son, I wouldn’t have had four years of his smiles, hugs and little boy giggles. I wouldn’t have watched him learn how to army crawl or seen him take his first steps. I wouldn’t have held his trusting body while he slept for hours and hours on end. I wouldn’t have fed him peas and carrots that he’d just spit all over my shirt.

  I wouldn’t have learned how to live.

  And that, in itself, would’ve been the biggest tragedy of my life.

  “I love you, buddy,” I said suddenly. “You know that, don’t you?”

  He made a tired sound of agreement. “Duh. I’ve known that since forever.”

  The rumble in my chest sounded like laughter, but only I knew that it was my body’s attempt to hold the screams of denial at bay.

  I wanted to know why him? I wanted to know why God had decided to take my son. I wanted to know why…so many fucking whys.

  “I want you to tell Mommy that I’m not mad at her, and I don’t blame her for being scared,” Matias whispered.

  I felt a tear slip out past my clenched eyelids.

  “And don’t be too hard on her. There’s more than you can see,” he continued.

  His little hand clenched onto my shirt, and he sighed. “And don’t push Izzy away. She needs you as much as you need her.”

  Then he was asleep.

  I don’t know when it happened, but at some point, I’d fallen asleep, too.

  When I woke up, it was to find my phone ringing.

  I shifted, feeling my son’s limp body shift with me, and only then realized that he was no longer the little ball of heat he’d been when he fell asleep. Now he was like a ball of ice.

  My eyes startled open, and I felt panic hit my chest.

  I looked over to find Izzy sleeping next to me, her head laying on my thigh.

  My son’s foot was pressed against her forehead…and it was blue.

  My phone rang again, and Izzy opened her eyes.

  When she saw Ty-Ty’s blue foot, she gasped and got up onto the couch on her knees, a stricken look taking over her face in a matter of moments.

  Our eyes met, and that was when I knew that my baby didn’t need palliative care at all.

  Because he’d passed in my arms while I was asleep, and I didn’t even know it.

  Still, she scooted forward until she could press two fingers to his throat, her eyes staying locked with mine.

  And I knew then that she didn’t feel a pulse.

  I felt my heart drop somewhere between my knees.

  “You’re…you’re sure?” I asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  That was when Romero Pierce, father of Matias Pierce, ceased to exist, too.

  In his place was a shell of a man that would never be the same.

  Chapter 7

  I don’t care what your religion is. Just use your goddamn turn signal.

  -Izzy’s secret thoughts

  Izzy

  Planning a funeral was hard.

  Planning a child’s funeral was even harder.

  I wasn’t sure how I ended up being the liaison between the funeral home and Rome, but the man was in no shape to plan something like this.

  At first, he’d said he didn’t want one at all.

  After convincing him that he did, indeed, want one, he was just too devastated to plan it, so I’d taken over.

  “What color casket do you want?” the funeral home director asked.

  The funeral home director, a beautiful blonde with long, curly hair that hung down to nearly her waist even when it was bound in a ponytail. She was not at all what I’d expected in a funeral director, but she sure knew her stuff.

  I looked at all the options.

  “If money is an issue.” I held up my hand before she could finish.

  “It’s not an issue,” I shook my head. “I’m just trying to remember what his favorite color is…was.” I paused. “Can we have a custom casket made?”

  She nodded. “With children, that happens a lot more than you’d think. They’re decorated with their favorite animals…movie characters. That sort of thing.”

  I looked at my phone, and then called Tyler, Rome’s best friend who’d been staying with him since last night.

  “Hello?” Tyler answered quickly.

  “Uh, hey,” I said softly. “The director just asked me what color casket I wanted. I know from looking at him that his favorite color was red, but could you do me a favor and put me on with the big guy? I think that his name was…Ezekiel?”

  Moments later, a rumbly voice came on the line.

  Last night, I’d watched as Ezekiel had drawn Matias a picture of Toothless and Hiccup, and I saw the huge smile on Ty-Ty’s face as he’d accepted it. Then asked if he could hang it up on the living room wall.

  Rome hadn’t missed a beat and had gone and dismantled an old photo of what looked like an older couple, and immediately replaced it with the drawing.

  It’d been on lined notebook paper, but neither Rome or Matias cared.

  “Hello?”

  I startled. “Oh, sorry. Umm, I was wondering…those bikes that you were talking about painting last night…do you think you could do it to a coffin, too?”

  There was zero hesitation in Ezekiel’s voice when he answered. “Absolutely. If they have the coffin, I can start it tonight.”

  I looked over at Jubilee, the funeral director, and asked her, “Do you have one available right now?”

  She nodded. “Yes. He can pick it up any time.”

  “Yes,” I said. “You can come pick it up any time.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said.

  Then the line was dead.

  “What’s the next item on the list?”

