I try to picture everything perfectly as I stand at the funeral home. Exactly eight days ago, my mother’s funeral was held here. I’m picturing it as if it was the day of her ceremony. I didn’t get to attend it that day because I was in juvie. I walk up to where her casket would have been and just stand there and stare, trying to picture my dead mother. She has more makeup on now than she has ever had on in her whole life to try and make her look a little less dead. The doctors said it was a heart attack that took her from me.
I grip the bouquet of carnations I’m holding in my hand tighter as a tear rolls down my face. Those were her favorite flowers. This tear is followed by many more, my mother is gone and the last moment I had with her was absolutely horrible. I remember walking home from school early that day, my body still aching from the fight that I had just been in. Like any parent, my mother wasn’t happy and we got into an argument. Things got physical, she hit me hard and I hit her back. I remember the feeling of punching a picture frame that held a picture of us together. The glass inside the frame shattered into a million tiny pieces and the whole thing fell on the kitchen floor. In the moment before it hit the floor I realized what I had done, I had gone too far. She was cowering in the corner with the phone cradled in her hand. I remember the reflection of the flashing lights shining in my mother’s eyes. I wasn’t thinking when I hit her, I was filled with rage. I know this isn’t an excuse I shouldn’t have done it. I can’t take any of this back, I can’t even apologize for it because she’s gone. I would have behaved differently if I had known that would be the last time I saw my mother alive. I don’t have anything left, no friends, family, nothing.
I wipe the tears from my eyes and decide it’s time to head to the cemetery to complete this ritual of mine, in hopes that it might give me some closure. I leave the funeral home and start to walk down a back road that will take me to the cemetery where my mother is now buried. It’s still pretty early in the morning so the grass is still wet and it’s a little foggy outside, but not too bad. The gloom of the day was fitting for the events that had transpired. I decided to do this whole thing early so people didn’t see me and think I’m weird. I arrive and walk through the open gates.
I search for her grave plot for a while until I finally find it. On the way there I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to find it. It’s all the way in the back right corner of the cemetery. I sit next to her grave holding onto the bouquet of flowers tightly as I read her headstone Sarah Jones 08/02/1980- 04/24/2014. I set the flowers down in front of her headstone. The grass has barely grown back here yet, only small patches of green show in the dark dirt. “I love you, Mom,” I say. I start to tear up again as I picture them lowering my mother’s casket into the ground. I hear someone walking up behind me and I dry my eyes. I don’t want anyone to see me like this, all sad and weak. I feel someone tap me on the shoulder and I turn my head and look up at them. It’s a girl that looks like she’s around my age. I stand up and look down at her, she’s about a foot shorter than me making her about 5’3”.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
“No, not really. My mother is dead, and I wasn’t at her funeral,” I reply harshly.
“I’m sorry for your loss, but if I may ask, why weren’t you at her funeral?”
“Why should I tell you? I don’t even know you. Who are you? Why do you care?" I question her. She doesn’t even know me, I don’t know her. Why would I tell her something personal like that? But maybe I was a little harsh, I really need to start thinking straight.
“My name is Alexis. We go to school together. I came here to visit my grandparents’ grave and I wanted to see if you were okay,” she spoke sweetly.
“I’m sorry for being so rude. Now that you said that you do look a little familiar. I’m Grayson, by the way.”
“It’s nice to meet you and it’s fine. Losing someone you love isn’t ever easy.”
“I should start heading home. I’ll see you around,” I say to Alexis and she smiles and waves goodbye. I give her a forced smile and a shy wave and begin to walk home. The sun is rising behind me and peeking through the few clouds that are left in the sky. I walk up my driveway and into my house. It feels so empty without my mother here. Due to Alexis, I didn’t get to finish going through the funeral. I’ll just have to find another way to get closure, I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t.
