This is day 22 of @mydivathings's #365daysofwriting challenge. Every day she invites you to write a short story based on the image she chooses. Today's image (below) is a Photo by Uroš Jovičić on Unsplash
Find out more about the challenge (you can join anytime!) here @mydivathings/day-22-365-days-of-writing-challenge
This story is part six of a longer story. You can read this part as a standalone piece or you can read part one here: @felt.buzz/reunion-an-original-work-of-fiction-for-the-365daysofwriting-challenge
and part two here: @felt.buzz/reunion-part-2-an-original-work-of-fiction-for-the-365daysofwriting-challenge
and part three here: @felt.buzz/reunion-part-3-an-original-work-of-fiction-for-the-365daysofwriting-challenge
and part four here: @felt.buzz/reunion-part-4-an-original-work-of-fiction-for-the-365daysofwriting-challenge
and part five here: @felt.buzz/reunion-part-5-an-original-work-of-fiction-for-the-365daysofwriting-challenge
The night before Justin’s funeral there was a full moon. It was also the night that people lost their shit.
Mitch was avoiding spending time alone with Al. He was so fucking judgmental, so pious, so holier than fucking thou. Mitch wanted to tell his brother the truth of what really happened that night. That it was Justin’s idea (not his, not Mitch’s) to take the hit - poor fucking choice of words, Mitch - for the accident, for everything. Didn’t he know that he was fucking suffering too? He’d always had a special bond with Justin. To know that he was never gonna see him, again. Hear his lame fucking jokes. To see his smile. To know that if they hadn’t done what they’d done that night, or at least if they had done one or two things different - or if Justin had just learned to read a fucking map properly! - that instead of some sad-arse wake, they could be out on the town, or chatting shit in front of the telly.
Mamie wanted a wake. A proper one, the night before the funeral. With Justin’s body in the front room, like you see on all those Irish independent films. Luckily, the funeral director talked her out of that one. Fucking hell, Mitch really couldn’t have handled that shit.
He had moved back into his old room, again. Just for tonight and tomorrow, he said to Mamie. Just for you. For Justin, too, she said. Yeah, he had said, hugging her. For Justin, too.
Al had brought round his girlfriend, Amy. Bright, funny and sexy. She was way out of Al’s league. They seemed good together. And at least, when Al was with her, he wasn’t giving Mitch shit.
After the funeral, Mitch was going to have to put a stop to Al's bullshit. It was only out of respect for Mamie, for Justin, he hadn’t kicked the little fuckers head in.
Friends, and what little family the Dixon’s had, came round earlier and everyone raised a glass to Justin. Tomorrow was going to be difficult. Justin wasn’t going to be buried in the plot next to his father, like they wanted. No. Because he had taken his own life, the vicar said, he couldn’t be buried in the churchyard. It was another fucking kick in the teeth for Mamie. Mitch had had a word with the prick. First offered him money, then threatened him. Best he could offer was a plot on the northside of the church. With all the other suicides.
In the end, they had decided on cremation. Mamie was against it at first, but Mitch said that Justin had said that’s what he’d wanted - he hadn’t but she needed to hold on to something - and that way they could - under the cover of darkness - bury him next to Dad. Like Burke and fucking Hare, in reverse
What the vicar didn’t know, couldn’t fucking hurt him.
When most people had gone, Mitch went outside for a cigarette. He could have smoked it inside, but he needed some space. He looked up, through the leaves of the tree at the end of the garden, at the moon.
Fucking hell, Justin.
Mitch watched the smoke from his cigarette drift upwards, towards the moon. He had been about to step forward. To come clean. He really had. When it was clear that Justin wasn’t just going to get a slap on the wrist, that the likely outcome of the trial would be that Justin would be given a signifcant sentence, Mitch had decided he was going to hand himself in. But Justin couldn’t wait. Sick of the bullying, of the prospect of spending years in that place, he had taken things into his own hands.
Confession was good for the soul, apparently. Well, not this fucking soul. And the truth would kill Mamie. So keeping it to himself was just as much for her sake as for his.
“You got another one of those?”
Amy was standing next to him, a tumbler of red wine in her hand. Reluctantly, Mitch offered her one, and lit it, shielding the flame with his other hand.
“I only met him once,” Amy said, smoke trickling from her mouth. “He seemed nice. Gentle.”
“He was a good lad,” Mitch said, wishing she would go the fuck away.
“Al doesn’t like you very much,” she said, looking Mitch in the eye. “He thinks you know more about the accident than you’ve said.”
She sounded drunk. Speech slower than earlier, a slight slur.
“Fuck off, Amy,” Mitch said, crushing his cigarette under the sole of his shoe. “I’m gonna be burying my baby brother tomorrow, I don’t need this shit.”
“Don’t be like that Mitch. I’m just trying to figure it all out, you know?”
“Ever thought it wasn’t your fucking place to figure it all out? You’re not fucking family, Amy. You’re just someone Al is shagging. Now, please just fuck off. I need some fucking space.”
“Well, isn’t this nice and cosy,” Al said, standing on the patio, looking at the two of them. “Not content in killing our brother, you want to have a go at my girlfriend too?”
Al was definitely drunk. Mitch watched him sway his way down the steps to the lawn. He slapped Mitch on the back.
“Well, big brother? How many lives are you going to ruin, before you realise we’d all be better off without you?”
“You’re drunk, Al. Out of respect for Mamie, for Justin, I’m going to let that go. But I’m giving you fair warning. Once the funeral is over, this shit stops.”
“This shit stops,” Al said, mimicking Mitch’s voice. “Oh, aren’t you the big fucking man.”
“Al, let’s go back inside,” Amy said, crushing her cigarette into the grass with her heel. “Come on.”
She reached to take his arm, but Al snatched it away.
“I don’t want to go back inside,” he said. “I want to know what my girlfriend is doing in the garden with my fucking waste-of-space brother.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Mitch said.
Amy moved towards Al, again. This time he pushed her and she ended on the ground.
“Fuck you, both,” he said. He staggered back up the garden and back through the patio doors.
Mitch helped Amy up.
“He’ll have gone to his room,” he said. “He was always doing that, as a kid. Start an argument, and then run off to his room.”
“Well, I’m going home,” Amy said, rubbing at a grass stain on her skirt.
Mitch took one more look at the moon, through the trees.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you home.”
...
You can find the next part here: @felt.buzz/reunion-part-7-an-original-work-of-fiction-for-the-365daysofwriting-challenge