Free Grief Girl by Erin Vincent

sad / I simply remember my favorite things and then I don’t feel soooo bad.” Somehow brown paper packages tied up with string won’t cut it today.
    The car has stopped and Frances gets out. From here in the car I can see the hole and the green Astroturf stuck down on the ground around it.
    I don’t think I can watch them put her in there. I’m shaking. I don’t know what to do. I want to ask the driver, but he’s staring straight ahead. Maybe he’s lucky enough to never have been to the funeral of someone he’s actually cared about.
    I’m going to scream. I can’t move. I can’t get out of the car. I can’t. It’s so wrong of me, Mum, and I’m sorry, but I can’t stand there and watch it. I’m sorry.
    Tracy’s walking toward my car, so I press the window button down. I tell her I’m unable to get out and be decent enough to go to all of my mother’s funeral and she walks away. She seems almost happy. I leave the window down. There are flies buzzing around but I don’t care.
    It’s my mother’s funeral and lots of people are here, but only one member of our family is up there saying goodbye. I can see Grandma and Grandpa, but they don’t count. I wonder what Dad’s doing right now. Can he feel it?
    Here I sit. Wearing a pink dress in a car with beige interior. God, I hate beige. It does offset the pink nicely, though. I can only just hear what the minister is saying, unless a fly buzzes past and I miss it altogether. I can see everyone on the hill from the waist up, standing around the grave. I can’t see Tracy.
    Oh no, oh no! No no no no no! They’re putting the coffin in the ground now. I can see the men using those white rope things to lower her down. I can’t sit here and I can’t move. I can’t do anything. There’s absolutely nothing I can do.
    This is it. This is the end.
    My mother is gone. She’s in a box and she’s not getting out.
    She’s dead dead dead dead dead. She’s hasn’t passed away. She’s dead. Dead as a doornail, six feet under, pushing up the daisies.
    She’s gone and here they all come down the hill crying and talking softly. Don’t come near me, I tell them with my look. And they don’t. I sort of wanted them to, though.
    So it’s done and we drive away.
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    It’s time for my uncles and their wives to go back to their daily lives, and it’s time for us to get back to ours.
    Whatever is left of them.
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    I thought the funeral was meant to help, but I just feel worse.
    I can’t do this living thing anymore. It’s too much effort.
    I can’t sleep and I can’t be awake. I want to disappear from the world so I don’t have to deal with the day-today. I want to die. Then I won’t have to bother with anything. I know Trent might miss me, but after a while he’ll see that he’s better off without someone like me, someone who’s miserable all the time. Actually, misery’s not even the half of it.
    God, let me die. Maybe I’ll be hit by a car too. I can’t seem to kill myself. I don’t have a gun and I don’t have the guts to stab myself with a kitchen knife. Maybe I could OD on something. Why can’t I just go to sleep and never wake up?
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    It’s been a week since the funeral, and my fingernails look horrible. I can’t stop munching on them. It’s worse than ever. I shouldn’t care about my stupid nails, but for some reason I do. Mum always said biting would ruin my nail beds.
    Well,
I’m
in control now. They’re my nails and I can do what I want with them. There’s no one to stop me. No one whose permission I have to ask. So three weeks after the accident, I go to a nail salon. I’ve walked past it many times but have never gone in. It’s all