I walk into the kitchen and sit at the counter staring out the window. This is the last place I was with my mom. This room holds the secrets of our last moment together. The picture frame that was once hanging nicely on the wall, the same one that crashed to the floor, is now gone. But the picture remains and is sitting here in front of me on the counter. I pick it up and stare at it for a moment, it was always her favorite picture of the two of us. I slip the picture into the left front pocket of my jeans so I always have it with me to remember a time that we were happy. I stayed in the kitchen for the rest of the day, only leaving when it was necessary, ignoring the glowing screen of the home phone declaring the multiple voicemails that remained unchecked. 
I look at the clock on the wall and see that it is already 10:00 pm and I should probably get some sleep. I walk out of the kitchen and down the hall that leads to the staircase and slowly climb the stairs. I make it to the top and stop for a minute, trying to prepare myself to walk past her bedroom so I can make it to mine. I continue walking. When I get to her room, I pause outside the doorway and peek into her room, hoping to see her sitting there and have this all be a dream. As I expected, she is not in her room where she should be. I finish walking down the hallway to my bedroom and I climb into bed and pull the blankets up to my chin. This place seems so much colder now.
I wake up to the annoying beeping of my alarm. I shut it off and drag myself out of bed. It has been fourteen days since my mother’s funeral. I am also no longer suspended so I have to go back to school again. I get ready for school, grab my things, and step outside the door, closing it behind me. I double check that the door is locked just to be safe. I don’t live extremely close to the school but it is a walkable distance away. I get to the high school and walk inside the double doors, dreading another day of my senior year. I try to head straight to class but this is difficult since it’s a Friday and everyone is buzzing around the hallways. I don’t exactly have friends anymore. I decided not to hang around with bad people. I feel like I owe that to my mom, she never liked me hanging around them anyways.
I make it through my first four classes and I finally get to lunch. I put in my headphones, sit at an empty circular table, and try to block out all of the other kids that are scrambling around trying to get their food. I feel someone tap me on the shoulder and turn around to see who would actually want to talk to me. Alexis smiles brightly at me. “Hey Grayson, do you mind if I sit with you?” she chirps.
“That’s fine with me.” She takes a seat right next to me and I smile and shake my head.
“I haven’t seen you around in a while, where have you been?” She asks sounding a little concerned.
“I got suspended a while ago for getting into a fight.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot, did you get hurt at all?”
“No, I was fine. Why do you always ask so many questions?” I think I could get used to this girl, she keeps my mind off things, she’s nice, and pretty sweet.
“Sorry, I would just like to get to know you better. You seem to be a little lonely and I am too.”
“Very true, so what do you say we stay friends?”
“I’d like that.” We continue to talk about random things for the rest of the lunch period but nothing personal. The bell that signals that lunch is over rings and for once I wish it didn’t, I just want to keep talking to her. “Well, we have last hour together, so I’ll see you then,” she says while smiling.
“See you then.” I walk to my fifth hour class and the last few hours drag by. Last hour is a study hall so Alexis and I can talk some more. The bell at the end of seventh hour finally rings and I bolt out of the classroom and head to the choir room where I have study hall. Alexis isn’t here yet so I sit in the back of the room and wait for her to get here. I see her walk into the room and she walks straight over to me and sits down in the seat to my right. We start talking some more and we talk about anything. I just refuse to tell her the bad memories about my mom.
A few weeks passed and that’s how every school day went, we talked at lunch, last hour, and the hours without her went by extremely slow. She is my best friend and without her everything is terrible. The only thing that is different now is on weekends we hang out too. Sometimes we go to the park, I take her shopping, we go to the movies, or just do nothing together. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing, we are always having fun and making eachother laugh. We spend as much time together as possible. It’s Friday and we have made plans to spend time at my house. It isn’t so lonely when Alexis is around. I have told her almost everything about myself, and she tells me everything also.
After fourth hour I make my way down to the lunch room. I won’t see Alexis until last hour since she has a doctor’s appointment right now. I sit at the same table that I sit at on any other day, but today I’m alone. I block out everyone in here like I used to do. I have one headphone in my ear and one out. I hear footsteps behind me, there are a few people. Someone rips my headphone out of my ear and I turn around to see who it is. It’s Matt, Jake, and Zack, the three guys I used to hang around. When I tried to stop talking to them they picked a fight with me and that was when I got suspended. They left me alone since then, up until now then. “Where’s your little girlfriend today Grayson?” Zack asks with a smirk. Alexis and I aren’t anything more than bestfriends.
