Emily's funeral was exactly one week after her death.
I stayed in bed for five of those seven terrible days, until eventually I couldn't stay in bed any longer for the sake of my sanity. Even the fact that I now feared for my sanity was an improvement – only a day before I wouldn't have cared. I might have welcomed a breakdown. I wanted to rip my heart out to stop it from aching, that terrible, empty hurt. I wanted my mind to shut down, to stop thinking about her, picturing her, hearing her voice as it screamed my name in those last few desperate moments before she was gone.
I didn't tell anybody about the dream. I doubted anybody would have believed me if I had. The only person in the world that I trusted enough to share something like that with was gone, anyway. Maybe I should have said something. When the police told my parents that they believed my sister had fallen asleep behind the wheel, maybe I should have corrected them. But would that have made it better? Would the truth help anybody right now? I wished to God that I hadn't seen her last, terrified seconds as she struggled against…something. Given the choice, maybe I'd have liked to believe that she had slept through it. A tragic accident on a winding country road. A sad statistic that a person could wrap their mind around. I could let my parents have that.
I don't remember much of the funeral. It was a closed casket, of course. It was always a closed casket when the body was so badly damaged. I doubted that she looked at all like my sister anymore. I shuddered to think about it as I walked down the aisle, trying to make my way to the front pew to be with my family, trying to ignore the muttering and the looks of curiosity and sadness from the congregation. I heard snippets of whispered conversation as I passed, but they didn't matter. They were just ghosts…or maybe I was.
"…looks just like her…"
"…must be so hard for her parents to see her every day…"
"...imagine how she must feel, losing her twin…"
"...closest a person can get to attending their own funeral…"
The minister spoke for what felt like hours. He didn't even know her. Emily never went to church. I didn't pay attention to anything he was saying, I wasn't sure I could handle that right now: hearing about my sister's life from a man who had never met her. I heard afterwards that it was a beautiful service. Whatever that means.
Before heading to the cemetery, my mother, father and I were expected to stand by the doors of the church to thank those who had come to mourn, and receive their condolences in turn. It was just a blur of pitying eyes and trite words. "Sorry for your loss." Sure. Thanks. Can I go now?
"Hey, Lauren." My eyes snapped up when I recognised the voice of the last person left in the church: Seth Logan. My sister's ex-boyfriend. The reason she had spent more time crying in the last six months of her too-short life than I had ever remembered her crying before. The fact that my fingers weren't already around his throat was a testament to my remarkable self-restraint. "I'm really sorry for your-"
"Piss off." I muttered, glaring at him. "She wouldn't want you here."
"I just wanted to pay my respects." He said, glancing at my parents.
"Your respects." I sniffed, nodding. "You should brush up on your Voltaire, Seth. We owe respect to the living; to the dead, we owe only truth. I know, I know, truth is kind of an elusive concept to you, isn't it? I don't have the time or the crayons to explain it to you right now, so please, with no due respect: fuck off. Then when you get to fuck off, go ahead and fuck off some more. Continue on past the next fuck off, and just keep fucking off until you fuck yourself off the nearest fucking bridge."
"Lauren." My dad hissed, and I looked round to see Seth's parents watching our exchange. His dad was the local doctor, and his mum taught at our primary school. I supposed my dad thought I should care.
"I'm sorry." Seth murmured, wiping an invisible tear from his eye. "I did love her, you know."
"If you don't walk away right now, the next funeral you attend will be your own." I growled.
"Seth." His dad said, in a warning tone. "Let's go."
"I'm so sorry." My dad said, shaking the doctor's hand. "She's…it's been…"
"Don't apologise for me." I said, shortly. I snapped my eyes back to Seth. "He knows I meant it."
My dad glared at me and ushered my mum and Seth's parents towards the door. I shot Seth a final, filthy look and turned to join them but he caught my arm and pulled me back towards him, keeping an eye on our parents' backs.
"Let go of me." I tried to yank my arm away but his grip around my bicep only tightened, and he leaned into me. "That's going to bruise." I hissed.
"You always did have a mouth on you, Lauren." He snarled into my ear. "Now, me? I always preferred your sister's mouth."
I swung my fist so hard into his face that I was surprised my hand didn't break. He released his hold on my arm and staggered backwards, stumbling into the wall.
"I told you." I snarled, as he clutched his soon-to-be-blackened eye. "That's going to bruise."
He opened his mouth to respond when our dads reappeared in the doorway. Apparently my punch had sounded as spectacular as it had felt.
"Lauren!" My dad roared, staring at me with a mixture of rage and disbelief, as Dr. Logan approached his son, examining his eye. "Is he okay?"
"Is he okay?" I snapped, brushing my dad off and storming past him, ignoring the surprised exclamations of the gathered mourners as I pushed through the crowd and strode towards the car park, fishing my car keys out of my coat pocket as I went.
"Lauren…Lauren, wait!" My father jogged to catch up with me but I kept walking. "Lauren, where are you going? You can't leave, we haven't even buried her yet."
"Yes, you have." I snapped. "She may not be in the ground yet, but you've buried her."
"What's that supposed to mean?" He demanded, furiously. I stopped and whipped around to face him.
"It's like you've forgotten who she was! Or did you just not pay attention? When she fell in the front door crying, night after night, because of that boy?" I knew it wasn't his fault, but I was angry, and he was there. He seemed to calm down, which wasn't what I wanted. I wanted a fight. But he wasn't going to give me one. I wondered if Seth was up for a second round. He sniffed, and ran a hand through his hair.
"So…so do you think I should go back in there and harass the doctor's teenage son for being a shitty boyfriend?" he asked, quietly. "Even the shitty boyfriends are allowed to grieve. I'm trying, Lauren, I really am." His voice cracked on the last word and he shook his head, his eyes swimming with tears. "Your mum's…she's falling apart in there. I am trying to keep this family together, and I don't think the best way of doing that is to go around assaulting anyone she ever argued with, sweetheart. I'm just trying to keep my head above water here."
I nodded, my anger still bubbling below the surface.
"Okay, dad. You just…go back in there and keep treading water." I held up my car keys and shook them, pointedly. "I'm going to go and drown my sorrows. You can pick me up from the Southfield on the way home."
"You're going to the pub instead of saying goodbye to your sister?" My dad asked, shaking his head. His disappointment was evident, and it stung, but I just didn't care.
"Who says I can't do both at the same time?" I asked, shrugging, as I walked away from him.
I knew that I looked like a petulant child, but it didn't matter. Better he be angry with me than worried about me. Of course I wasn't going to the pub. I just couldn't be there anymore. And I had to find out what happened to Emily. I only had one place to start. I had to go back to the scene of the crash, see if there was anything there that the police had missed. I couldn't stay here; I couldn't watch them lower her body into the ground. She wasn't there anymore, anyway. I was respecting her memory more by trying to figure out what had really happened to her. I repeated the words I had spat at Seth Logan.
"We owe respect to the living; to the dead, we owe only truth."
If the truth was out there, I was going to find it. I owed her that much.