Never in my life have I ever cried so much for so long. I felt drained and tired and like my body could no longer produce any tears at all. Never in my life have I ever felt so much guilt that I keep repeating the words "sorry" repeatedly in my head.

I sat on the large sofa in front of the closed casket where my father's corpse lay. My mother said she didn't want anyone to see how horrible he looked in his last days. I felt the guilt wash over me as I thought about how I wasn't there for him.

My classmates were at the funeral house. They moved to me, patted my back, gave their condolences, and left. My mother was outside the room, talking to some guests, ignoring my presence. I understood her anger towards me, but I only wished that she understood my anger towards him.

I heard a buzzing sound of conversation around me as I stared at the casket. A thousand thoughts ran through my head. The only voice that managed to rise to the surface was Michiru's. She was behind me, welcoming the people that came in to talk to me.

Then I heard silence.

For a moment, I felt an overwhelming sense of realization. He was gone. My father passed away.

Shit.

My stomach turned, and my chest became heavy as freshly new tears ran down my face. I moved my hand and covered my face as another wave of emotions overpowered me to my core. The muffled crowd began to resurface again. I wanted them gone, but before I could move or say anything, Michiru sat down beside me, moved my hands away, and cupped my wet face with her soft hands.

Her blue eyes muted everything around me; her adoring gaze made me come back to myself. Michiru was here. She wasn't going anywhere. Her hands moved and reached to touch my nape while her fingers got tangled with my hair. She pressed her forehead to mine and closed her eyes. Without a second thought, I pressed my face to her shoulder and pulled her in. I cried, yet her blouse smothered my sobs.

I know his burial happened because I was standing there when his casket was placed six feet underground. I stood motionless as they began to cover him with dirt, and the people around me began to walk away. My eyes jumped from person to person until I found my mother talking to someone, nodding and accepting yet again another condolence. We locked eyes for a moment. She didn't say a thing yet; her expression spoke a thousand words in a second of silence. I understood every word. Come back. I need you. We need each other. I love you and miss you so much.

I shook my head and turned away, escaping as fast as I could to my car and finally to the place I had called home for the past months.

Solitude was a blessing. Its quietness made me breathe in hard and exhale as I got comfortable on the living room sofa. I felt relieved yet with a heavy heart. I wondered how long I was going to feel like that. I knew that it would pass, but I couldn't wait to go back to simply not care. I chuckled to myself until I heard the door. I heard people talking, murmuring, yet the moment they saw me, their voices died down. They were talking about me.

"Hey…" Tsuko said, walking behind the sofa and placing her hands over my shoulders. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I am fine," I lied. I wasn't fine, but there was nothing they could do to fix it.

"If you need anything let me know, alright?"

I nodded and watched her leave with Keishi close behind. I was left alone with Michiru, who seemed uncomfortable as if she wanted to say something but was trying to find a way not to hurt my feelings. Finally, she took a deep breath and spoke. "Haruka," she began, "your mom said that you should call her."

"Not now," I mumbled as I stood up and started to head up the stairs. I didn't want to have this conversation.

"She wants you to move back. Now that he is gone, she—"

I quickly raised my hands and silenced her with an angry snarl. "I said not now." I closed my mouth when I saw her looking down at me, arms crossed under her chest as if she was about to reprimand a child. "What is it? You want me to leave?"

"No." Her answer was so terse and emotionless that I felt the anger rising inside of me.

Why couldn't I fucking read this girl? It infuriated me. I shook my head and continued to my room but was followed closely by Michiru. "I don't want to go back."

"Haruka, your mother needs you now more than ever."

"She does?" I chuckled. "I needed her." I sat down on the bed and took off my shoes and coat. I was done with the conversation, but apparently, Michiru wasn't.

"Haru—"

"No! Michiru, I don't want you to understand any of this. Your parents are the epitome of what good parents should be! Mine, not so much, but I never blamed them. I am not a perfect daughter."

"You are an excellent daughter."

"No, I am not!" I shouted as I stood up menacingly and looked down at her.

She raised her chin and fronted me with unnerving eyes. I wanted to look threatening, I did, but the moment I realized that I had just spent the last months of my father's life away from him due to a grudge that my mom was able to let go of, made me tremble in despair. What if I had let go of that grudge? Would he be alive? What if we mended our problems? Dear God… Would he still be alive?

I swallowed hard and looked away. I stumbled as the back of my knees hit the bed. "Can you leave me alone, please?"

I heard Michiru inhaled sharply before exhaling, probably due to frustration. She turned on her heels and walked out of the room, leaving me alone.

This was my first encounter with death. Life is fickle and short. You live your life knowing that you will die eventually, yet you never think that it can be right now or tomorrow. You waste your days away with such stupid fights and thinking about so many unimportant things. The bigger picture blinds us as we grow. We must have good grades, graduate, finish college, get a job, work our butt off, be successful, become someone, make our mark in the world so no one will forget our name.

If you don't do that, were you leaving at all? Is life a race in which you compete with others on who wins the most material things? Where does human interaction fall in then?

Why are we even alive in the first place? What is the use of working and busting our asses for if, in the end, we will die? And how will we die?

This idea of dying in your sleep is the best one. Everyone wants to die of old age in a warm bed surrounded by the people they love. No one wants to die of fucking cancer or a car accident.

What were my father's last thoughts? Did he ever imagine that he would get this sick and when he did, did he brush it and think that he would get better? How did he feel when he got the news of his sickness? Was my mother the first person he thought about? Was he worried about my wellbeing? Did he worry if I would be okay after he was gone?

Did he want to go back to how things were if it was just for a moment?