“She isn’t my girlfriend.” I say. We argue for quite a while until Zack says something about my mom.
“Leave my mom out of this.” I growl.
“That girl you hang around will probably leave you too, just like your mommy did.” Zack says, and this crosses the line. I don’t even think before I make my first move and hit him hard, splitting his lip. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the red spots of his blood lingering on the pale skin of my knuckles. Alexis isn’t going to be happy about this.
…
I hear a car screech into the driveway, shortly after I hear Alexis pounding at the door. I open the door to see Alexis fuming and just like I predicted she doesn’t look very happy. “Why on earth would you get into another fight at school? I thought you said you were done with that stuff.” Her fists are clenched and I don’t want to explain to her why I was suspended again.
“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” I look down at the ground.
“Grayson, you tell me everything. I heard you got suspended too.” She keeps her eyes on me, she is just staring at my face expecting an answer.
“Yeah, I got suspended again, so what? And I got in a fight again. None of this matters, so why can’t we just drop it?”
“If you aren’t going to tell me, then I’m just going to leave, and I’m not coming back. If you aren’t going to tell me things than I don’t think we can be friends.” She finally looks away from me. I don’t want her to go, but I also don’t want to tell her what happened.
“Well, I’m not going to tell you what happened. I don’t want you to leave either, but that’s your choice.” We continue to argue until she just drops it, turns around, and walks to her car. “Alexis, wait!” I call after her but it’s too late, she’s already in her car, she has tears streaming down her face. She backs out of the driveway driving recklessly. I watch her drive down the street and I have no way to stop her.
She is quite a ways down the road and there is a loud crash. I hear sirens off in the distance and they seem to be getting closer. I run down my street when I see Alexis’ car and another have collided and it doesn’t look like I could pull her out but I still try to get her out. Paramedics and police rush to the scene and pull me away. I watch from outside the yellow tape that separates me from her. The other driver that she hit is fine. They finally get Alexis out of the car and she isn’t breathing. The ambulance speeds away with her in it and I follow it to the hospital. Doctors won’t allow me in to see her so I sit in a room waiting for news on her condition.
Forty five minutes passes by and a doctor approaches me. “Sir, you may go in and see Alexis if you would like. We did everything we could to save her but we don’t think she is going to wake up. We are just trying to keep her comfortable until she goes.” I nod my head and stand up from my seat. I walk into her room and see her laying there. She looks pale and lifeless. I take a seat next to her bed and hold her small cold hand. I listen to the steady beeping of her heart monitor that tells me she is still breathing. I feel her lightly squeeze my hand but she doesn’t open her eyes.
“Alexis, if you can hear me I want you to know that I’m so sorry for everything. This is all my fault, if I would have just told you why I did it none of this would have happened. I got into a fight today because Zack said something about you and I didn’t like it. So now you know.” Tears are streaming down my face as I talk to her. Her breathing is slowing down now. “I want you to know that you’re my best friend and I love you. I don’t want you to be in pain anymore so you can go when you’re ready.” I kiss her hand, I feel her squeeze my hand one last time and then I hear the long beep of her heart monitor. The doctors come in and usher me out of the room. I take one last look at her before they completely push me out of her room. Tears won’t stop rushing down my face.
  I look at my phone to check the time. 5:11 pm is when my best friend took her last breath. I stare at my background on my phone, it’s a picture of her and I together. I take out the picture of my mom and I from my pocket and hold it next to my phone and stare at the two pictures. They may be gone, but they’ll forever be in my heart. I missed my mom’s funeral but I won’t make that mistake again, I will attend Alexis’ funeral for both of them. And from now on I will be careful what I say and how I act around people, because you never know when it will be your last moment with them. I have made that mistake too many times, but I won’t make it again.