When Isaac arrived at the Cole house, everything seemed so out of place. The air about the people was thick�he could understand. Everything was just so weird without Gracie there.
Susan Cole answered the door and let the three in. Diana immediately took her aside as she began to cry again. Taylor ran off to find Ren� while Isaac wandered around, not quite sure what to do with himself. He didn't really fit in without Gracie; he never had. Even when the two families met while Gracie was in the hospital he never knew how to act because he didn't have his girlfriend there to hold his hand and whisper "It's okay�"
He sat down in the living room. No one else was in there. He could hear his mother speaking with Mrs. Cole out in the front room. His father stayed home with the other kids; only Diana, Taylor and himself had come. Although the families were close, it wouldn't be right to bring the younger children. They didn't understand and might as inappropriate questions.
The sound of someone walking into the room caused him to lift his head. Sarah walked in and sat next to him, not saying anything. She looked pale but she didn't look like she had been crying. Ren� was bawling her eyes out on Taylor upstairs, he'd heard her when she'd opened her door. Isaac was on the same level with Sarah�too shocked to cry.
They sat in a surprisingly comfortable silence for a while, enjoying the company of someone else who knew how it felt. His pain wasn't half of hers but he had loved her and that had to count for something. And the way he was feeling at that moment�he didn't want to know how Sarah felt. He thought he was upset but imagine her twin sisters.
"I should have known she was going to kill herself when she started going around telling people she loved them. I should have seen the gun and I should have stopped her. I could have stopped her," Sarah said.
"No you couldn't. Gracie was so intent on killing herself that she would have done it in any way she could. Yeah, maybe you could have stopped her this time, but she would have tried it again. It was either now or in a little while when she could have gotten a hold of something else."
"Maybe I'd be a little more prepared then." Isaac shook his head.
"No, we'd be having the same conversation, just at a different time." Sarah sighed.
"Ren� is upstairs bawling her eyes out and I can't even cry. I don't get it. It seems she's taking this so much harder than I am. I'm her sister too. I'm her twin too. I'm a third of her and I can't even cry over her."
"Sarah, you're just in too much shock right now. Maybe you'll cry later. Maybe not. There's no proper way to grieve. You miss your sister, don't you? You wish this didn't happen, right?" Sarah nodded. "Then you're on the same page as Ren�, you're just interpreting the directions differently." She turned to him.
"When did you get so philosophical, Isaac Hanson?"
"When my girlfriend died." She nodded, and looked away.
"So what's your reason for taking this so easy?" she asked, still not looking back at him.
"I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel. I'm actually mad at her for doing this to herself and making everybody suffer like this, but I know I shouldn't be mad at her because she's gone. And I actually accept that she's gone; I'm not expecting her to jump out of a hiding place and yell 'gotcha.' But as for grieving�I don't know if I can just yet."
"It'll come. When you really start to miss her I think all of us are going to be grieving in our own ways."
"Oh I already miss her, but that's because the last time I saw her was three weeks ago."
Diana walked in the room with her purse. "Isaac, can you go out and get some ice?" She reached in her purse and pulled out a few dollars then handed it to him. He didn't move, questioning her silently. "We're out of ice. Go down to the store and get a bag of ice." He still didn't move. "Now!"
"Come on, I'll go with you," Sarah said, standing up. Isaac stood, shaking his head. He was trying to cope with his girlfriend's death by talking to her twin sister and his mother wanted him to go out and buy ice.
Sarah and Isaac went out to get ice, the simple act of going somewhere together making the both of them feel uncomfortable. Isaac noticed that Sarah had Gracie's handkerchief in her pocket, it stuck out like a sore thumb against her black jeans. He declined to make a comment about it. Sarah could do what she wanted, as long as she wouldn't let herself be held back in life by the death of her sister.
He walked almost numbly through the store, Sarah tagging along. Neither said a word, which was contradictory to when they were in the house, chatting away about the proper way to grieve. He was risking the chance of getting recognized. There were a lot of people there, especially for this time of day. He'd been getting recognized often lately, but maybe the two of them were giving off vibes that they didn't want to be bugged.
Sarah found the ice first and grabbed a bag and they went silently to the cash register. Isaac paid for the ice and they walked out of the store, unnoticed. They walked back to Sarah's car (she was the one who drove to the store) and Isaac put the bag of ice on the back seat. Sarah got behind the wheel and Isaac sat next to her. She didn't move.
"I don't think they want us back just yet," Sarah said. "We have enough ice at home; your mother just wanted us out of the house. They're probably doing something they don't want us to see so they sent us out. If Ren� is crying as hard as she was before you came, she won't come out of her room for a while so they won't have to worry about her. Do you want to go somewhere? I say we don't even head back home for another ten minutes."
"No, how about we just sit here for a little while." He glanced to the back seat. "You know, if we stay out too long the ice will melt."
"Then it'll melt. I bet when we get there they won't even ask for it. As for the back seat�it'll dry." A silence filled the car again. This time it wasn't as comfortable and it felt awkward to sit without speaking. Neither had anything to say. All kind words had been exchanged already, there was no more small talk left. Both of them watched the minutes tick by on the car's clock, and a good ten minutes later Sarah started up the car and began to head back home.
