I have focused on feeling numb for years. When you felt nothing, you were better off. I Had learned that early on. I had mastered the art of burying my emotions. But sometimes it wasn't so easy. Sometimes I didn't feel numb anymore.

Right now, I feel everything. And just as I predicted, all the emotion was drawing me under, pulling at me like an angry tidal wave.

I knew this would happen.

I knew this was coming the second I slipped on that black dress Tyler had found in the attic earlier this week. It was too big. It made my small body look even smaller. The dress drowning me felt like a physical representation of my mental state.

I knew this would happen as we drove through the heart of Brinley. It seemed oddly quiet, solem. It was Sunday. Some would be at church, but most would be with family, thanking the universe that it wasn't them wearing black today.

I knew it would happen even when we were back in Harlan. It had all come crashing down, and it was all my fault. I should have shut my mouth, I should have stayed a ghost.

I knew this would happen. Yet when we stepped out of the car at the church for Moms memorial, I wasn't prepared. A lump settled in my throat, my chest ached with unfelt agony and sadness. It was like everything I had suppressed in my almost 13 years old life was consuming me, taking away my defense. I saw his brown eyes first. He was smiling at me, but it was a sad sympathetic smile.

How can you miss someone you never want to see again? I missed him. I wanted him to come and sit with me, and hold my hand like he had done six months ago. But he wouldn't. I knew that. I knew so many things, yet nothing ever made sense. Words, was all it ever seemed to be.

Logan gently guided me to the front pew we would be sitting in. There was no casket. That had been buried at her funeral. There was a picture of Mom, one that I had seen before. She was smiling, and it was genuine. It was broad and bright. Nothing like I remember. Tyler sat on one side of me, Logan on the other.

Finley sat beside Logan staring at the framed picture. I don't think he had ever seen a picture of her. It made me feel a little better to think he would remember Mom like that. Bright, and genuine. He deserved that much.

The service hasn't started yet. There was a low hum of chatter amongst the crowd, but I was silent. My brothers said nothing to me, and I said nothing to them. It was a cold day for September in Georgia. It seemed to match the occasion well.

"Are you okay Belle?" Logan asked, leaning down to whisper in my ear. I nodded slowly, not finding any word big enough to describe what I was feeling. "If you need anything, I'm right here okay?" Maybe I looked as I felt. Far from okay.

"Thanks." I whispered back. I didn't look at him. I didn't need to see his sympathetic smile. I needed sympathy, I would admit that much, but I wouldn't accept it. Not now. I couldn't accept anyone else's feelings.

When the Priest stood up in front of the church, all went silent. He smiled warmly at us all."Welcome friends and family of Regina Smith. The life we mourn today." How could he say these words with a smile on his face? Maybe he had pushed it all down, focusing on the crowd in front of him instead. Or maybe he had done this so many times, death didn't faze him anymore. It was a sad thing when death became the norm. "We will be having a short service here today, and then we ask that you join us in the cemetery to the right of the church, to see the stone that was placed on the grave of our wonderful Regina."

He hadn't known her. I couldn't imagine my mother within 100 feet of a priest. Yet he felt that he had the right to call her 'wonderful'. She wasn't wonderful. I don't believe we should pretend people were what they were not just because they died. My mom was who she was, dead or alive. It's unfair to spare her from the truth just because she isn't here.

We listened to the priest's speech, in which he made up lies about my mom that made her sound lovely. I didn't have it in me to be mad at him. He was only doing what we all were taught. Being kind even to people who don't deserve it. I only partially listened. They were still just words. Words that meant nothing unless they were true.

I didn't cry. I wouldn't. Not here, not now. Not in front of Brayden, or Logan, Or Tyler, or Finley. No one needed to see me break. That was for me to do on my own. But it was hard to stay together. I felt delicate, like glass waiting to be broken. The lump in my throat restricted my air way, but I didn't try to push it down. It felt like the penance I was paying. My punishment for living. It was Moms last hurrah, I imagined. She always wanted to make me pay for existing, and I shouldn't have thought it would be any different, even in death.

