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Xavier

She holds my hand throughout the funeral procession, her warm skin against mine the only source of comfort in this time of anguish. Something about her presence beside mine just makes the moment bearable.

My vision clouds over when they begin to lower my mom's coffin into the grave, and my knees tremble, threatening to give out from underneath me. I'm so weak right now, I hate it.

The sky seems so dull, and perhaps it's just me, but everything around me is quiet. The birds that I usually love to listen to, are no longer singing. The wind has stopped whistling. The earth has stopped rotating. There is no color left in the world, no magic left in the universe that was always such a masterpiece to me.

'You are my magic, Xav,' my mom's voice echoes in my head. 'You make all the pain worth it.'

My voice catches in my throat, and I close my eyes and swallow back the sobs. My mom's laughing face flashes before my eyes, from when I was younger and when my dad was still with us. After his death, I never saw mom laugh. She still smiled, though. A ghostly, haunted smile that didn't reach her eyes.

To think I'll never even see that smile again.

'I'm sorry I'm such a bad mom to you, baby.'

She had sobbed the last time I had seen her. She had been partially intoxicated, but still recognized me at least. She had touched my face with her thin fingers and smiled through the tears.

'You're an angel in disguise, Xavier,' she had said. 'You deserve so much more.'

I had shaken my head and returned her sad smile with a reassuring one of my own.

'I love you, mum,' had been my response, as I had planted a kiss on her forehead while tucking her into bed.

'You'll be happier when I die,' she had mumbled to herself, and I had pretended not to hear it.

I wish I had told her how wrong she was.

For I am not happy. I am nowhere near happy.

"Xavier ..." Haley's hair tickles my neck and I open my eyes to find her head resting on my shoulder. Her soft fingers wound tighter through my calloused ones, and I hesitate in reciprocating her tender touch.

The graveyard is almost deserted now, and the few neighbors who had been considerate enough to drop by in my hour of need are slowly drifting away towards the exit. I'm grateful for their black attire and their somber expressions, with lowered gazes and hands knotted in front of them. At least they came.

"Come on, let's go, Xavier," Haley speaks softly to me, her gentle voice sounding almost like a lullaby. 

I don't look down at her, not wanting her to see the tears in my eyes. I'm sure she's not one to judge, but the societal stereotype of men prevents me from falling to my knees and sobbing like the broken little boy that I actually feel like right now.

Haley's father comes into my view, his brown hair standing up in the wind. The expression on his face is one of sympathy, but more than that, there is an affection there that I didn't see on any other face today. Something about this man just makes everything seem much nicer.

"Come with us," he says to me, a silent message in his eyes.

I can almost hear what he's really trying to say. 'You're not a homeless orphan, Xavier. Come with us. You'll always have a place to go.'

My gaze finally travels to Haley's face and I see her watching me uncertainly.

"Come, Xavier," she repeats.

Not doubting their intentions and being grateful for their kindness is one thing, and everything they have done for me is something I can never repay. Regardless of that, I have my reservations. How much more will I let them do for me? How many times will I take their help?

"I'd ... like to stay here a while," I finally say, making up my mind at the spur of the moment.

"What?" Haley is quick to react. "Why here, Xavier --"

"Haley," her father warns her softly.

Her panicked gaze flickers to her father before returning to me. "I can stay with you." 

She doesn't tell me what she doesn't want me to do, but I have an idea it has something to do with the hunch that she has about me. She knows I'm trying to distance myself from her and she doesn't want that.

"I need to clear my head," I tell her, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. "Alone."

The last thing I want is for Haley to be insecure about me. This isn't about her. It's about me. I need some time to myself. To think about everything that has happened and everything that is likely to happen now. I need to gather my thoughts and pull myself together rather than rely on someone else to put my broken pieces together and make me whole. I refuse to let anyone else be my savior.

I will be my own savior.

"But --" she begins.

"Take your time, Xavier," her father intervenes. "You need it." 

He gives me an encouraging smile, crows'-feet forming at the corners of his eyes. I feel that, right now, he understands me more than Haley does. After all, I have just lost the most important thing in my life, and he knows exactly how that feels.

"Xavier ..." Haley breathes, looking helpless and torn between her desire to be beside me and what both her father and I are insisting on. She looks just like a little girl right now, one who doesn't know which toy she likes more and wants both.

I can't help but smile slightly at the thought.

"The doors of our house are always open for you, Xavier," her father adds. "It will always be your home too."

The words make my heart swell but it is too cracked to feel much at this point. My gaze meets Haley's and I give her hand a gentle squeeze.

'I'll be back,' I hope to convey through the gesture.

Haley inhales deeply, her shoulders stiffening and then slumping. She nods, and I realize she heard my unspoken thoughts.

"I'll be waiting," she says in a low voice.

Her fingers slip through mine, and a part of me wants to pull them back. I don't want to part just yet, but the fact remains; I want us to be on even terms, not wanting these power-dynamics that have become inevitable between us. I don't want that relationship where one person is always picking up after the other. Haley doesn't deserve that.

