The sky was smiling. Every book, movie, play, with their stylised deaths and somber funerals where the rain poured down like tears across the earth's face, was lying. Because Dirk was at a funeral now, and it was the most goddamned sunny day he'd seen in ages.
He stared at the coffin, shiny black with gold trim. He'd picked it out. He'd picked out the box that his best friend was going to lay in for eternity.
Roxy. His Roxy. Dead. He wasn't ever going to get texts in the middle of the night, spelling so bad the message was nearly indecipherable. He was never going to get calls in the middle of making one of his videos, asking for a password list of dirty words for some fucked up dictionary hack. He was never going to get psychoanalysed by Rose when he dragged Roxy back into her house, both drunk and stumbling enough to be a public hazard, at two in the morning. Roxy is, or was, his other half. And now she was gone, brain too mangled by alcohol for any medical procedure to ever salvage.
Dirk waited until everyone else had left or was leaving before he went up to say his piece to her. It wouldn't have felt right with an audience.
"You broke our promise. You told me you were getting better. But you weren't, and now it's too late. I'm alone, and I'm not really sure if I can do that. I know it was hard for you, I know you hated the pressure and the fear and the simple, unmitigated unreasonable hatred only you could feel and see from everyone. I know you loved me, more then I loved you. I know you hated that I couldn't love you back the way you wanted me to. But damnit, Ro Lal, you could have said something. You know I would have helped. Helped you like you helped me, with movie nights and hugs and no bloody rehab or crisis centers. Rose, Janey, Calli, we all would have helped. And now it's too late. I miss you. I miss you a lot. I'm always going to miss you. It's going to hurt everyday, right up until the day I join you."
His face was dry under his shades, but he knew they wouldn't be as soon as he got home. He walked out to his car, body shaking from the effort of keeping himself together. He sat down in the driver's seat and stared out the window. His wrists twinged like they hadn't in years, the way they always did whenever he had felt like this. Usually, Roxy would be there for him to text, her typos and idioms familiar and calming for him, and he would have let walls of pink text glaze over his eyes until he felt better. But now, she was the cause of it.
Dirk pulled down his gloves, tossing them into the center console next to him. The gloves were black, fingerless and went down to his wrists. They had been a gift from Roxy after he'd done it the first time, because of the bullying. He ran his fingers over the thick matching scars on the inside of his wrists, the mottled pale skin that stretched grotesquely over those two areas. It was the weirdest sensation, because the scars themselves were actually numb. The doctors had called it superficial nerve damage. His vision began to cloud. He'd tried, so many times in high school, to kill himself, and she'd always stopped him. And the one time the roles were reversed, he hadn't been able to do the same.
He roughly wiped his eyes with the back of his hands and started his car. The old engine rumbled to life grudgingly and he pulled out of the parking lot. Every sound was muted to him, his ears clogged with the sound of his thoughts as he drove. He was barely aware of making it home, his body on disconnected autopilot as he parked his car and went up the stairs to his apartment. His two bedroom apartment that would now always be too-empty without the semi permanent presence of Roxy in his guest room. He wanted to go into that room, hoping it still smelled like her, but he didn't. He knew he'd already cleaned it out, back before the funeral and the grief had really set in, emptied it of her things and sprayed air freshener so that when the depression hit him full force, he wouldn't have to do those things.
So instead, he sat down on his couch and stared at his TV without turning it on. It felt like minutes to him, but he was vaguely aware of the shifting light outside that plainly said he'd been sitting for hours. His phone went off in his pocket once, and he shut it off without bothering to see who it was, tossing his shades off to the side as he did.
A knock on the door startled him and he briefly considered ignoring whoever it was. But he decided not to and rolled off the couch to go see who it was. The door opened to reveal the last person he had ever expected to see. Dirk stared for a moment at the person in front of him, taking in the messy black hair, slight overbite, crooked glasses and torn frayed t-shirt. Jake English.
"I heard about Roxy." He said. Dirk blinked for a moment before he stepped aside to let the boy in. They sat across from each other on the couch.
"Where have you been?" Dirk's voice was a little scratchy from crying. Jake had been part of his group of friends in high school, the only kids who had never teased him about his unnatural eyes. Jake had been his closest friend, next to Roxy, and his first crush. And first love. Not that Jake had ever noticed, of course. And then, in the middle of their sophomore year, Jake had suddenly disappeared, gone across the pond with his grandma without so much as a word of warning. He was just there one day and gone the next, phone number disconnected and online accounts made inactive a week later. That was the second time Dirk had tried to kill himself.
"England, Ireland, Scotland, Greece, Eygpt, Italy, Spain and France. Moved to a new place every year. I was in Russia when I heard." He said quietly. Dirk said nothing.
"Look, I- I'm sorry. I didn't know-"
"Didn't know what? That leaving would hurt us? That cutting us off completely so none of us contact you would be bad? Or that Roxy was alcoholic? That she was depressed enough to literally drink herself to death?" Dirk spat in a low voice. He knew it wasn't fair to Jake, that the other had only just gotten here, but he couldn't help himself. Years and years of hurt were dredging themselves up from the depths of his mind for him to throw at someone, just to get it out of his head. "Yeah, Jake, there's a lot that you didn't know. That's what happens when you disappear for nine years."
The room was silent as Dirk wiped the tears off his face. Jake's face, older and more defined then Dirk remembered, but still the same face he had loved, was a gut-wrenching mixture of empathy, guilt and sadness.
"How long are you back for and where are you staying?" Dirk asked quietly.
Jake shrugged. "I don't know. I'm thinking about moving back permanently, I guess. And I was just going to find a motel or something after I visited you."
Dirk nodded, feeling numb and empty inside. "I'm going to bed now. You can take the guest room if you want. It's where Dave's old room was." He got up and left, shutting the door to his bedroom without waiting to see what Jake's choice would be. He already knew it, anyway. He already knew Jake would be gone in the morning, would just disappear without a word, just like last time.