The service was short, just as he had said it would be. I couldn't say I was glad it was over. We still had to drag our sadness outside and look at a stone that represented my whole life gone as I knew it. I had done this before, I knew what that stone meant. It was real. It had happened. It wasn't changing. It was warm still in Brinley, but a shiver ran down my spine as I walked through the graveyard, like the spirits themselves had showed up for the funeral. I wondered what the ghosts thought of me. Did they see I was one of them? I felt more like a ghost with each step, like I was walking the path to hell.

SMITH, it read in big letters. The ground was still soft from being lifted a week earlier, my feet sunk in slightly, which made me far more uncomfortable than it should have. It felt like they were pulling me under. The ghosts saw me standing above her grave and wanted me with them.

In books and movies, when something bad happens time stops. But in real life, that doesn't happen. The way the world keeps moving while you're in pain is the worst feeling I have ever felt. One that pushes you over the edge. Because when I saw that stone with my moms name on it, time didn't freeze. It didn't stop and let me process. Because time moves on, whether you do or not. Time waits for no one to grieve, and I certainly was no exception.

"We pray for Regina's soul to enter heaven." Drug addicts don't get into heaven. Marley had told me that. She said heaven was a load of BS but if it was real, drug addicts didn't get in. I asked if we would, the two of. She told me that was something I had to decide in my life. She said being a good person was a choice that I had to make.

But shadows and ghosts don't make decisions. They are pulled around by fate, never questioning or fighting. I once said that maybe I didn't have to be a ghost all the time. Well, I lied. I do have to be a ghost. I do have to fade away and hide in the shadows, and become one of them. It was the way I had survived this long. Being a good person in my opinion is not possible. There are too many wrong decisions to make, too many pulls in bad directions. Good people don't exist, we all are either ghosts or demons, and I was afraid if I wasn't the former I would become the latter. I had let myself get too close to my demons, allowed them to take over and do things ghosts wouldn't. I was not a ruler anywhere but my mind. Confidence was a dangerous game I did not wish to play.

"She was a great friend."

Lie.

"A great community member."

Lie.

"And most of all, a great mother."

Lie. Lie. Lie. Lie.

It was a lie. She was not a great anything. She was a demon, who had lost her place in hell. She was what made me a ghost in the first place. Praise shouldn't be awarded to those who hurt us. Not in life, and not in death.

"We thank the Lord for the time she spent with us here on earth, and pray that someday we shall meet again."

I never wanted to see her again. The very image of her pale, sad face made my stomach curl. I wanted nothing more than to forget she ever existed. Forget all the times she hurt me, all the times she destroyed me. I wanted to forget her, but those big letters on that stone taunted me, screamed that I couldn't forget that easily. Even the ghosts laughed at my naiveness.

A Mistake. She had called me a mistake more times than I could count. She had screamed she wished I was never born, hurled whole glass bottles at me when I dared to protect myself. It played on a loop, while the priest talked. Talking talking talking, why the hell was he still talking?

Hold it together. I chanted it to myself, louder each time another moment passed.

"And finally, we thank you for joining us today and we hope you will stay for the buffett we have set up in the church." He stuffed us with lies, now they'll stuff us with dry cookies and hard boiled eggs. When everyone else left the plot, that was now my mother's permanent residence, I stayed there just looking at the stone. It was so unfair. I hated her, I hated her so much it was insane, but I was never sure why I hated her.

Was it for my lack of childhood? Or maybe the endless insults? I never had an answer. None seemed enough for the fiery hatred I felt at the thought of her. I think most of all, it was the way she knew what she was doing. The way she endless promised that she would stay sober and continuously dishonored that promise. She went down and took me with her, with full knowledge of how her actions would hurt me.

