Fake ID by Lamar giles

Author:Lamar giles [giles, Lamar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

We arrived at the church, slipping back into our roles as the Pearsons. The sanctuary had maybe fifteen pews on each side, only a few of them full. We stood in a line of ten people waiting our turn to view Eli’s body. I shifted to the right and saw the foot of the mahogany casket, then left, saw the tip of Eli’s nose rising over the coffin’s lip. I scanned the other guests, needing to look elsewhere.

There wasn’t a large crowd to see Eli off. Hardly anyone from school. I recognized a few faces from the Cruz house, like Reya’s distant cousin with the prison tats. He sat on the right side of the sanctuary in the center of a pew, his arms stretched along the seat’s back edge, his suit worn around the collar and thin at the elbows. He caught me looking and gave a respectful nod.

A couple of rows ahead of him sat Pilar, crying harder than that day on the porch and rubbing her bulging belly. Uncle Miguel sat beside her, awkward, fiddling with a sparkling pinkie ring that could’ve paid for the casket. Seeing him next to Pilar, I noticed something I missed before. The similarities between their noses, and chins, and the way their eyes were set.

Pilar was his daughter.

Not a huge revelation—her being Reya’s cousin, and him her uncle—but I was stuck on the way he’d exploded from the house and went NASCAR with his Jag, never sparing her a second look. A reminder that my family didn’t have a lock on dysfunction.

The church murmuring dialed down as Reya entered with her mother, both in dark glasses, their arms intertwined. Like everyone else, I couldn’t help but stare. I didn’t realize the viewing line had moved.

“He looks like he’s sleeping,” the woman between me and Eli said before stepping aside. I faced the coffin.

Eli’s glasses were gone and his hair was neatly trimmed. I was used to his sweatshirts and shorts, the only things I’d seen him wear. The suit wasn’t him. He wouldn’t play Modern Battlefield or Finite Universe in a three-piece. He didn’t look like the guy I got to know, the guy who saved me, then told the school I was a badass ultimate fighter. Or the dude who taught me about newspapers and drank half a case of orange soda at my house. If he was just sleeping, he’d still look like my friend. Not this . . .

I stumbled to the nearest empty pew. Mom’s heels clacked loudly behind me. I didn’t think this would hurt so much. Only knew him a few weeks.

Sobs ripped the solemn atmosphere. Mrs. Cruz gripped her son’s coffin, rocked it like he really was asleep and a good shaking would wake him. Reya pressed her face into her mother’s neck.

I thought I’d be embarrassed about this, but cried, too, like me and him had been hanging forever. You don’t have to know someone your whole life to know them. Not really.

Lonely is the same everywhere.

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