For the rest of the week, Darren lives on a droning routine: wake up, eat breakfast, sit on the window seat, take a really long nap, eat dinner, go back to sleep, and repeat. Every other day between eating dinner and sleeping, Darren would take a long, cold shower to numb her body of all physical feeling. Her emotions were already drained. She feels nothing.

Darren has devoted herself to an internal and external numbness that is instigated by her inability to feel anything. She doesn’t allow anyone to see her, minus her brothers who see her drag her spoon through soggy cereal that gets left half eaten in the end in the mornings at breakfast, and then again at dinner time where she touches her food enough to not be a concern. Other than that, Darren tries to avoid any and all social interaction that happens under her roof. Many people have tried to talk to her when they come to visit but she locks her door and doesn’t let one sound escape her lips.

When the day of the funeral comes around, precisely one week, Darren slips black pantyhose up her legs and pulls a long sleeve, black lace dress over down her body. Darren even takes some time to do light makeup, something she hadn’t done since the black eyeliner ran down her tear stained face the night of his death. Then, she takes black socks and pulls them on over her pantyhose before lacing up her all black Converse high tops. Luckily for her, she had gotten her boot off just yesterday, so she was walking around perfectly fine for now.

Darren scans her room for anything that she might have missed when she sees her phone; sitting right where she threw it has been for the past week at the foot of her bed. She cautiously picks up the device with extra careful precautions as if it might be a bomb that’s bound to explode at any given second. Surprisingly, she turns the device on, but she slips it into a convenient dress pocket immediately following.

Then, she walks out of the room and down the stairs to where her brothers wait for her. All three avoid eye contact, knowing that at any glance someone can break down. Together, they make their way to the car to drive to the service.

As they arrive on the scene, swarms of people dressed in black drag themselves wearily and somberly into the church building. When Darren, walking between her brothers, joins this swarm of people, she feels near claustrophobic with the gloomy atmosphere surrounding her. She picks at her nail bits and avoids eye contact and pity as she takes a seat in the second pew from the front, middle section. Jack and Finn leave her shorty to interact with some other people before returning to her and popping a squat on either side of Darren.

Darren sneaks a peek at the open coffin in the front of the sanctuary, just tall enough to see a few strands of unkempt hair and the tip of a lifeless nose from where she is sitting. She knows that she should at least go up and pay her respects for her first thirteen years spent with him, but the more recent nine tell her to stay seated – she heeds no respect for this corpse.

After the viewing hour is up, the coffin is covered. People who once stood are now seated throughout the rows of pews, and the service starts. Per usual at funerals, there are many speakers talking of memories, and there are melancholic songs sung by people who clearly never knew Andy Harries in the first place, but are paid to be here. Darren sits unmoving during this service. Her head is bowed down; staring at her pigeon toed feet and hands that are folded neatly in her lap.

When the last speaker gives their spiel of experience with Darren’s father, the casket is carried out to the hearse just outside the church doors. The hearse drives off with most of the cars in the parking lot following behind it. Although the gravesite is just around the corner and straight for two blocks, many would rather have the cars close to leave quickly after the coffin is buried and the service is completely through.

“Darren, are you coming?” Finn calls softly to his sister.

Darren, who had made her way outside while people began to load into their cars, shakes her head. “I think I’ll walk,” she says hoarsely, finally using her voice after a week of silence. Her brothers give her a worried look. “I just need some air, a little exercise as well. Don’t worry; I’ll be fine.”

Jack and Finn reluctantly allow Darren to walk the around the corner and two blocks down to the graveyard where their father will be buried shortly. Darren hugs her sides to keep warm, because even though the sun is shining, Darren feels cold.

Loud footsteps follow behind her, picking up some pace and finally coming to an even rhythm next to Darren. She looks up with intentions to tell the person to give her space, but when she sees him walking nonchalantly next to her, she almost wants to smile. But she doesn’t.

“Hi,” he says, and for one nanosecond, one corner of Darren’s lip twitches upward. The both continue to walk on the desolate sidewalk as the conversation starts to bud.

“Hey,” Darren replies. “What are you doing, Harry?”

“I’m walking. Isn’t it obvious?”

Darren nearly snorts but refrains from laughing as a result of his amusing response. “I meant here, as in what are you doing here?” She then notices his nearly all black, formal attire. His outfit surprises her. “Were you at the funeral?”

He nods. “Yeah, I was. No offense, but I felt like half the people there didn’t even know him, and I was one of them.”

Darren smiles inwardly. Unlike every other person who has approached her today, he isn’t apologizing for her loss or telling her that over time things will get better. Instead, he talks about something that Darren can’t help but agree with. She thought she might have been the only one who thought that.

