Survivor's Guilt

A smirk plays across the doc's lips after I ask him about attending the funeral as if he knows something that I don't, which is probably true.

"Well, Maura, the funeral is tomorrow. Physically it will be exhausting for you, but you can handle it. You still haven't broken down at all emotionally, and you might not. Maybe you could get through your best friend's funeral without feeling. I can't give your mother any kind of recommendation on your mental state until you open up to me, however, and right now, I'm inclined to tell her that you couldn't do it."

They don't understand how much I need this. I need to see everyone remembering her and loving her, and selfishly, I need to see her body go into the ground. I need to know that the ghost I see every waking second is really a ghost. At this point, I need her to be dead.

All of this blame, all of this self-destruction I've been going through is because of her death. I know that funeral or not she's dead, but it's like I somehow need this physical reminder.

Her mother will be there. Her mother, who knows what I've done. She doesn't know why or how, but she knows it's my fault. She knows that I should be dead. Perhaps I should just let her mourn her daughter in peace. Someone deserves to have peace, and heaven knows that it's not mine for the taking.

"Let me make you a deal, Maura. I can't get you to open up about your emotions, but you have to at least talk to me about something. If you could just tell me about her, I would feel a lot better about saying that you could go to the funeral without too much of an issue." He sounds sincere, and this isn't terribly unreasonable, but I still have a hard time trusting him.

I decide that getting my closure is worth it. "We never really had that much in common."

He waits a bit, too long, before he realizes that I'm not going to elaborate without at least a little bit of prompting. "That must've been hard."

I know that he's just encouraging me to talk, but it can't hurt to elaborate a bit. I mean, I want to go the funeral, and he's going to make me earn it. "Not really. We were always able to talk about anything for however long we wanted to. She was the closest friend that I've ever had. Sure, she was boy-crazed and it could drive me crazy, but I loved her."

For just a second, my hands don't shake and I'm not smiling, but I'm not scowling either. It's like even though she's gone, she's still the light in my life. And then that peace is gone and she's there and she's angry and why did I do that? Why did I share her with this doctor that I hardly know, let alone like?

I'm crying before I can stop myself, burying my head in my hands and I think I hear talking but I can't separate what he's saying from what she's saying and I think I hear other voices but I can't be sure but I can't breathe and everything is shaky and then shakier and then the corners of my vision turn black.