((Benjamin Ward continued from Fumble))
Ben's family could be considered lucky in some respects. Out of the entire extended Ward family, not a single funeral had happened in Ben's lifetime. Not even the family dog, Buck, had died within Ben's lifetime. They got that mangy Shepard-Retriever mix when Ben was nine. At the age of eighteen, both Ben and the dog were somehow still alive. Not even Grandma and Grandpa on either side of the family had died. Both sets of grandparents had his mom and dad pretty young. It must have been a trend, since Ben's own parents continued it too. What that ultimately meant, was that Ben was really un-fucking-certified to be doing this. He wasn't a priest, a rabbi, or anything that would know how to do this. He didn't have catholic school training either. All Ben had to go on were reruns of those cop dramas that inevitably had these scenes.
"We are gathered here to mourn the life and memory of Oscar . . ." Ben took an awkward pause, fiddling with the wilted rose petals. They'd been sucked clean of any moisture. The roses were probably red at some point, maybe white. Now they just looked a dehydrated shit brown. "Oscar . . ."
Ben's voice again struggled to continue. Ben didn't even know the guy's last name. Ben wiped a regretful tear from his cheek but continued, this time a bit faster.
"Death has come to him, as it does to all of us." Yeah, by your fucking hand. A voice nagged at him while he did this. Not even his conscious would let him try to do one last fucking decent thing. "Death brings to our minds and hearts the common concerns and shared destiny of humankind."
Fuck it.
"Oscar. You deserved better. I took advantage of you so bad. Treated you like shit. I never let you know how useful you were." Ben knew how pointless this was for Oscar. Dead people didn't hear any of this. Funerals weren't for the dead's sake, but for those left behind. The dead were content to rot. It was the rest of them that needed this closure. "You probably died hating me. I don't blame you. I was such a fucking dick. You didn't deserve that. You didn't deserve to be here period. None of you did."
Ben's eyes looked up to the closest camera. The terrorists responsible were probably watching this with self-satisfied smirks strewn across their faces. Those bastards loved to watch them squirm and suffer. This was how they were getting off. Hard-ons for heartbreak. Fucking twisted.
What else could Ben say? Oscar's memory needed something final. Something that his parents could find comfort in. God, they must have hated him so badly. Or they would once they saw this stream online. He had nothing left in him to tell the cameras. No final goodbyes, no apology that could ever be worth a damn.
"Oscar. . . I'm sorry."
Oscar's body was swaddled unceremoniously in a blue bed sheet. Ben wasn't strong enough, nor willing to pick up the body and place it gingerly onto the sheet, so Oscar was lightly kicked until he flopped over onto the sprawled out sheet. Ben threw in the tattered remains of the roses in with him before he wrapped the sheet fully around. Where Oscar's feet slightly stuck out, Ben grasped and pulled at him; dragging him to his final resting place; the grocery store.
Ben returned to Linens and Things, accomplished in his goodbye. Out of the corner of his eye, he could still make out the pile of sheets that made up Janie's bed. He'd have to apologize when they got home. If Ben ever got out of jail for Oscar's murder, he'd do it in person. They might be forty by the time Ben got the chance, but he promised internally that he'd do it. Maybe in twenty-two years, Janie could forgive him.
Ben started to undress, leaving his clothes in the same pile as Oscar's discarded and still soaking clothes. A fresh pair of pajamas sat patiently to the side. He whipped off his Hollister t-shirt first. The last thing that connected him to home. All of the status, all of the coolness. It seemed like such a long time ago that the concept dictated his entire personhood. Back when his concerns were so trivial. Ben wished he could go back.
The blue pajamas weren't a masculine shade at all. They were marketed as powder blue, but they looked more like a baby blanket's shade. A part of Ben still cared, that was an undeniable part of his personhood, but the majority valued how comfortable it was. It also wasn't covered in the blood that he'd drawn.
The room started to get darker as night drew closer. The sun was setting, which was welcoming from a survival standpoint. It meant that Ben's risk of getting involved with another incident were dramatically decreased for the remainder of the night. Flashlights were a dead giveaway. Anyone with a brain chose to travel during the day.
Ben took the remaining fledgling moments of light to study his face in the full length body mirror. He'd managed to avoid getting too much of it on his face and hair, despite having to wipe a few tears off of his face. The few browned speckles were washed off with a conservative application of water from one of Oscar's water bottles.
As Ben wiped his face, his eyes locked with his reflections. For the first time in a few hours, he wasn't alone. "You killed Oscar. He's dead, and it's your fault."
Ben didn't sugar coat it. It was something that Ben had to admit bluntly and honestly. "What do you do now? Do you give up and pout? Get yourself killed off because you're sorry?"
"No. You're Benjamin Fucking Ward. You're better than this. No one gets to tell you when to fucking die. Not even you, dumbass."
When these tapes were released online, everyone would hate him. He'd just be another kid that lost his shit and killed someone else. Oscar's parents would hate him. His own parents would hate him. Elaine would hate him. Even back at school, it wasn't a secret that he was one of the most hated "popular" guys. Even his whole team could barely disguise how much they didn't like him.
But none of that meant that Ben couldn't love himself. Someone had to.