They continue to walk down the second block, arriving shortly at the gravesite where everyone is already surrounding a perfectly dug hole. Rather than joining the crowd, the two find a tree to stand under that is not too far from the grave, but not that close either. It is just enough distance to hear the whispers of people who stand more towards the back though, the people who obviously never really knew Andy Harries personally but who knew him enough to show up and pay respects to.

Darren leans up against the trunk of the tree. He stands beside her, hands shoved halfway into his pocket, staring intently as the coffin is lowered into the dug out ground. Darren looks to the ground as she had in the church building. A single tear rolls down her cheek, but she quickly wipes it away with the sleeve of her dress. A hand grabs her other hand that is at her side, giving her a small squeeze of assurance. When Darren looks up, he smiles down at her, and this small act makes her kind of believe that everything might turn out all right after all.

~

In the days following the funeral and Darren’s run in with Harry, Darren finally turns her phone on, letting her lock screen overflow with notifications, text messages, and missed calls. She reads most of them, but she decides against replying to anything and continues to keep off of the social medias for now.

Of all the messages and missed calls, only one contact doesn’t make the list: James. Come to think of it, Darren hadn’t seen James at the funeral, and even if he was there, he made no move to approach or comfort his girlfriend. The lack of contact brings out an emotion in Darren. Anger flows wildly throughout her body, lighting her up like firecracker.

‘Breathe, Dare. Just breathe…’ She inhales and exhales, inconsistently at first, until her breathing is even and her face isn’t a burning flame. While calm, Darren tries to brainstorm reasons as to why her boyfriend has become a frequent entry on Darren’s list of people who really piss her off. After all, boyfriends are supposed to comfort their girlfriends and always be there for them, especially in tough times. They are not supposed to disappear every time she hits a stone in the road.

To get her mind off of things, Darren slips on her closest pair of Chucks and hits the street on her penny board – something her brothers made her learn how to use for travel while she continues to make attempts at getting a driver’s license. Once she’s out on the street next to the sidewalk, Darren sets down her board, black with red wheels of course, down, steps on with her right, and pushes back with her left foot. She circles around the park, taking in the cool, fresh air and clearing her mind by filling it with the annoying chirps from the birds and obnoxious yells from the playground kids and their parents.

After making it to the street parallel to the one she lives on, also the street on the opposite side of the big park, Darren turns into a nearby neighborhood and lets her feet push her in the directions of Blithe’s home. First, she takes a left, and then two rights and a left and a left into the driveway. When she hits the curb, she picks up her board under her arm and walks up to knock on the door.

Darren hears several crashing noises of what sounds like the chairs falling onto the wood flooring in Blithe’s dining area followed by the gliding of socks to the front door and a pause where Blithe is most likely checking her appearance before she opens the door.

“Darren?” Blithe is clearly in shock and confusion to see her red head best friend, who hasn’t talked to her since the death, at her front doorstep. “Oh my gosh, come in.” Blithe ushers her friend through the door before closing it shut behind her. When she turns back around, she embraces Darren, wrapping her arms tightly around her waist. At first, Darren is taken by surprise, but she hugs back, understanding the need for a huge hug.

“Hey,” Darren says softly when they finally pull back. To Blithe, Darren sounds like a porcelain doll, tiny and frail. With any wrong moves, she can and will break.

“It’s about time you got around to me. I was afraid you would just shove me out of your life with what Finn told me. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now. I was going to talk to you at the funeral, but you didn’t look very approachable, no offense. I mean, you should have seen your face when this one lady went up to you and said, ‘I’m so sorry for your loss, honey.’ You looked just about to rip her head off. And when that other lady asked you how you were feeling and said you were ‘fine’. How are you really feeling? And don’t give me any of that ‘I’m fine’ shit, Darren, because as your bestest friend I demand to know how my bestest friend is actually doing,” Blithe finally finishes her spiel.

Darren stares at Blithe’s serious face for a minute or two, wondering how long it has been since she’s seen this much concern and compassion in her best friend. Blithe’s true personality is carefree and out there; her serious persona only ever comes out when Blithe actually means business, and when she means business, she means business. Otherwise, this conversation would already have switched over to gossip and lip gloss or some other girly shit that Blithe is currently obsessing over.

“I am not fine,” Darren starts out calmly.

“Well obviously, I mean-”

Then, Darren’s face lights up again and she starts ranting about James again – out loud this time – and how much of an arse he is being. Darren has her own little spiel of how maddening this makes her feel, how he doesn’t call or text, and how he hasn’t confronted her since the day her dad died, also the day they made up.

“We just get over one argument with him ignoring me, and now, he’s ignoring me again! I can assure you that if you went through all of the stored up phone calls and texts that everyone has sent me some sort of shitty sympathy except for him. I would understand if all he could say is ‘I’m sorry’ but he hasn’t even tried to make an effort. I’m trying to make us work, Bee. We have to work; I love him,” Darren says, sniffling back some built up tears in her eyes.

