Every Lie I've Ever Told by Rosie Waterland

Author:Rosie Waterland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2017-06-28T04:00:00+00:00

It took longer than I expected to get Tony’s body home from Austin. Although his friends there had confirmed it was him, he needed to be formally identified by a family member before his body could be released. He had cousins in Chicago who flew to Austin to complete the difficult task, before making the long journey home with him to Griffith.

He died on July 7th, and because of the difficulty in getting him home, the funeral wasn’t scheduled until July 23rd. It was such an odd period of time. Like a grief waiting room. Constantly being on the precipice of exploding emotion, but having to keep it in a jar until the exact right moment. I could see the pain and adrenalin through the glass; I knew it was there. I would poke holes in the lid and let little bits out, but it somehow seemed like the worst was yet to come. The lid was going to have to come off. I knew it was coming. And I just had to sit with it.

I went back to Sydney for a few days, to be with my sisters and to visit the apartment Tony and I had shared together. I thought it would make me feel closer to him, but it just felt . . . wrong. So wrong. My younger sister Tayla had taken over the lease after I went to Melbourne and Tony went to Austin, so a lot of the same furniture was there, a lot of Tony’s pictures were still on the walls, the hipster light fixtures he had bought from Kmart hung from all the ceilings. But it wasn’t the same. I think I had hoped to walk into that apartment and see the home Tony and I had shared. Maybe even see Tony, waiting for me on the couch with a glass of wine, ready to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. But all I saw was something that looked the same, but wasn’t. Like visiting a place you loved as a child, and not being able to recapture its magic. It wasn’t our home. It looked like it from the outside, but the inside was hollow. It wasn’t our home.

I was lost. Melbourne didn’t feel like right, and now Sydney didn’t feel right either. I had come to Sydney to chase down a warm, familiar feeling, but it wasn’t there. So I flew back to Melbourne, which felt just as wrong. I was starting to drift off into space, and I kept reaching out for Tony, but he wasn’t there to grab my hand. What was I supposed to do when he didn’t grab it? I had no idea, so I just kept floating further and further away. I shut myself in my apartment, and never left. Jacob would ask me if I needed him to come over, and I would say no. I didn’t want to talk to anybody anymore. I couldn’t risk the lid coming off. I just needed to be numb.

More TV, more drinking, more dissociating.

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