28. Sorrow
It was unreal. The world kept turning, the clock kept ticking, advancing time with a ruthlessness even Clockwork didn't possess. Her surroundings seemed both surreal and frighteningly down to earth. She even smiled at the driver when she stepped into the black limousine, moving with practiced ease, quietly sitting down next to her parents, who, for once, hadn't complained about the color of her clothes. They were looking solemn, and Sam felt a laugh bubbling up in her. She quickly suppressed it. They wouldn't understand. She wasn't sure she understood either.
The car started moving, it's engine making almost no sound, the dark windows shutting everybody out. They didn't talk, there was nothing to talk about, everything had already been said. Today was the closure, the farewell to a friend she had known for so long, her brother in every way but genetics. When she thought of his smiling face, tears rose to her eyes. She suppressed them. There would be plenty of time for that later.
Way too soon they arrived at the church, the limousine stopping in front of the entrance. Her parents got out, and Sam followed, keeping her hands on her black dress so it wouldn't get stuck somewhere. Then she straightened, and looked around.
Lots of young people, friends, family, school and college mates. Many of them she knew. More of them she didn't. He was well liked, people had traveled far to be here on this day, the day he had joked about a little too often. Ghost hunting was a dangerous business, and his clumsiness had caused her a number of almost heart attacks, but he had always been fine. Unscratched. And now this.
Of all the stupid things to happen, she thought when she entered the church and looked around in the darkness for her other best friend, this was the most stupid. An accident. A drunk driver, swerving on the road. Hitting him while he was riding his bike, oblivious. A lone tree, standing in his way as he was pummeled through the air...
Sam felt an unreasonable anger at the tree rising in her. If it hadn't been there... If he had left only a few seconds earlier, or later, if the bar owner had held the man back when he went out of the bar and got into his car... The timing of the thing infuriated her. Circumstances had conspired to make it happen, the disaster in the make before either of the participants were aware of it. The drunk in the car. The woman and her daughter in the car behind him, witnesses. Her friend on the bike. The stupid tree.
She sat down at the front, next to his grieving parents. The seat next to her was empty. He was late, as always. He would probably be late for his own funeral. She listened to the murmur of voices in the room, the subdued whispers of people offering their condolences. She felt strangely at peace, until her eyes caught the casket standing in the front. Closed. You don't want to see him, they had said, remember him as he was.
She had wanted to see him anyway, to know what had happened to him, to try and understand his passing. Because it was still unreal. Tears pricked in her eyes and she quickly looked away from the casket. As long as she didn't look at it, she was OK.
Somebody stepped past her and she looked up, straight into the sad, blue eyes of her best friend. She could see he had been crying, but he was calm now, composed. She knew he was going to say something later on, and she wondered if he would have the strength to do it without breaking down.
"Hey," he said softly, sitting down next to her, "You OK?"
She nodded, suddenly not trusting herself to speak. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. It felt both comforting and meaningless, increasing her feeling of detachment of the thing. She felt like she was playing a role, acting the sad, mourning friend, when in reality, she wanted to laugh and joke about it. For a moment, she was afraid she would do just that, so to get back to reality, she looked at the casket again. And began to cry.
She didn't listen to the minister's speech, the words sliding past her, not touching her. Then his father spoke, broke down, continued anyway and did touch her. She couldn't remember what he had said though. Then Danny was up, and she looked at him as he tried to convey their friendship, their threesome, their unbreakable bond that was now broken. His voice was steady and almost emotionless. Sam noticed that he didn't once look at the casket.
When he sat down next to her again she felt him shaking, and she noticed she was shaking too. The rest of the sermon passed in a blur, and before she knew it, she was standing outside again, waiting for her friend to be carried to his final resting place. Danny stood next to her, his hands in his pockets, looking at the ground as if trying to keep himself together. She touched his arm and he flinched, but then offered his arm. She took it, and together they followed the carriers to that cold, rectangular hole in the ground that had been dug the previous day.
There were more ceremonies, everybody got handed a rose to be thrown in the grave and Sam took one too. She looked down in the grave, at the casket now deep down, trying to feel something, anything, that would make her realize the finality of it. It didn't come. She threw in the rose anyway, to feel the ritual, to play along with the charade, expecting him to jump up from behind one of the tombstones, yelling 'Gotcha!' with his stupid PDA in his hands, filming their surprised faces.
The sun was shining inappropriately, the soft spring breeze smelled like grass and flowers and the faint smell of the exhaust fumes of the cars on the road next to the cemetery. She turned around and left. She would come back later, when everybody was gone. Maybe she would be able to make sense of it then.
Written in the memory of my friend H.G., who died ten years ago today. Please don't ever drink and drive.
