The Truth Does Not Exist

The scent of flowers filled the room and bombarded the senses. It was a sickly sweet smell, one that was intended to comfort the mind but instead put the young man sitting in the corner on edge. Jace didn’t know which scent was worse, the flowers or the one they were meant to mask: death. Death was everywhere in the room; it was unavoidable. The horrible scents combined with the pointless babble of distant relatives and complete strangers were beginning to give him an unbearable headache.

“Well, at least he looks happy now.”

“At least he won’t have to see the world go to pieces.”

“He’s moved on to a better place.”

Fucking idiots, Jace thought bitterly. He stood up from his place in the corner and quickly exited the room, knowing that if he heard one more stupid comment from his second-cousin-twice-removed he would end up fighting someone.

Funerals were always the worst. As if the death of a loved one wasn’t bad enough, funerals always brought the family together. All of a sudden distant relatives you never even heard of, let alone had contact with, are all over the place sending you dinners and flowers and their condolences. Then there were the ignorant comments at the wake. Well, at least he looks happy now. No, he doesn’t look happy now, he’s fucking dead. He’s moved onto a better place. How can they say that? How can they promise him such an impossible thing?

But the worst by far came from a friend of a family friend no one recognized. At least he won’t have to see the world go to pieces. This one made Jace the angriest, not at who said it but who it was about. Because honestly, who the hell kills themselves when the world is about to end? It was pointless and selfish, as far as Jace was concerned.

Ryan Collins had everything going for him. He was handsome and quite popular. He never received a bad grade in his life and was never even slightly less than exceptional at anything he ever did. As cliché as it sounded, all the girls loved him and all the guys wanted to be him. That included Ryan’s big brother, Jace.

Jace was the fuck up. Jace was the one who could never do anything right. Jace was the one who blew every opportunity ever given to him. Jace was the one with the too-crooked nose from fighting in too many fights and the eyes that could have been captivating had they not been just that tiny bit too close together. Jace was the one who didn’t know how to act around people or treat a girl right. So then why was it that it was Ryan found dead on the floor with two empty bottles of their father’s prescription pain medication, and not Jace?

Jace asked himself that same question every night. He thought about suicide multiple times before. On cold winter nights he would climb out onto the roof of the second story and stare down at the distant ground, wondering what it would feel like to let go of everything, everyone and just fall into oblivion. But Ryan always held him back. Even if he wasn't perfect at it, Jace took his job as a big brother very seriously. He would never leave his little brother, ever.

And it pissed him off beyond belief that Ryan would leave him.

It hurt him, too. Did Ryan really not care about Jace’s feelings at all? Was Jace really so inconsequential to Ryan that he could go and do that, leave him alone in the cold, hard world?

Their parents were devastated too. Ryan was their golden child, the center of their universe, and now that he was gone they didn’t know what to do with themselves. Jace’s mother hadn’t left her bed for anything except to get herself looking presentable for the wake and the funeral. All she did was lie on her side and cry and scream into her pillow, begging for her baby to come back to her. Jace stopped in her room on occasion to check on her and bring her tea. Every time his mother would gaze blankly at him, an unspoken question in the air.

Why was it Ryan? Why wasn’t it you?

An accusation.

He knew she would never say it out loud, but he also knew that it was what they were both thinking. He couldn’t tell her, though he bitterly wished he could. It haunted him, day in and day out, night after night. Why did Ryan do it? There was no note, no explanation, no inclination as to what happened that caused Ryan to take his own life. Jace hated him for it. He hated Ryan because he loved his brother too much, and his brother clearly hadn’t loved him at all.

He should have had the fucking decency to leave a note.

Jace was pacing now in the hall of the funeral home outside the room that held his brother’s body. People, both ones he knew and ones he had never met, filed in and out of the room, whispering to each other in hushed tones. For a while no one noticed that he had made his escape, until a man in his mid-fifties approached him.

“Hey bud!” he said jovially.

The very tone of his voice made Jace want to kick him.

“How you doing, kid?”

Jace remained silent at the question.

“Ah, sorry, you probably don’t remember me. The last time I saw you you were about this big,” the man gestured to a height about knee high, laughing. “I’m your dad’s cousin, Robby Johnson.”

Jace nodded in greeting.

“Look, I know this is tough on all of us, Ry was such a great kid, but if you need anything at all don’t hesitate to call me and my wife.” Robby pushed a piece of paper with a phone number scribbled on it into Jace’s hand.

Robby patted him awkwardly on the shoulder in what he must have assumed was an approachable manner before leaving Jace alone.

By then Jace was almost visibly shaking from his rage. How dare these strangers pretend as if they care? How dare they try and make up for his loss? He hated the way everyone was trying to pretend that bore the sorrow of Ryan’s death the same way he did. He despised the fake smiles, hugs, condolences. No one really cared. Sure, they felt bad for the Collins family, but their lives would move on. They could go home and pretend that it never even happened. They could forget about Ryan, and Jace resented that they could forget while he was condemned to remember for the rest of his pathetic life. He would rather have people acknowledge that they didn’t care as much as him, instead of putting on a front.

Everything at a funeral is a fucking lie.

Jace crumpled Robby’s number in his fist and tossed it in a nearby garbage can. He made his way for the exit of the funeral home, deciding it would be better to skip out on his own brother’s wake than to punch one of his distant relatives out of frustration.