Seeing Grace staring at her from across the road outside the surgery, something had clicked inside her. Like it was okay, okay for her to let go. Even if she was imagining her best friend there before her, it was too real in her mind to even contemplate it being an illusion of her mind. Everything after that had gone quick, she had been face to face with the receptionist of the establishment and the lump she had so vividly felt on her side was gone, disappeared - no longer there.
I feel I've lost my individuality, you're watching me rebel, believing stories only hearts can tell. But when is it enough? When do I call my feelings on their bluff..
That's when it all came crashing down around her, colliding with her, hitting her like a ton of brick and Liv Malone did something she hardly ever done, for anything. She cried, and she sobbed and she remembered Grace.
"My friend died-.. Grace died." The words left her lips and she sobbed until she felt her cries engulfing her. It was almost suffocating, all the grief that was now washing over her. She had been the strong one, for months upon months. She had tried her hardest to keep the gang together but they left her, without a backward glance. They all fucking left her. Mini had kept one of the biggest secrets from her, and had told Franky over her. And that.. was one of the things that hurt the most, even though she had ignored her calls and her texts - the fact that she felt the need to tell a friend who she'd known for a year and a half her biggest secret and trust her with it over Liv after they had been friends for 15 years, it had cut her deep like a knife and that was when she had realized how much she missed Grace.
Because it didn't matter what you did, you could sleep with your best friend's boyfriend, or you could quit the college musical, and she would still be your friend. No matter what, she didn't stop being your friend for anything. And that was the most beautiful thing about Grace Violet, she was the glue that held their friendship together - the anchor weighing them all down to the surface and they had all dealt differently with her passing. Some had run away from their problems, or pushed people away, but Liv had tried her hardest to get her friends together, she had partied like there was no tomorrow and she had remembered Grace because there was absolutely no way you could forget someone like her. She was everything right about the world and everything good that they had lost.
"I don't want to die." As these words left her lips, she was reminded of what she had promised her baby sister, Maude. 'Don't die, ever.' How could she promise that? Because after that promise was made, she was faced with her own problem, a lump on her side that was possibly cancerous and she had no one to turn to, so how could she promise her sister such a thing after not knowing her own fate because she was too scared to find out what it was. That was how she was here today, finally plucking up the courage and the lump that had been so rightfully there was now gone after seeing her best friend, her best friend's ghost.. or somewhat illusion. She'd been imagining it or was Grace still here?
But that was the whole point, Grace would always be here, whether it was as a ghost, or as a fragment of their imagination. She would forever be there, but would always be unable to answer the endless list of texts they sent her or the piling mount of voice mail messages.
They would never be able to cope without her. She was their glue, their anchor. Their friend.
Truth be told, they had lost the most remarkable person, and it wasn't until they had lost her that they realized how much she had truly meant to them. They were blessed with having her in their lives.
I remember us now, but I forgot what we felt like.
"My friend died.. Grace, died.."
It was now a memory and they would go on, they would push on, no matter what.
Good bye Gracie.