Summer

Larger

"Sarah was a dear, dear friend. We loved her. We cherished her, and who she was. She was a daughter, a grandaughter and someones best friend. She will be missed terribly and deeply for the rest of time. And now we put her to rest, praying and remembering who she was. Let us hold our heads down now..."

I never knew Sarah. She was sweet, sugary and I was bitter, resentful. We never mixed. We saw each other occasionally around school, and sometimes at parties. She wasn't someone I liked or trusted. Just someone who hung out in the backround and out of my sight, where I never paid attention. Sarah was a not a person who I expected wanted to kill me. I should hate her, or at least despise her for all that she did. But I just couldn't.

I couldn't bring myself to hate her, to be okay with her being gone because it was all my fault she died. I couldn't erase the guilt I felt. The look of terror in her eyes was there everytime I closed mine, and it was slowly eating me up from the inside. It was why I was standing there, in the cemetery where her funeral was being held and watching from a distance. I was sure her family hated me. Very few people were there, probably because they all declared her a monster. But she wasn't. I was.

I felt like I was one, everything inside me was fucking numb and I couldn't seem to find a way out. I knew what she did was wrong and she wanted me dead. But I had seen her suffer, claw her way to dying and it had pushed me to the edge. Now all I wanted was to find a way to feel okay again.

I had stopped talking to most people, opting to hide away in my room. I wanted nothing from anyone and wanted them all to forget about me. I was I could say that I was able to lay down and think about nothing, nothing all day. But her eyes clouded my vision, her trembling tears as she realized it was over. I knew she never wanted to hurt me or anyone else but everything had lost focus and suddenly her whole world was on fire, and there I was to blame. 

People would come up to me, try to talk and I'd shift away as if it was too much. Everyone cooed and tried to coddle me. It was fucking exhausting. All I wanted was to forget, but they all reminded me everyday, letting me know it wasn't my fault, over and over again. As if I didn't have enough blaring inside my head already.

Like every night remembering cradling Sarah, crying and soaked in her blood. Begging her not to go. Telling her that everything would be alright now. We could forget this happened, and I cried, pleaded but it was always the same. The cops coming in and ripping me away from her as I screamed at her to wake up. Everyone watching as I cried and struggled, cops dragging me down the hallway and blood dripping, spilling everywhere. It was why I stopped trying to sleep.

My father didn't say a word to me as he watched, just shook his head and left me alone to deal with everything on my own. Like he always did. I refused to go back to the hospital, begging to go back to my room. All I wanted to do was sleep. I don't remember anything after that because they sedated me. But I woke in my room, clean and safe, even though I felt far from it.

I watched myself, feeling like I was the outside of my own body. And nothing could make me feel better. My tears were all dried up, they all poured out when her blood seeped into my skin. And now I wanted it all to be gone, to feel like my skin wasn't bubbling up everytime her name came up. 

I decided to drop the roses I had been holding on to, knowing they would do nothing to ease the suffering I had caused everyone. They fell to the ground with a soft rustle and I gritted my teeth, stepping and crushing them under my heels. I didn't fucking know how I thought flowers would help anyway. They would never allow me to be there after everything that happened.

So I left, treading to the car without looking back. There was nothing for me there anyway, just people who hate me and probably blame me for everything. As if I didn't do that enough.