The Truth Behind Makeup

I left the hospital two weeks later.

Matt was in jail.

Jason was my boyfriend.

And my dad divorced Catherine.

And I was truly happy.

But if I tell you that, I have to tell you that my mother never died.

That I never met Jason.

And Matt was still an impossible boy to reach.

The truth is that those dresses I told you about, the ones Catherine bought.

The roses she sent to be dyed.

The debt they had.

It was all because of me.

I’m going to lie and say it was worth living for that moment.

The one where your smile was so big that you were afraid it would tear your face apart. When your stomach hurt because of all those butterflies that were restless. The one where there was no place you’d rather be?

The one where all the suffering was worth it.

The one where all that crying and depression seem to be a silly joke your feelings were bestowing upon you.

I’m not going to say that watching Jason and my Dad bawl their eyes out at the service was worth that moment.

In fact.

I would do anything.

Anything.

For Jason not to cry.

For my mom to know that I love her.

For me not to have been so stupid.

For me not to covered up Matt’s tracks with makeup.

For this funeral never to have taken place.

Because you see.

If you follow the camera to where it stops and zooms in.

My tombstone reads,

Samantha Ellis
1991-2009
Beloved daughter.

But what it doesn’t say is how I died.

It doesn’t say how I was beaten to an unrecognizable mass.

They didn’t tell you how much blood was at the scene.

Or how I felt watching Jason find out.

Worse.

How I felt when my dad found out.

They didn’t say how Matt lives with himself.

And if you keep watching, after the credits.

You’ll see how the camera pans to the left towards my father.

But the camera won’t stop at the tomb next to mine.

Because, Marcus Herickson, rests next to me.

1982-1994

Brother and Son.

He was murdered protecting his sister.

And do you wish to know from whom?

A jealous, over controlling boyfriend.

He died at age twelve protecting his sixteen year old sister.

He doesn’t judge me.

He doesn’t call me names.

He understands what I went through because he had experienced it firsthand.

He understands what I feel like watching Jason breakdown.

He understands my guilt every time I see my father.

He told me it was time to move on.