I think at some point, she just didn't care. About me, about herself, about anything. She just...stopped caring. It was a sad spiral to watch. Anyone who saw it offered sympathetic smiles that couldn't bring her from the wave that pulled her under to a pit of carelessness.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, but I didn't turn around. I couldn't face anyone with the tears running down my face.

"Belle, baby lets go inside and eat something." Logan spoke softly, like he was talking to a child. I suppose I looked like a child. Small, and teary eyed.

"No." I choked out. My body was statue-like despite the sobs fighting their way to my throat.

"Baby, c'mon it's cold out here and you-"

"I need to do something." I don't know how I managed to speak. But I did. I spoke with as much clarity and compuse as I could, desperate to make my point known.

"Izzy, I know this is hard but-"

"Please." I whispered. "Just-just give me a minute." I couldn't see him, but I could picture the hesitation on his face.

"Okay, I'll meet you inside alright?" I nodded, never once looking away from the stone. It was transfixing, in a hard to breath painful kind of way.

When I was sure I was alone, I pulled my gaze to the other side of the cemetery. When she laid, waiting for me. My feet moved almost automatically against the hard ground, having been here dozens of times before.

"Hi Mars." I whispered, sitting in front of the stone. JACOBS, it read in big letters. Hers was bigger than moms. Her aunt had paid for it. "God Marley, things have really gone to shit since you left." I chuckled humorlessly, as I talked to no one. I was alone, yet sitting in front of her grave made me feel a little less lonely. "My moms dead." I hadn't seen Marley since I left for Harlan. She always wanted to know what I was thinking about. It was funny how I couldn't tell her until she was a ghost. Maybe this way I felt closer to her.

"I have 7 brothers, and a twin sister." The molten tears stung my cold face. I imagined her standing in front of me, smiling because for once she didn't have to guess if I was okay. I wasn't a crier. Never had been. "Can you believe it? That's insane right?" She would agree with me. She would want to know everything about them, want to make sure they treated me good and took care of me. She would be so angry at Emma if she knew what my sister had said. She would have insisted that I didn't need anyone but her and Brayden.

"Me and Brayden aren't friends anymore." She would gasp and demand to know why. She always insisted that the three of us would forever be best friends. She was so right about most things, but not everything. No one was right about everything. "He screwed up Mar, and I'm not sure if I should forgive him." I bit my lip, tasting the metallic blood on my tongue. It was funny how I was so desperate to feel nothing and everything at the same time.

"I think you should." A voice from behind made me jump out of my skin. I looked over my shoulder and saw those sad brown eyes looking back at me. "

Brayden, what are you doing here?" I asked, wiping my face with the back of my hand.

"What I said I would do." He replied, sitting beside me. He was close but I couldn't bring myself to care. It was a familiar, warm feeling having Brayden close to me. "Reminding you why we're friends." His arm snaked around my shoulders and I didn't fight it. Something in me said to stay. I needed him so much more than I knew.

"I miss her so much." I whispered.

"Me too. I miss her too" His voice was sad. But this time, I thought he might deserve to feel sad.

We sat in silence, neither of us knowing what to say. There were so many words that needed to be thrown into the air between us, but they were just words. Words that would mean nothing right now.

Actions speak louder than words. It was a phrase we had all heard being said a million times, but we never realized how true it was until we were put into situations where words would do nothing. And when Brayden squeezed my body to his, and laid his cheek against my hair, that spoke louder than any words he could have said.

In this world we're all just trying to survive. We're all just trying to make it to tomorrow without breaking down and losing it all.

This world is one of heartbreak and pain, and sometimes a little bit of needed silence.

A/N-Welcome back to me screaming. (If you get that reference I love you) Anyway, school is killing me. I have an essay due at the end of the week. I have no idea what it's on. Also, this chapter made me cry.

i love izzy and just want my baby to be happy.

Now obviously I make the decision to make her not happy, but hey sometimes we gotta get worse before we can get better right?

Vote, Comment, and follow y'all, I may have a pretty cool announcement coming soon so stay tuned or whateva :)