Halfway home Sarah finally said something. "So what are you going to do now that Gracie's gone? I have a feeling you won't be coming around to see us much anymore. You never really fit in without Gracie and we never really made an effort because we always thought she'd be around."
"I'll stop by with Taylor every once in a while, maybe to say hello, but otherwise I don't think so. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at you or Ren� without thinking about her. Frankly the less I see her, the easier it'll be to get over her." He sighed. "As it is it's gonna take a hell of a lot to get over her."
"Yeah, she was something else, wasn't she?"
"Definitely."
"You know I hear these stories about these people who've lived with schizophrenia for twenty�thirty years and turn out all right. Her doctor, Dr. Ward, he's had it for a good twenty-five years. I know Gracie would never be strong enough to live like that for so long. She had it for two weeks before she got sick of it and tried to kill herself. Then she tried it so many times that I actually stopped taking her seriously when she told me she wanted to do it. She even told me she wanted to kill herself and I just blew it off like it was nothing. Well I'll never make that mistake again."
"You know you couldn't have done anything to stop it."
"I'll keep telling myself that, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to accept it."
Sarah pulled up to her home and got out of the car. She took the ice and brought it inside, Isaac following close behind. She went into the kitchen and put the ice away before walking into the front room. Ren� was standing at the foot of the stairs, holding onto Taylor. She saw her sister and ran over.
"Sarah they're cleaning out her room!"
"What?!" Sarah yelled back. She ran up the stairs with Ren�. Isaac stayed at the foot of the stairs with Taylor. They didn't want to pry but they heard everything that was going on. "You're cleaning out her room already and we haven�t even had the funeral yet!" Sarah screamed at her parents in Gracie's room. Half the room was already packed and put into boxes so they could get rid of it. "I thought we agreed that we weren't going to clean out her room!"
"Sarah, we can't keep it like this forever�"
"Do you even care at all? Do you even care that your daughter is dead? At least wait until after the funeral!" Sarah began to grab the things out of her parent's hands and put them back where they belonged. Ren�, who had always been the strong and defiant one, didn't say a word as she stood in the doorway, her fist at her mouth and tears pouring out of her eyes. Sarah collapsed in the middle of the room and began to cry for the first time. Ren� walked in the room to comfort her sister, glancing up at her parents.
"Could you guys just leave? We're going to put everything back and we'll let you know if you can clean out the room later. Don't make us decide right now and definitely do not decide without us."
"Ren�, you're going to have to decide sometime."
"You could at least wait! It's been two days! Let me cope with the fact that my twin sister is dead, all right? After we've accepted that it stops hurting so damn much we'll let you know if you can get rid of all the stuff! I can't believe you're doing this now. And with Taylor and Isaac here! You could at least do this when her boyfriend's not downstairs. Sometimes the both of you have no clue how to do anything!"
Isaac and Taylor walked to the living room, sitting down as they heard the girls' parents heading down the stairs. Diana was somewhere in the house and met up with them in the front room. "Maybe you should take the boys home. I think the girls just needed to see them for a little while because they've been so isolated since Gracie died. They probably won't come down for the rest of the day. We'll see you at the funeral."
"All right. Boys!" Isaac and Taylor got up and walked to the front room. "We're leaving now." They said goodbye and left.
The funeral was bleak. It turned out the school had Gracie's entire grade attend the funeral. Gracie really wouldn't have wanted it that way, but the school insisted. They said it showed the support of the school. For Isaac it was just a whole bunch of people he didn't know in the back of the church making noise and taking up room. As it was he was wedged between Sarah and Ren� with Taylor wedged on the other side of Ren�.
He'd declined to speak a eulogy or even sing a song, knowing if he did someone from the school would recognize him and he preferred to be Gracie's boyfriend instead of Isaac Hanson at this funeral. There was so many things he would have liked to say, but couldn't say any of them at the risk of being recognized. That proved to be the biggest pitfall of his fame.
He zoned throughout most of the ceremony. Even though it took place quite a few days after Gracie died, he still hadn't coped with her death yet. Everything seemed like such a blur to him. Ren� and Sarah were sobbing through the whole thing while he could just sit there and watch and wait for it all to be over. The entire service had an informal air about it, mostly because of the people in the back who could really care less about being there. Gracie wasn't very well known, so they didn't seem to even know whose funeral they were at. They saw it as a ticket out of class for a little while.
When the funeral was over, he got up and left quickly. Leaving the rest of the family to cram into one car, he took the other one and left without a word to anyone. Over the past few days, ever since he found out, he'd been constantly hounded by his family and his friends�buried with 'I'm sorry' and 'It'll be okay' from people he didn't even want to talk to in the first place.
He got in the car and drove all of his thoughts of Gracie blown out the window. Sure he'd remember them once he stopped, and he'd have to explain to his parents why he left and where he went, but until the car ran out of gas, he drove and let his life fall into the innocence of yesterday.
© 2001 [email protected]