clouds ; l.h/c.h

CHAPTER FIVE

And thus began the epic jerk circle that was Darla Crossman's remembrance at Buttfuck Bullshit High.

The teachers she sucked up to wrote heartfelt and bittersweet speeches, the principal extended condolences to her family, poems were read by more staff, and in general, everyone was crying.

I didn't cry. I thought it was all bullshit.

I got the best seat in the house for the festivities; up on the stage next to the weeping teachers. I probably should have felt touched that these people who barely knew my best friend were so moved by this sudden injustice, but I was pissed. Why should these people be allowed to be sad? These people didn't know Darla, really know her. How dare they feel sad. The Darla Sadness Club should have been an exclusive, one only allowed to be felt by me and her family. Darla was precious, and so should have been the greiving of her. It felt like they didn't have the right to be sad. Like they were exploiting her death in a cock measuring contest of Who Is More Sad That This Girl Is Dead?

When it finally came my turn to talk, I bounced up to the podium and slammed the hardcover book down enough to jolt everyone.

"Hi," was my epic opener. "I'll make this quick. This is a line from Darla's favourite book." I'd began reading The Fault In Our Stars, a thing I thought I'd never do, but it was actually very comforting, and I found little snippets of Darla all around inside of it. Small passages she'd underlined or doodled next to. Little things that felt like she was here with me.

"There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. Thank you."

The quote extended beyond that, but I felt that was the jist of it, really. We all die. That's that. It was helping me come to peace with things, actually. Focusing on the more morbid side of death. Oblivion, as Augustus Waters would put it.

I didn't want to add in any other sappy lines about how much Darla loved John Green or about how much I'll miss her, even though it felt like I should. Just clean. Short. Simple.

Nobody clapped after my little segment, except for one person, very quietly and quickly, at the back of the hall; Calum Hood. I couldn't help but feel a tiny smile. At least somebody got it.

* * *

I went up and talked to Calum in gym - thanked him for being the only person clapping and asked him how he was. He said he felt inbetween every possible emotion. I agreed.

It felt weird that the world had kept spinning, it felt weird that I had woken up the next morning. That the world just continued. There was no cut to credits. I had to live in this aftermath, and that was weird as hell.

It was my choice to come to school the next week - sitting on my ass at home sounded insufferable. I wanted to be up and moving and completing tasks.

"How are her parents?" Calum asked. We were mulling behind the pack of our class running laps around the school football field.

"Gutted," I sighed. I could barely stand to be around them when they found out. It was all so much. "Her mother's going mad."

"As you would," Calum agreed.

Calum Hood was a chill guy with a nice voice and cute hair, he could have been doing anything else in the world, he could have been off with his football friends, like usual, but instead he was staying back and making conversation about my dead best friend. I really appreciated that.

The day was lukewarm, but I still adorned Darla's maroon zip up that I'd found discarded on the floor of my room. I had almost forgotten she'd left her actual clothes at my place in favour for borrowing mine for the party. Needless to say I didn't want those back.

"Aren't you hot in that?" He motioned to the hoodie.

"No really," I shrugged out.

A small pause.

"That was her's, wasn't it?"

I nodded.

We kept walking in peaceful silence for a while, until our teacher gave us a weird look, and we slightly picked up the pace.

I decided to keep the dumb small talk going.

"Are you exited for the game this Friday?" I asked.

Calum laughed, actually laughed. "You're asking me about football? Now?"

I cracked a smile, shrugging. "Why not. You're the team captain after all."

Hood threw his head back and groaned. "Ya know, I always forget that part," he chuckled. "I dunno. Gonna be pretty hard to play with everything on my mind. I dunno if coach is gonna let us cancel, though... which sucks. Like, it would be respectful, don't you think?"

I shrugged again. "I suppose? I dunno, I personally think it might actually be more respectful to go on with it, ya know? It shows people that when bad shit happens, you have to fight through it."

I glanced up at Calum to see if I was making any sense, and was met with a bit of a shocked expression.

"But if you don't want to play, you don't have to!" I added quickly. Who was I to tell him how to run his team?

He shook his head. "No no, you've got a point. I like the way you think, Kat Holly."

"Thank you, Calum Hood."

He smiled at me. I smiled back. He was handsome.

* * *

In geometry, I got passed a note that read "sorry ur frends ded :(". Which was maybe the most genuine condolence a classmate had given me so far. I thought the grammer errors made it funny, so I folded it up and stuck it in my pocket.

I glanced around for who might've been the author of such heartfelt sorrow, and a few people pointed to a seat near the other side of the classroom. To my surprise, I discovered Luke Hemmings smiling sadly and waving at me.

When the end of class bell rang, Luke ran up to me in the hall. Usually, my heart would be jumbly and doing cartwheels, but me liking this guy is sort of the reason Darla was gone, so it was hard to be pleased to see him.

"Hey Luke, thanks for the note," I said. I was trying to ignore the revelation that the guy I'd liked for years had no idea how to spell.

"No problemo," he mused, sticking his hands into his pockets and following me to my locker. "I just wanted to ask, how are you feeling?"

Ugh, noooooooooo. Not this again.

I swung open my locker and gave Luke the fakest smile ever. "I'm fine, thanks."

I knew if Darla was here, she'd be ushering me along, trying to get me away from him as quickly as possible. It always did strike me off how adamant she was about that grudge - in the back of my mind I'd always wondered if something more than a pencil had happened between them, but it was never a subject she liked to discuss.

Ironic. My dream from last night had finally arrived; Luke Hemmings was talking to me! But who gives a shit if my best friend is dead?

"Awesome," Luke chuckled. "Anyways, I just wanted to ask, do they have any leads on who did it?"

I basically froze.

I knew people would be interested in the gorey details; the whodunnit aspect of it all, the shock of the murder, but I didn't expect it to come from Luke. He seemed more sensitive than all that stuff...

"Uh, no, I don't think so," I slowly began, fidgeting with the edge of my locker door. "At least, they haven't told me if they have anything yet..." My eyes flashed over to him. "Why?"

The blond boy's face began to droop, his crystal blue eyes dancing to the floor. "Um- right- sorry. I just wanted to know if I could help at all."

"Oh, that's okay. Don't worry," I tried to smile. "Thanks for caring, though."

His smile grew back immediately, and he playfully punched me on the arm. "Anytime, Holly."

And with that, he turned on his heels and left.

Something was so off about that conversation...