Stares

 

You walk into the room. It smells like flowers. And then you see them, arrangements cover the walls, you see there are messages tied to them, but you do not read them; keep your head down you tell yourself. Trying to emulate the other people in the room is all you can do, as hard as it may be in a situation like this. A drop of sweat crawls down your face. You keep walking through the room, and you notice the people, and their secretive stares. 

They see you and you wonder what they must think, but they will never know what really happened, you do your best to keep the sadness in your face, they have to believe you you think, it’s the only way for this to work.  You keep walking slowly. A hand rests on your shoulder, a you hear the whispers in your ears, I’m sorry they all say, I’m sorry for your loss. And you keep walking. It is too bad you have no real reason to cry. You hear whispers further back, and you know it’s you they’re talking about. But there is nothing to do about but keep walking straight forward. 

You clench your fists as you reach the front. You clench your fists, the atmosphere in the room is unbearable. You can feel everyone’s eyes on you as you finally reach it. And your head gets hot you start sweating but you still know there's nothing you can do. They can’t know the truth about what happened, no one will ever know. If only they knew what had really happened, if the really knew the reason why. But they never will, they will never understand the reason for the drop of sweat crawling down your face.

Author's Notes/Comments: 

Andrea Guzman 

Alejandro Villegas

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