Lilith had once what many people would call “angry eyes.”
After the death of her younger brother, Daniel, her eyes lost their fiery luster and became permanently rimmed with dark lines from countless sleepless nights.
She was perched on the stone bench, just outside the courtyard, wearing nothing but an unzipped jacket to protect herself from the blustery winds buffering at her face. The cold of the stone seeped through the bottoms of her jeans and sent a chill up her spine.
She shivered a little, but she liked the cold. The cold was, in a way, the only thing that would numb her pain.
Even then, he was always on her mind. His dimpled cheeks, his shaggy brown hair and his sparkling hazel eyes seemed to haunt her every time she closed her eyes.
Not a minute went by without being reminded of Daniel, and the blood trickling from his mouth and the way his eyes were foggy and glassy all at the same time, how she screamed so hard when she saw his crumpled body in the street.
She felt responsible for his death. She had been in charge of Daniel that day, was his babysitter when her parents went out on one of their dates. She was outside, a magazine in her hands and a glass of sweating water by her side when she heard the unmistakable squeal of tires on the street.
Daniel was supposed to be playing with his brand-new soccer ball he got for his birthday three weeks ago.
He had abandoned it, and the next thing she knew he was lying dead in the street.
The black Camry just swerved around him and kept going.
Her eyes watered just thinking about it, her throat aching the way it did when she held back tears.
Her head snapped up when she heard the over-exaggerated throat-clearing in front of her.
The tears dried in her eyes as she tilted her face up to the wind, meeting the person’s face with a blank look.
It was a boy, she recognized him from her biology class.
His hands were shoved deep in his baggy jeans, a frozen look of surprise on his face.
Lilith swung her legs a little, her eyes flickering to her pale hands.
“Hey, I just, um… Saw you out here. Are you okay?” His voice was awkward and staggered, like a limping man’s gait.
Everything about him screamed uncomfortable.
“I’m fine.” Lilith said listlessly, not bothering to fake cheerfulness.
Cheerfulness had abandoned her long ago.
If he was like anyone else, he would say ok and walk away. Because they only asked if she was okay so they could seem like better people. ‘I’m fine’ meant they could turn around. God forbid she say no, because that means they would have to speak to her. Actually speak to her.
His mouth started to open but snapped shut again, and he seemed frozen on the spot.
Lilith had made the mistake of thinking someone had genuinely cared once.
She would never make that mistake again.
“I’m fine.” She said more forcefully.
His eyebrows dipped down, his lips tightening together.
“Do you know me?” He asked, his voice more fluid this time as he stepped closer.
His tone made it clear that he wasn’t talking about his name or his clique or whatever.
She looked directly into his eyes.
“I don’t know you.” For some reason she found this funny and she started to laugh.
But her laugh turned to a strangled sob, which made her cry harder because she was embarrassed.
He was beside her now, an arm around her shoulders.
They stayed like that, an octopus hug, before he spoke solidly through her ugly cries.
“My mother died from cancer a year ago.” He said, his voice barely a cracked whisper.
She didn’t say ‘I’m sorry.’ She knew how much that irritated her when people said it to her.
“That’s horrible.” She offered instead, but her tone was more like a pathetic whimper.
“The world is a horrible place. Would you like to suffer together?” A smile was twisting his face, a sad smile.
Lilith wondered how she’d never noticed him before. They had been lab partners once, but she had never noticed his sadness: a fellow griever.
“My parents are separating.” The words were spilling from the lips like water from a leaky faucet, and she immediately wished this boy would disappear, because he was a truth serum.
“Death often splits apart a family. My older sister will have nothing to do with me or my Dad now. It’s really hard.” He squeezed my shoulder, but not in a perverted way.
He was unbelievable.
How could she relate to this boy, this jock? He was, she had seen him with her own eyes when he slapped his friends’ meaty hands on the way to a basketball game.
How many fellow grievers were there, people with secret sadness deep inside of them?
How much distress could this world stand?
Death tore people apart, but it also brought others together.
Lilith didn’t know if she could look at her classmates the same way.
There was Ollie, the girl with the guy name, who had changed miraculously over the summer from a Popular Girl to a emo.
There was Jake, the nerdy boy who’d become a vegetarian and a Christian in addition to giving up swearing over the course of a week, for seemingly no reason.
So much questions, so much sadness.
But the only thing that this boy was missing was change.
“You seem so normal.” She stammered.
He grinned. Again, it was sad.
“No one’s normal, Lilith.”
He got up, offering her his hand.
“I don’t even know your name.” She confessed.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’m Marcus. Marcus Stone.” He introduced himself.
She took his hand, standing up. Goosebumps lined her wrists when her jacket sleeves hiked up, and she tugged them back over the pale skin quickly.
“C’mon. School starts in seven minutes.” He jiggled a thick black watch on his wrist.
She stared at him owlishly as they walked, still hand-in-hand, into the doors of the school.
She was thinking of Daniel, of course, but she was feeling a little less sad.