Grief is like sand, I think. A grain of sand weighs little–so little that unless you see it, you won’t know it’s there. A handful of sand weighs more than you’d think. It’s like holding weight itself in your hand. A sackful of sand takes a strong man indeed to lift it.
I am not a strong man.
Grief weighs me down, keeps me from moving, from living. I know this, but what can I do? It is the nature of sand to be heavy, and so it is with grief.
I am weak, and my sack is very full.
One more day. He could endure one more day. Tonight, tomorrow, and then he would be gone. Tomorrow would pass quickly in a flurry of packing, leaving only tonight.
The sheets rustled and clutched at him briefly as he rolled over to face the wall, momentarily breaking the silence. He hated his room, hated how quiet it was, how dead. It felt like a tomb–his tomb. He hated the whole place. Oh, the people were nice enough, but the place itself terrified him, like the thought of being buried alive.
One more day. One more day and he would be free.
Tulips lay scattered on the sidewalk, fallen from his hand. Through his torn jeans, rough concrete bit into his knees. One of his hands was probably bleeding, but for now shock kept him from looking.
Emanuel Black had almost run him over, but that wasn’t new. Manny was always doing things like that. But Grace–beautiful, kind Grace had been in the car with him, laughing. Why? He had come to thank her for helping him through sophomore year, to give her a gift. And she had laughed.
Jeremy looked at the broken flowers surrounding him, and felt something inside crack.
The physical letter lay forgotten on the table, wrinkled and almost torn by his shock, its contents burned in his mind. He had thought he knew his parents, had plumbed all their secrets–many, and well-buried. To find yet another. . . . Blind, he buried his face in his hands–not his father’s hands, as he’d long thought, but some other’s. The truth–when would he find the truth? When would the lies run dry, and the truth emerge? It felt like he was trying to sound the ocean, but he wasn’t so certain there was a bottom to this, or that he could find it.
