Remorse

"I thought you weren't coming."

Todd turned towards the sound of the voice, and spotted a matronly old woman sitting across the aisle in a cruelly straight-backed plastic chair. She was looking at him with disapproval. Why the hell are you here, when you are the reason for all of this? Maybe it wasn't really disapproval. Maybe it was just blame fed by blind hurt.

"Mom called me, Granny," he replied curtly. "She cried. I caved. I'm here."

Todd was suddenly and intensely aware of the mournful black clothing worn by almost every person in the room... Compared to his white tee shirt and jeans. They all cast furtive -- and sometimes not so furtive -- glances over their shoulders at Todd, before turning to whisper to the next person conspiratively. Todd read all he needed to read in those little looks and antics. He was confronted with it almost as if they were speaking out loud. They were accusing him.

"You shouldn't have come," the old woman replied, and her lip curled slightly in a poor attempt to conceal a sneer.

Hateful old bitch, Todd thought passionately.

"My mom understands unlike most people here," Todd replied, once again speaking quickly to make his point.

To ignore those accusing stares.

"I probably wouldn't have come otherwise," he finished, and tension crackled in his volatilely quiet voice.

Those accusing stares.

They spoke to Todd. Oh you might not believe that. But they spoke to him. The little hate-filled glances were like knives stabbing into his heart remorselessly.

What right do you have to be here?

If it weren't for you, he'd still be alive...

I wish it would have been you...

The last one -- from Todd's own father sitting stiff and proud in the front row -- sank deeper into Todd's heart than he had ever thought was possible. He let out a sound that started as a sob and ended in a discreet sneeze.

"Got a cold?" the old man sitting beside Todd's grandmother asked in words dripping with something close to mock sympathy.

His eyes added to the conversation, You deserve much worse. Go to hell, you little fucking bastard.

Todd didn't even respond to his grandfather. He stared straight ahead, his own blank gaze cutting through the stares of those in his view. The stares didn't stop, but they slowed to a crawl as the more hateful ones pressed on.

Todd remembered seeing a hateful glance like that from his younger brother, just recently. It had hurt him. It had made him angry. They had said things that brothers shouldn't say to each other. The disagreement had broken into a fistfight. More words had been exchanged, and Trent had driven away in a huff.

Todd never saw him again.

The doors at the back of the room opened, and Todd turned in the plastic chair to see who else had arrived to add another fresh stare. He closed his eyes and sighed as he saw who it was. The new arrival spotted Todd as well.

It was his older brother, Colin.

Colin walked over, nodding politely to a few of the people he passed. They whispered words of comfort to him, and he listened as patiently as he could before moving on. His eyes kept focusing on Todd and hardening.

Eventually, he reached Todd's row and sat beside him.

"Why are you here, you son of a bitch?" he whispered, keeping his eyes locked with Todd's in a death grip.

Todd started to turn away. Colin's hand shot out and gripped his shoulder and jerked him back around to the staredown.

"Talk to me, you fucking coward," he said softly.

His voice was beginning to shake.

"What's on your mind?" Todd responded just as softly.

They were making a scene. Scenes made Todd nervous, especially when the people watching the scene were wishing he was dead.

"Why did you have to hit him, Todd?" Colin asked, almost pleading for an answer now.

Some of the remnant of his buried love for Todd shone in his eyes. It was quickly washed away by the terrible tsunami of hate.

"You weren't there," Todd responded softly. "You didn't see his face before he drove away. You think you're hurting? You have no idea what hurting really is."

His own eyes hardened now. He was sick of turning the other cheek.

"I'm walking out the door right now," he said in a rising voice.

He stood up and Colin stood with him.

"You don't know a god-damn thing about hurting," Todd yelled.

He was addressing the whole room now. Everyone had turned in their seats to silently survey him.

"None of you do!" Todd shouted.

"Todd--" Colin started to say, with something like remorse in his eyes.

"No, let him go!" Todd's father bellowed, standing up and turning around to face Todd. "He had no god-damned right to be here in the first place."

"In that case..." Todd retorted. "Let's not complicate things further, you fucking hypocrite!"

He turned on his heel and stormed out of the funeral home. He lowered his head as he passed the table lined with pictures of his smiling brother. Trent would never smile again. He was laying at the head of that room, in a box. Todd had told Trent to get the fuck out of the house or he would kill him.

He regretted it.

Trent had driven away, upset. At some point on his aimless pissed-off ride through the backroads, he had pulled out the bottle of tequila. Half a bottle later Trent was on dream street and his car was on a collision course with the thirty-foot drop off the curve it had plowed towards.

They hadn't blamed Trent for the tragic loss of his life. They blamed Todd for upsetting him that much.

Todd climbed into his little blue Honda and a bitter little smirk twitched on his lips. He pulled out the bottle of whiskey from the bag sitting on the passenger seat. He turned the keys in the ignition.

Todd pulled out of that parking lot, swigging sureptitiously from the bottle of Jack Daniels and reaching optimal cruising speed.

I blame you, too, a smug voice said from the back of his mind.

 

Thanks, guys. Weed is good inspiration. I based it on me and my brother. I have a horrible feeling that this will happen soon.

 

Well thank you.

But yes, very ominous indeed.