She opens her eyes and wishes she hadn't because this isn't right.
This is completely inappropriate.
He's holding her wrists tightly and his breath is heavy in her ear.
She's thirty two and he's thirty three.
It's been a year since they've been alone in a room together and she's disgusted that this has happened in the most tasteless of ways.
They're at a funeral reception for heavens sake.
He releases her hands and she flexes them because he was rough and the white finger prints that are fading will turn to purple by morning but she doesn't care about that. He was angry. He's allowed to be angry.
Her feet are back on the floor but her hands grapple at his suit because her legs are unstable and she needs a moment to gain her breath.
He looks at her then. Looks at her properly for the first time since they entered this room thirty minutes ago.
Her hair is straight, half up and half down and the black dress that has had his eyes fixated on her from the start of the day is now crumpled.
'I shouldn't have done that' He says as he tucks his shirt back into his pants.
No you shouldn't. She thinks. He all but dragged her in here and pushed her up against the wall but she didn't say no. She could have said no.
'I'm sorry' He mutters.
And she doesn't want him to say that.
'Don't do that. Don't make me a regret. I'm your wife. You're allowed to fuck me'
'Don't be crude'
He runs his hand through his hair and slouches onto his sister-in law's desk.
'How are you?' He asks wearily.
'Lucas it's your mother's funeral and you're asking me how I am? How are you?'
'I need you' Is his only answer.
She migrates to him, her hands holding his head to her chest. 'You have me'
'Do I?'
'Of course you do'
'I haven't had you for the last thirteen months'
Her eyelids flicker. 'No' She says softly. 'And I've been drowning'
He looks up at her.
'I need you Luke, I need you'
My name is Sawyer Scott.
When I was little I use to like to listen to the story of how I was the miracle baby. That's what my Dad told me. I'd come into this world fighting for my life.
My mother would kiss my head and smile.
She'd tell me that I saved her.
She'd nearly died but she hadn't. She couldn't because she'd had to come back for me. For me and my father. That's what she said.
Their words made me feel special. I felt invincible, like I was their lucky charm and no wrong could be done whilst I was near.
I believed that for a long time.
When Anna Elizabeth was born I believed it even more.
I can remember when they'd found out my mother was expecting.
I'd not fully understood then.
There'd been a lot of yelling behind closed doors. He'd accused her of putting her life in jeopardy. She'd screamed back that she'd not planned it. That it took two and she sure as hell hadn't been trying to get pregnant. It was fate.
I'd not understood why he was so angry.
I wanted a little brother or sister.
They hadn't told me back then what another baby could do but I sensed a shift in the months leading up to Anna's birth. Mum was different and not just her bulging belly. She was fragile and Dad was short tempered and bossy.
She'd stayed in bed under his strict orders.
I'd liked it. I'd sat on Daddy's side and we'd played game after game.
It was my sixth birthday when I walked in on a conversation I knew I wasn't meant to be hearing. I can remember their hushed voices and her watery eyes and the mention of death.
They'd both stopped talking as soon as my little form was noticed.
I'd asked her if she was going to die.
She'd smiled, shaken her head and pulled me into her arms and she made a promise. She said it wasn't possible, not with me, her darling baby so close because I needed her and she wasn't going anywhere.
There was no way she could have known that then. No way. But I believed her and none the less, she hadn't died.
Anna Elizabeth Scott was born on the fifteenth of March without any complications. Mother and baby healthy as can be. Sweet Anna hadn't sent her into a coma as I had.
I can so clearly remember holding her for the first time. I'd sat up on the hospital bed, my Mum's guiding arms around me too.
She was warm and heavy and resembled that of an alien creature to my six year old self but I loved her, from her big blue eyes to her tiny feet.
My dad had cried. I'd never seen him cry and I'd asked him if he wasn't happy with the new baby and he'd laughed and shaken his head and said he was just so happy to have us all before him, safe and healthy.
We called her sass. She was sassy. She wasn't like me. She always had a smile on her face. She was little but she was sunshine and love. She was younger than me but understood me better than anyone and I loved her more than anything.
It was that day. When I was eleven years old though that everything changed.
Not for the better.
Nothing could ever be the same again.
It was that day that I realised that I wasn't the lucky charm, I wasn't the miracle baby. I wasn't the glue that held our family together. I was nothing of the sort.
My mother had always talked about how I saved her, how I was her reason for existing, how Anna and I were her life.
I hadn't saved her, I'd been killing her from the moment I started growing and she'd made it despite the lack of odds in her favour. Anna hadn't tried to kill her. Anna was the miracle.
With each day of my existence, each day I grew older, bigger, stronger, my mother had grown weaker; her love for us wore away at her tough exterior. I withered it away.
I'd tried to murder my Mother before I'd even left the womb, I'd not succeeded but I killed my sister and killed my mother and father in doing so.
No one will ever say that. No one will even dare to think it. But it's the truth.
She'd been standing where she was because of me.
I'd thrown that ball.
