I stepped in to the bleak funeral parlor. The walls were beige, a soothing color. There were a few potted plants, but none were the flowering type. Flowers would have been too cheerful, I guess.
Everyone was wearing black. It made me feel out of place, because I was in red. I didn’t care though. I had promised him that I would. The red was for the blood I had watched drip down his arms and on to the floor.
The buzz of people chatting made me sick. How could they have so much to say when they should have been mourning? They were acting too normal for today.
Two old ladies sat in a pew, short and frail. They were dressed as if they were going to church on Easter, with the florid hats. Their conversation intrigued me. I assumed they were his two grandmothers.
“How stupid could he be to have done this?” the first one asked. “What did he think would come from this?”
The other one’s voice shook as she tried to make the first lady understand. “It doesn’t really matter now, because what’s done is done. He’s in a better place now.”
The irritable grandmother laughed at the other’s remark. “Who are you kidding? That boy has gone to @#!*% . He committed a damnable sin.”
Tears welled up in my eyes when I heard what she was saying. Why would someone say something like that, ever? Didn’t she know it was bad to speak ill of the dead? It was poor manners too.
Hopefully, that rude woman was not his grandmother.
I stopped listening to them when I spotted his parents. His mother looked exceptional, considering the circumstances. She was wearing a nice sweater with dress pants. Her brown curly hair was perfectly done in every way. She was probably on drugs or something. The poor dear, she had no idea that her son was going to die. Plus, she had no idea why he’d done it. She wasn’t stuck, helpless, fighting and pleading with her son not to do it. She wasn’t that special. Lucky her.
She smiled when she saw me. “Arrianna, how are you?”
“I’m managing quite well. And yourself?”
“I still can’t get that image of walking in to John’s bedroom to find you cradling his bloody dead body out of my head, but otherwise I’m good, all things considered. Sad, but that’s to be expected.” She smiled, and I felt bad for her.
I’m glad you’re coping,” I comforted, but she didn’t hear me. Her being zonked out on Valium had made her space out.
Then I went to talk to John’s dad. He looked awful, unshaven and unkempt. Before we had even begun speaking he broke out in tears and had wrapped me in a hug. I felt bad for him, but at least he was acting like a normal person would.
“It’ll be okay,” I whispered, trying to console him. Then I broke free of his grasp and looked around for someone else to speak with.
Some friends of mine walked in, the two guys looking pale and exhausted. Dressed in nice pants and button-down shirts, they could have been masquerading as hung-over unemployed men. They strolled over to me.
“Arrianna, how did this happen?” Jake questioned me. “He was always so happy.”
“No, he wasn’t,” I replied coldly. Stupid, naïve little boy. How dare he act like he knew John well enough to speak as if he had dove in to the deep recesses of John’s soul? What kind of an arrogant pig was he?
“Well he sure seemed it.”
I glared directly in to his eyes and could have strangled him right there. “You don’t know anything, do you? He never seemed okay. He was never okay. You were just too stupid to see the scars all over his arms. You were just too blind to see the constant agony he was in. You must have been deaf to have not heard the words he would say, all of them filled with despair. What is wrong with you?”
I hadn’t noticed that I had been screaming at Jake. I hadn’t noticed when everyone had turned around to listen to me. I hadn’t noticed that I was crying.
My friends slowly walked away. Everyone else went back to their own private chats. And once again, I was alone. Just like it was to be for a very long time.
I was forever alone, just like John had left me.