  And on it went. Detail after detail was hammered out until nothing remained but one thing—payment.

  I handed her Rome’s credit card that he’d thrust at me as I’d walked out the door and said, “I don’t know what kind of limit this thing has…but let’s try it.”

  Seventeen thousand two hundred dollars and three cents later, I realized that there was probably no limit at all.

  ***

  My next stop was my Abuela’s.

  “I need food enough to feed like two hundred people,” I told her. “It needs to be comfort food. There needs to be all different kinds, too. Do you think you can handle that in four days?”

  My grandmother gave me a look that clearly said she wanted to laugh in my face.

  “For anybody else? No. For you? Yes.” She paused. “I’m sorry to hear of the little boy.”

  I was, too.

  In fact, sorry didn’t even begin to cover it. Devastated was more like it.

  What made it worse was Rome’s reaction.

  If I could ever take a look off of someone’s face, it’d have been Rome’s face when he realized he’d been holding his dead son in his arms for hours while his lifeless body grew cold.

  “The look on your face makes me want to shove some of my tamales down your throat, then wrap you up in a blanket like a little pig and cover your face in kisses while I rock you to sleep,” Abuela said.

  I smiled sadly. “Honestly? I could get behind that right now.”

  Admitting that was akin to spilling my guts, and h
er eyes widened in shock.

  “I don’t like this,” she muttered. “I’m eighty years old. I should die first because I’m the next in line. The young should always outlive the old.”

  I agreed.

  Unfortunately, life didn’t freakin’ work like that. It wasn’t always fair or kind. Shit got real, and miracles didn’t always happen for the ones who deserved them the most.

  “I’ll get the food ready. You come with the man’s truck and pick it up.” She paused. “You okay to walk home? You look tired.”

  I smiled. I wasn’t going to go home, but she didn’t need to know that I was walking another three miles back to Rome’s place.

  All she needed to know was that I was going to go home…eventually.

  “Yes, Abuela,” I murmured. “I’m headed home. Can I have a hug?”

  She didn’t miss a beat.

  And I carried the warmth of that hug with me as I walked down the street with the nippy air biting at my ears, nose, and cheeks.

  By the time that I arrived back at Rome’s place, it was to find it just as busy as it was when I’d left.

  Only everyone was outside and none of them were inside.

  I frowned as I walked up the driveway and came to a stop next to the closest man—Liner.

  “What’s going on?” I asked carefully.

  Liner’s dark brown eyes looked down at me with not even a hint of emotion showing.

  “Rome’s calling people,” he said. “Telling them what happened.”

  I scrunched my brows up in confusion. “And y’all didn’t offer to help?”

  Liner raised a brow at them. “We don’t know any of them.”

  I shrugged, then without another word, walked into the house that was uncomfortably quiet except for Rome’s deep voice from somewhere that sounded like the kitchen area.

  I followed the sound of his voice and didn’t stop out of respect right outside of hearing range. Nope, not me. I walked right up to him, gestured at him to give me the phone, and said, “Go get a shower. Do you have a list of people that you want called?”

  Rome looked at me blankly. “That’s my mom. My dad’s next. Then my brothers.”

  With that, he walked away and didn’t come back for so long that I began to get worried about him.

  After making the calls, searching in his contact list for the rest of his family, I realized that Rome’s family were a bunch of assholes.

  None of them seemed overly upset that a little boy had lost his life. Rome’s mother, after her fake sobbing finished up, said that she’d be there if she could make it.

  The same went for Rome’s father, and three brothers. All of whom were apparently too busy at work to make it down.

  The final person I called was someone that said ‘grandmother’ in his phone.

  She answered in a matter of moments, exclaiming with so much hope in her voice that it was almost really hard to tell her that I wasn’t Rome.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “But Rome isn’t able to come to the phone right now. I just wanted to call you with some news.”

  It wasn’t until I’d hung up on the sobbing old woman that I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have called that particular person seeing as Rome hadn’t expressly told me to.

  Worried that I’d overstepped, I went to find the man himself, stopping when I saw him still completely dressed in the same clothes I’d sent him up here an hour ago to change.

  He was standing in the room that had been Matias’ for only a short period of time.

  “Rome?” I called hesitantly.

  Rome looked at me, his expression blank.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you want me to help you wash your hair?”

  I wouldn’t get in the shower with him, but it was more than obvious that he needed some direction.

  Otherwise he wouldn’t be looking so freakin’ lost.

  “No,” he admitted, sounding just as lost as he looked. “I’m okay.”

  With that, he walked into his room and shut the door, and I waited right outside of it for what felt like two hours before he appeared again. This time freshly showered.

  Deciding to count my blessings, I held my hands out for the clothes. “I’ll take those.”

  He gave them to me without protest.

  “You need to take a nap,” I told him.