Blithe puts a hand on Darren’s shoulder, almost tempted to hug her again if, and if it isn’t for the fact that Darren looks like a ticking time bomb, about to explode, she would have. “Dee, as much as you hate crying in front of other people, it is okay to cry. We can’t stay strong forever. Sometimes we have to be weak to show that we are stronger.”

Darren, convinced that she is stronger than that, just puts her chin up higher and wipes the water that sits on the edge of her tear ducts. She shakes her head at Blithe’s words and replies, “No, I’m fine. I won’t let myself cry over a man that I’ve spent about two and a half years loving. We’ll get through… whatever this is. It’s always like this; I’m just overreacting this time because of all the stress.”

Normally, Darren is an extremely convincing person, especially when it comes to lying. Darren is always coming up with excuses as if that were what had actually happened, making them sound better as opposed to what did happen. She can find a way to convince anyone of anything she wants by bending the truth a tad, and she convinces everyone on a daily basis that she is fine.

Normally, this convinces everyone, but Blithe, who has known Darren for most of her life, who was there when she was in more troubled times, who almost knew Darren more than Darren knew herself, can see pass the lie this time. Even though Darren avoids eye contact with her, Blithe can see in the tiniest, most brief glances that Darren is merely lying to herself to think that everything is or will be better. Darren may appear to be strong, but Blithe can see that in any given time of day, in any given second, that Darren is going to collapse from all of the garbage she allows herself to believe.

All Blithe can wonder now, is how Darren manages to stay so strong with all that she goes through and how she hasn’t broken up with James after all of the bullshit he tells her and with how much ache he puts her through for not really being there as a loved one should. Blithe knows that she could never be as strong as Darren; she doesn’t think that anyone could be as strong as Darren makes herself out to be, so how does Darren conceal it? How does Darren hide so much pain and emotion behind a simple smile?

Even though Blithe is aware that Darren is not okay, she decides to let Darren deal with her problems, as she wants to. It is clear that anything Blithe says will just be countered back or avoided. “Okay,” Blithe tells her, “you’ll be fine. It’s just… ‘stress.’”

~

“I can’t wait to see me mum again. Last I visited was August, and I didn’t get to go home for Christmas,” Niall says as the five boys look at the giant calendar on the wall that counts off the days to tour with filled in dates for the next few months. Written in are the days the boys get to see their families. Pretty much all of them are excited to see their kin and be back in their hometowns for a whole week. All of them excluding Harry, of course, who can’t be more nervous and scared than a kenophobic being lost in an endless tunnel where light only shines on bare walls, and bare floors.

“My mum just wants to see all of us together,” Liam says. “She says she has to take a double take every time she sees us on a poster or magazine and can’t wait to see ‘just how grown up we’ve become.’ Sometimes I think she still thinks we’re all five.”

Louis snickers. “You’re such a momma’s boy, Payne. I just can’t wait to see my brother. It’s been nearly ages since I’ve seen him!”

“What about all of your sisters?” Zayn questions.

“Psh! There are plenty of hormones in that house, and I want to make sure he doesn’t have to suffer for too long in a house full of women just as I did.”

“What about you, Harry? Is there anything you are looking forward to back home?”

Harry processes the question, and his honest answer is undetermined. It has been a few long years since Harry has made his way back home. With the way he left it last and the last words exchanged with his mum, he is definitely not looking forward to anything back home. On the other hand, Harry longs to see his mother and somehow apologize to her for shoving her away as he did everyone else. She’s his mother, though, and she reserves the right to kiss away pain and comfort her son when he is in pain or sorrow.

He just doesn’t know what she’ll say when she sees him. Harry doesn’t even know what he’ll say when he sees her. The fact that he is only seeing her due to tour makes him feel worse, because he should not have to wait for work-related matters to bring him home. Home is a place where you are welcome for 24 hours a day, for all 365 days in a year (364 days on leap years, of course), not somewhere you stay when duty calls.

“I don’t know,” is all he says and the conversation dies with his answer.

Notes

This chapter is just a teensy bit longer than usual to make up for not updating last weekend when I told myself I would, so I hope you guys like it :)

Will Darren finally dump James' ass? Should she even?
Should Blithe let Darren deal with her problems as she said she would?
What will Harry do when he has to go back home?
Will Darren finally crack?

Don't be afraid to stray away from the questions and give me some honest feedback. Trust me, I can take whatever you want to say. And if you do like my story comment, rate and subscribe! Also, oh my gosh, 91 subscribers?! This is almost unimaginable! Thank you all so much <3

~A