The last image I had of him was of his broken-down body, begging me to stay by him, and I turned away from him just like that.

"Fuck," I choked on my sobs. This night will torment me until I die or forgive myself, whichever came first.

If my heart was this broken, I could not imagine how my mother was right now, at home, alone.

She was probably sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a hot cup of milk to calm her nerves, before crying herself to sleep as I was right now.

Crying is tiresome. It takes a toll on your body and mind, and it exhausts you completely, yet the best nights of sleep you ever get are the ones where you drain your mind and body crying.

Sleep came to me like a whisper, softly and subtly. I didn't even bother to change clothes or get under the covers.

Suddenly, in the middle of the night, I heard soft footsteps on the wooden floor headed in my direction. Her hands on my arm woke me up. She pulled it from my face and stared down as if checking if I was still crying. The confusion on my face couldn't be more evident as I frowned and asked her what she was doing.

Michiru puckered her lips and hushed me without using words. She scooted me over, and I obliged by giving her some space beside me to lay. She pulled the cover over us before locking her eyes with mine again.

Her soft hand cupped my cheek and wiped away the moisture that was still there. I sighed and closed my eyes before feeling the warmth of her lips on my forehead.

I must say, people underestimate the power of forehead kisses. How can a soft caress break you down and give you peace all at the same time? I cherished that gentle caress as if it was the first kiss I'd ever received in my entire existence. I would worship her every single day of my life if only to receive the blessing of a kiss on my forehead. But not any kiss, her kiss. Her lips were so soft, so plump, so perfect. I almost sobbed at the sheer perfection that this girl was. She was perfect, and that kiss just proved how perfect she was.

I shuddered as my arms moved by themselves around her and pulled her in closer. I didn't feel her reject me. On the contrary, I could feel the warmth of her entire body pressed so dangerously and intimately close to mine that my ideas and thoughts came in a blur. All that came to mind was how soft and inviting she felt. Her chest moved with every single deep breath that she took. Was she alright? I looked down and noticed that she wasn't the only one having trouble breathing.

Dear God, I could see how close we were, how gorgeous she looked with her hair down. Her eyes looked at me with such worry. What am I doing?

I couldn't stop myself. My hands traveled to that hollow space in Michiru's lower back. I pulled her in and bumped my nose with her chin.

God, make me stop, please. I am in no state to be thinking or doing anything like this, but it felt so right and necessary. I can't stop myself. I could see her chest heaving, the creaminess of her white skin, her shoulder blades, how her dolphin collar dangled from her slender neck.

I shouldn't…

She gazed down, and I swear that she was staring at my lips as she tangled up her legs with mine under the covers. Her thigh was snuggled up to that space between my legs, and I am not sure if she was doing it on purpose, but the way that she moved made it so hard to think straight. Her hand laid lazily on my waist while mine absentmindedly moved a strand from her gorgeous face. What in the world were we doing? Was I dreaming again?

"What would make you feel better, Haruka?"

My heart skipped a beat; I forgot how to breathe. I blinked and thought my words over before my hand slipped. I brushed Michiru's lower lip with my thumb. I felt this electricity go through me, waking up the desire that had been dormant for some days now. I felt liquid lust pool itself in my lower stomach before I inhaled her scent. My body screamed for me to devour the girl and drown the pain inside my heart with the closeness and the openness that she gave me.

What would make me feel better?

Pressing her down on this bed, tearing away the modesty that has stopped me from day one from taking advantage of the fact that she is here, alone in my arms and so close that I could make out that her perfume was combined with the lingering smell of her sweat. It got me as high as the most potent drug in this world. What would make me feel better? Claiming her as mine once and for all. To forget that just a couple of days before, she was about to give herself away to some boy that doesn't appreciate her as I do.

To dismantle her soul and read her most intimate thoughts and finally understand how she thinks about me, to kiss away the doubts that I've seen in her eyes on so many occasions when she looked at me and help her see me as something other than a close friend.

That's the only thing that would make me feel better right now, but I could see the hesitance in her gaze. I felt her trembling fingers comb my hair while her blue eyes studied my face as if she needed some form of permission to discover the fact that I had been dreaming of this moment the second I pressed my body to hers in that basketball game when we were merely in ninth grade.

I parted her lips with my thumb and felt the warmth and moisture of her breath upon my finger. My answer to her question was inaudible. I licked my lips and shuddered as I felt her move closer; the bed creaked underneath us, her chest over mine, her hands on my face, she held me steady, and I closed my eyes. I waited for her warmth, but instead, I heard a surprised gasp and a loud slam on the door.

"Michiru!"

The cold chill that ran from my head to my toes jolted me up. My hands flew to Michiru's shoulder as I pushed her off me. My heart was beating loudly, and the heat that had pooled in my stomach rose to my face like a lightning bolt. Michiru called out to her mother, but all I could hear was the bed creaking as I moved away.

"What the fuck are you doing!" Tsuko asked in disbelief. The curse word was so unlike her that it surprised me and made me cringe as if she was about to strike either me or Michiru.

I closed my eyes tightly and cowered down on the bed.

"I was talking with Haruka. She was crying and-—"

"Shut up and get over here, right now."

"Mom, it's not what you thi—"

"I won't repeat myself."

Her words were so harsh, so angry. I took a deep breath and turned to face her before standing up and placing my hand over Michiru's shoulder. "Tsuko—"

"I am sorry, Haruka, but this does not concern you."

I shouldn't even dream of answering back to what she had just said. I let my hand fall as Michiru walked to her mother and out of the room. This wasn't a dream.

Shit.