  He laughed. “I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead.”

  With that ominous comment, he walked back down the stairs and started doing other useless things that he didn’t need to do.

  This time, I left him to it.

  It was only later that I approached him and asked him if he’d called Tara.

  His answer had been an instant hard no.

  But, my Abuela didn’t call me hardheaded for nothing.

  “Would you want to know?” I asked softly, waiting for the anger that I knew that wasn’t far in coming.

  His answer was vicious and felt like a whip against my sensitive skin.

  “I would have never left my child in the first place.”

  His snapped words made me brace myself for the next words that would follow once I said the next thing that was on the tip of my tongue.

  And I knew it had to be said.

  “Have you looked past the anger and the hurt of her leaving to question why she left in the first place?” I asked. “Everyone deals with grief differently, Rome Pierce.”

  Rome opened his mouth to reply, to slap me with his words, taking his anger and helplessness of the situation out on me.

  But, he didn’t get a chance to.

  Mostly because I left before he could hurl any more words in my direction. But not before I said a few more words over my shoulder as I was leaving.

  “Tomorrow we celebrate your little boy’s life.” I paused. “And your son asked you to forgive Tara. Maybe you should question why.”

  Chapter 8

  Nod and smile. Plot your escape.

  -What to do during small talk

  Rome

  Funerals were depressing.

  What was even more depressing was when that funeral was for someone you loved.

  What was far more depressing than that was when that funeral was for a little boy who should’ve died well after you.

  The order of our deaths was reversed. The parent is always supposed to pass before the child. That’s just the way it was.

  Didn’t God know that?

  The big man upstairs had gotten a lot of things right over the years. He’d brought my son to me in the first place. At first, I hadn’t wanted him. He’d been a constant reminder of something stupid I’d done while I was drunk. He might’ve been a mistake, but I had warmed up to the idea of him over the course of his gestation.

  I’d been given that little boy, and I hadn’t even known that I’d needed him.

  But, the moment his little fingers wrapped around my one, I realized that I’d needed him from the beginning, and someone upstairs had known it.

  They’d known that my life was meaningless. They’d known that I was on the fast track to caring about nothing and nobody.

  Matias had forced me to slow down. Matias had taught me lesson after lesson in humility, kindness, and perseverance.

  I’d only had him for four years, but his presence in my life altered me to my core.

  I thought I had no more tears left to cry…but I did.

  Four years after he’d been given to me, he’d been taken away.

  Today was the day that we’d celebrate his short life, and today was the day that I finally realized that he wouldn’t be coming home ever again.

  I sat alone in my pew.

  At least at first.

  I wasn’t left there like I’d asked to be.

  The entire row behind me was filled with the members of my club, while my pew was filled by first Tyler, then Reagan, followed shortly by my grandmother whom I hadn’t spoken to in wel
l over four years—when I fucked up and lashed out at the one blood relative I had who’d ever given a damn.

  It was nice of her to come, even though I hadn’t called her.

  I knew that she’d seen my son. She’d been a part of his life.

  Tara had allowed that, even taking it a step farther by inviting her over to help with Matias when I wasn’t there, knowing that we’d had a falling out.

  Which was why a part of me was convinced Tara wasn’t all that bad.

  Tara was a good person, even though she did some bad things.

  So that had been why I’d called her to explain what had happened, hoping that she would answer my call when she hadn’t answered Izzy’s.

  She hadn’t called back, but I knew she’d listen to the voicemail.

  I also knew that she’d be at the funeral.

  Though she wouldn’t come up here.

  Last night I’d had a lot of time to do some thinking over the matter of Tara since being awake was way better than what I faced in my dreams—reminders that I’d lost something great—and what I’d come up with was that Tara hadn’t wanted to leave.

  I’d gone back through the signs, remembered the way her eyes had looked bloodshot, and her face and skin pale. Her mouth had been drawn, and every step she took looked like she’d been slogging through mud up to her knees.

  Izzy had helped me figure out the rest.

  Not that I’d been super kind to her or anything.

  I’d tried my level best to get her to fight with me, mostly because she was the only one treating me like I was an adult and not some broken doll who would completely shatter if given half a chance.

  Speaking of the devil.

  I saw her walk in the church, and when she went to sit somewhere in the middle, I stood up and gestured her over with my head.

  Izzy looked taken by surprise for a few moments. She swallowed and then nodded once before heading to me.

  She went to sit down at the end of the pew, the farthest away from me, but I caught her before she could get past me, and deftly maneuvered her to where she was sitting on one side of me, with Tyler on the other.

  Together we sat silently and stared ahead.

  My gaze bounced back and forth between the picture of my beautiful baby boy to the coffin that was painted so beautifully to match Matias’ favorite movie. Hiccup and Toothless flew together in the black night sky, nothing around them but stars.