The car had skidded and swerved but her little body couldn't be avoided.
At night I see it again and again.
I see her long blonde hair flying out as she was thrown over the bonnet. I see the blood.
My Mum and Dad didn't blame me.
Of course they didn't.
I'd stood there. Unable to move. Mum had run out of the house. She'd held Anna's little body in her arms and she'd screamed.
The medics couldn't do anything.
My mother blamed my father. She wasn't allowed to blame me so she had to blame him. He'd been in the garage, he should have been watching. That's what she screamed at him and he let her. He let her scream and shout. Then he'd hold her and she'd cry and then she'd hit him and tell him to get out. And then she ran out of tears and I didn't see him for a while and without him she wasn't the same person.
She slept a lot. Didn't eat.
She'd come into my room in the middle of the night and get into bed with me. Her arms would embrace me so tightly and she'd sing in my ear and I'd wonder if she was pretending I was Anna.
I wished it had been me and not her.
I missed her.
Her departure had ruined everything that was wonderful.
She'd taken everyone's happiness with her.
Without her nothing could be normal again.
The next twelve months were long. Colour drained from everything.
We didn't laugh. We didn't smile.
And then when my grandma died on the fifth day of the thirteenth month, I couldn't cry.
I couldn't shed a tear.
It was as though I could feel no more pain.
I'm standing in my Aunt and Uncle's house now.
Everyone is dressed in black.
It's the first time I've seen my Dad in twelve moths. I've had realms of letters and he's phoned almost every day but seeing him in the flesh after so long is surreal.
He picked me up when he walked into our house this morning, despite my age. He picked me up and threw me around and I'd laughed.
I'd laughed for the first time in a long time and it had felt good. It felt wonderful and I'd instantly felt bad because you're not meant to laugh at funerals.
You're not meant to laugh when your sister's dead and your grandma is about to be buried. You're not meant to laugh when your Mother struggles to get out of bed in the morning and you haven't seen your father for going on a year.
He's standing in the doorway now. Everyone keeps saying how sorry they are. They can't imagine how awful it's been having lost his daughter the previous year and now his mother too.
Everyone hopes he's doing well. Everyone knows things aren't going well but they wish it all the same. They all avoid the obvious breakdown of my parents marriage. They all pretend despite the fact that my Mum and Dad haven't spoken a word to each other in months.
My Dad nods and thanks them for coming.
His mother is dead. He is sad. I'm sad. My mother is sad.
It gets to be too much.
I go and sit in the hallway under the stairs.
Jamie sits one side of me, Lydia on the other. Their hands find mine. We don't speak. I know they're remembering what I am. They're thinking about the den we made here two summers ago. We'd stayed in there all day and Aunt Haley had even let us sleep there. We'd felt so safe. We'd felt like anything was possible.
My Mother walks by and my father's hot on her tail. He drags her into Aunt Haley's study.
I don't want to stick around and listen to them argue so we get up.
I sneak a glass of wine from my Aunt and Uncle's supply.
It doesn't taste nice but I like how it makes me feel.
I fall over and my Uncle Nate is holding me upright when my Mother and Father reappear, hand in hand.
Their eyes travel over me and then they're asking me what the hell I think I'm doing.
I don't answer. I don't know what I'm doing.
They take me home and I'm semi aware that they're both here. Together.
They both put me in their bed.
They tell me the story of how I was the miracle baby.
I say I'm not.
I say I'm the devil. I say I wasn't a miracle. I say I'm a murderer. I say I tried to kill my own mother before I was born and I killed Anna too.
They say that's not true.
They call me darling and stroke my forehead and say it was no ones fault. They say it was an accident.
They say it's okay now, because grandma is up there with her and she's not alone anymore.
I don't think I believe in any of that but it's nice to think.
They say they're sorry that they've not been together for the last year. They say they're sorry that it's been so difficult for me.
I say I'm sorry that I threw that ball. I say it was my fault.
My Mother shakes her head. She tells me something she's never told me before.
She tells me that she knows what I'm feeling. She tells me that for a long time she felt responsible for her Mother's death. She tells me that her Mother was on her way to pick her up from school when she ran a red light.
Dad says it wasn't my fault. He says it was an accident.
He says we have to remember the happy times because Anna would want us to all stay together, she'd want us all to be happy.
And suddenly it's as though she's right here. Like we're altogether. I can hear her laughing.
And instead of mourning her absence we remember her and laugh about all the happy times.
They lay either side of me and their arms are around me and I think thirteen is too old to be sleeping in my parents bed but I don't care.
I'm half asleep and they're talking softly to each other but I'm not listening, I don't need to to know they're saying I love you.
I know they're together again.
And this time I know it's forever because I can see Anna. She's standing across the room and she's holding grandma's hand and she's giggling and they're waving at me and I laugh too.
Mum and Dad ask me what's so funny but when I look back they're gone and I know I won't see them again because it's okay now.
They're right Grandma will take care of her now and we'll live on and one day when the time is right, we'll all be together again.