Hello!

This is a bit sad; well, at least I hope so. I've been listening to "Just my Imagination" and Arcade Fire's "The Funeral" all day now, and this is what happened.
Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. "Just my Imagination" by The Temptations, "The Funeral" by Arcade Fire.

This is Just My Imagination (The Funeral)

Bella Swan

The day after high school graduation was his 19th birthday. Edward Cullen was the oldest one in our grade, which made him naturally more appealing to the girls. He was handsome, rich, smart; almost every girl would dream of him.

I'm not going to pretend like I wasn't one of them. At one point or another I have thought of him romantically.

But only because he told me to. The rest of the time I didn't allow myself to indulge in fantasies.

Charlie comes in, and tells me we're leaving in fifteen minutes. He looks at me, at all the strewn papers and old clothes that have accumulated in years, and he gives me a look. "Don't take too long," he says. I nod and say OK.

Standing from my computer chair, I push more boxes around, and straighten my dress.

My only black dress, bought for that moment and for others that will surely come. There are black flats that go with it, black flats with a white ribbon attached to the tip.

I stare at the computer screen, at the calendar on it that told me the date. A week before, I had woken up early for what should've been the last time (this sounds morbid, but I only mean that it was the last day that I'd operate under high school time). Everyone in the twelfth grade had gathered in the cafeteria, had exchanged hugs and had helped each other with caps and gowns.

Of course Jessica Stanley told me that I should've worn a different colored dress, and yet attempted to make me feel like shit, but the moment reassured me that this was happening. I would be walking up the stage, I was graduating, and life could get better. Harder for some, easier for those lucky others, but better all in all.

Edward had said goodbye. Was I ready to move to New York? How was Charlie going to handle the house now? Was I going to miss him? What about his sister Alice?

I'd laughed of course, but it was drowned by the good moods of families that surrounded us.

For a supposedly smart girl, I fail to notice the important details. I still stare at the computer screen, but I should go. So I stand, put on my flats, and make the cliche look back to my room.

Edward had separated me from the crowds after the ceremony. "You're gonna miss me," he'd said with a smirk.

Fortunately for me, I'd given up joking and had let myself sincerely say, "Of course I will." I hadn't hugged him, because he didn't look like he needed one. But I'd wanted to.

Charlie knocks this time, and tells me it's time to go.

"OK." I follow him to the car, not minding the sun that streams through the foliage above us. I tilt my face up and sigh.

Charlie says, "You ready?" He has been composed lately, but the stiffness has been taking a toll on him. He can't really sleep unless I sleep first, or eat first, or smile first.

In the car, Charlie turns on the radio and raises the volume. I give him a look that tells him I know what he's doing. We know it's not going to work.

Graduation. Edward had been wearing a blue dress shirt and black tie. "You're gonna miss me," he'd said with a smirk.

"Of course I will."

"Don't forget us, all right? I'm not kiddin'. I don't care if you have to make up some sexy dream about me—"

"Shut up!" I'd said with a blushing smile. I didn't know what else to say. "Um, bye, Edward. I'll see 'ya round."

"Yeah yeah, bye."

In the car, I can't decide whether I was friends with Edward Cullen. We were in classes all four years, sure, and we'd talked. But never in the way I'd wanted to, and I was never bothered by it. Could I really say I was his friend? Had I ever been a friend to hiim?

Charlie looks at me. He looks very old. I'm to blame for that. Partly because having kids is aging in general, and partly because I've been difficult lately. If Renee were here, she'd smile and tell me it's OK, really, that I'm fine because I'm grieving and this is all a shock to me. I'm young to experience a funeral like this.

Charlie does none of this, and I prefer it. Sometimes I couldn't take it when my mom tried to give me her wisdom. At least Charlie doesn't assume to know how I feel every single time I cry.

When the car goes round the driveway to the cemetery, I force my eyes to remain open. As a result, I frown and look angry. Like I don't want to be here. But that's not true.

As if reading my mind, Charlie says, "Bella, do you want to go?"

"Go where?"

He looks surprised. He'd been asking if I was ready to go inside, not somewhere else. "Um, well, whatever you want."

"Yeah I'm ready," I say, erasing any notion of hesitance. "Charlie, I have to do this, right." I get out of the car and meet everyone at the room.

He follows and sits beside me. As the priest speaks, and his relatives (none from his immediate family, who are at the front crying) speak, I do what I usually do at churches, and get lost in my thoughts. If anyone asks (and no one will) I am saying my prayers. The solemn silence and the weak but resounding voices are lost on me as I bow my head and close my eyes.

Edward Cullen had worn a blue dress shirt with a black tie and black dress pants. He was holding his diploma when we saw each other.

"Hey, Bella!"

"Hey, Edward, so how's it feel?"

He'd raised the dark blue folder up and down, checking its weight, and said, "Feels all right. Takes some getting used to." Or some other joke like that.

Then we'd said goodbye. The next day he was in a car crash.

It was like a splat against everything I'd intended in my dreams. Edward Cullen had given me permission to think sexy dreams of him. Yes, it had been in a very informal way, but it felt special nonetheless.

Such. A. Shame.

The casket is black. It is closed, and it is surrounded by family members and loud mourners who get shriller every time. Lauren is on the other side of Alice, who looks like she wants to push Lauren off.

Only Charlie and I have an idea how harshly Edward Cullen's death affects me, and that this gathering wouldn't be my closure. It's a preemptive moment to the grief I'll deal with when I'm three thousand miles away, staring at my computer screen, wishing the calendar had stopped moving at graduation.

I'd never been a talkative girl, but today all I think about is talking. Every insignificant memory with him. Now that I have permission to dream him, I relax my smile and finish our conversations in my head.

The memory morphs into a dream, and slowly I imagine a different scenario.

"Hey, Bella," he'd said, showing me his diploma. "Fancy, huh? You know they don't give these out to just anybody."

"Well, lookee here, I got one, too." I'd held up mine, which was tangled with the cords that I'd had at the ceremony. Around us, people were rushing to each other, as if they weren't going to see each other at tonight's party anyway.

Edward dropped his diploma and looked at me. Really looked at me. "Bella, come with me."

"To where?"

"Anywhere we want. It's my birthday tomorrow, and I was thinking of going for a drive."

A road trip with Edward. That sounds nice. "What about your family?"

Then he looked at me again, and he smiled. "I want you to come with me. I want to leave Forks with you." The way he glanced back towards his family, towards everything else, disturbed me. There was some hard emotion in his stare I couldn't, wouldn't, place. It was like discovering another side, the more real side of a boy I almost knew well.

He took my cap (which I thankfully didn't lose) and put his over it. He tangled our tassels together.

"All right," I said. I accepted his inviting smirk. We walked towards the school parking lot, towards his black car, and we left the hugging crowds behind.