So even when she continues to glance over her shoulder as her father steers her away from me, my hand itches to reach out and touch her. A scream threatens to rip through my chest and out my throat, begging Haley not to leave me.

'I need you,' I want to say.

'I don't want to need you. I want to want you instead,' I answer my own thoughts, plucking up my courage and turning my back towards Haley and her father. 

It takes all of my energy to not look back and see if they're gone or still here. Somehow I manage, and it breaks me to bits inside.

The sun begins to set in the horizon, but I remain seated at the foot of my mother's new resting place. My eyes stare unseeingly at the freshly hacked soil, and my hands play with the cold, wet dirt. I feel neither fatigue nor hunger, my body having become timeless.

It's not easy getting to my feet and making my way back towards my neighborhood. The darkness around me has intensified, and my small neighborhood has fallen almost silent. The only sounds are those of stray dogs barking somewhere in the distance, or the snatches of conversations my ears catch as people pass by me without a glance. 

My destination is the factory where I work, and I have already made up my mind not to let my mom's death break my routine. I need a break, I know, but what would I do during that? Sitting in the graveyard and wallowing in my own loneliness and misery isn't likely to help in any way. Why not get back to normal as soon as possible?

The run-down building of the factory looks the same as ever, and I don't know why I'm even surprised. There is something inside us humans that tells us things will change drastically if one thing or another happens. When something changes inside us, we expect to see the physical evidence of that change around us. Unfortunately, though, nothing changes too much.

The world continues to spin on its axis, and life goes on.

This is the painful reality of human beings.

Without speaking to a soul, or even glancing at anyone at all, I make my way unnoticeably towards my work station. I work at the third step, where the ready shoes are checked and put into boxes before being placed on the conveyor belts that take them to the shipment room. In a way then, my job is to make sure both shoes are of the same design, rather than both lefts, both rights, or of different sizes or colors.

"Hey, kid," a voice calls me, and I tear my gaze away from my feet and direct it in the direction of the voice. I see my boss, a man with a big belly. As a kid, we used to be neighbors, and I had always laughed with my dad about how white his teeth are.

'They look like stars in a night sky,' I had said to my dad, snickering behind my hand.

'Wow, Xavier, that's poetic,' he had complimented. 'You should be a writer someday.'

I hadn't considered it seriously until things got so complicated in my life, I forgot to formulate words into sentences. Even now, I find it easier to write my thoughts down than phrase them in a coherent, understandable way.

The man with the starry teeth stops in front of me, his eyes looking me up and down.

"Heard about your ma," he finally says in a gruff voice. "It's sad, little bro."

His sympathy is unexpected, not because he's a bad man, but because I have never before spoken to him in this way. I keep to myself, and to me, nice people are those that leave me to do that without trouble.

"Have you seen your ol' man?" he asks.

I shake my head, not wanting to dwell on whatever my stepfather's involvement in my mother's death might be. It is too much of a coincidence of him to be gone the very day my mom dies.

"Watch out for yourself, Xav," the man says, taking me by surprise. "Your father was a good man. And you're your father's kid."

Perhaps it's my already emotionally vulnerable state, but his words seem to be some of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

"Take the day off," he says, giving me what I assume is a smile.

Not having the words to thank him for his graciousness, I nod. He nods back, pursing his lips and sighing heavily.

Without another word, I walk out of the factory and stop outside the exit, not knowing where to go now. I could always go to my own home, but the image of my mom's last moments in the place seem too vivid right now.

"Xavier!"

I turn around to look at the familiar face of a boy, Jeremy, who had been my friend not long ago. We had been friends since childhood until my stepfather accused him of stealing in my household and Jeremy's parents told him to stay away from my house. My stepdad used to be a cop not long ago, and getting someone thrown behind bars was no big deal for him. Not wanting Jeremy to get in trouble because of our friendship, I had let him drift away.

"I'm sorry about you mom," Jeremy says, his voice low. He looks unsure of himself, and probably feels awkward speaking to me now, after having ignored me for so long.

I don't know what to say. What do you say when someone says they're 'sorry' you lost everything that made your life-struggles worth fighting?

"You know, if you need a place to stay," Jeremy adds, shuffling his feet. "My ma has a spare room and everything."

A slight smile sneaks its way onto my lips without my consent, and when I nod, Jeremy looks more at ease.

"You know we'll always be friends, Xav," he adds more confidently now.

My smile widens. "Yeah." I nod.

Jeremy gives me a wide grin, and I nod once more before turning my back on him. Even when I walk away from the place, more alone than I have ever been, my mind drifts to all the kind people I have met in my life. So what if my stepdad and some of the people he deals with drugs are bad? So what if there are people like Dray Carter around?

People like Haley and her father, like Jeremy, and my starry-toothed boss who has never noticed my existence before now ... they also exist. 

Maybe ... mankind isn't hopeless after all.

*.*.*.*.*.*