The Past Keeps Following Me

one funeral

Let's start a beginning with an end.

The wooden casket was slowly lowered into the dirt hole, rain drops spattering the beautiful arrangement of flowers on top of the shiny oak surface. In one hand, I held a black umbrella - Ross' umbrella, actually. It was completely battered, even torn in some places, so that every now and then a small droplet would creep through and attack my messy mop of hair.
I did try to look presentable today, honest. It's just...hard. I was wearing one of Ross' old blazers, a stripey black one with no sleeves, along with matching pants, of course, and a white long sleeved shirt. My hair was tatty and tangled, I could barely get the comb through it this morning.
I stroked my unshaven face, wiping away a rain drop that had just fallen on my cheek. At least, I thought it was a rain drop until Barry pressed a tissue into my hand, and my eyes darted to him for a quick moment. He smiled in return, but his eyes gave him away. Barry placed a hand on my shoulder as I turned away, but stayed silent the whole time. I couldn't look at him in the eye.
The diggers began shoveling dirt on top of the coffin as the elderly priest blessed the sloppy opening and stepped away. The glossy lid was covered in a blanket of dirt, the only thing separating Ross and fresh air.
One by one people began to leave; friends, family, strangers, until only me, Barry, and Ross' mother was there. Craig wanted to come, but even if he'd been able to I know for a fact that he wouldn't have. My fault.
Ross' mother was so similar to Ross as she stood there, her eyes blank. For starters, she had his eyes; his big, brown velvety eyes. And his hair, oh my god, if she had the same hairstyle and a beard I'm pretty sure they'd look like twins, (okay, twins is a bit of a stretch. Distant cousins, maybe?)
Today, she was wearing long, black, silky pants that almost swept the floor as she walked, a black button up shirt with thin white stripes - similar to my blazer and pants - and a gleaming white blazer. She had some sort of bizarre hair pierce in her short, curly strawberry-blonde hair (It used to be the same color as Ross' when we were kids, but it's lightened over the time due to age), consisting of white, black, and two shades of green, one dark and one light. Staring, I realized why it had those colors.
"Ross' flag.." I gasped quietly to myself.
The night when we chose our individual flag colors for our flags on the Great Divide album cover was probably one of the most funniest and rememberable nights of our lives. We all sat in a circle on Ross' apartment floor whilst his sister brought us hot chocolate and homemade brownies. In the center of the circle was several cans of paint, a variety of colours. We had all gone out to B&Q a few hours earlier and picked out our favourite colours. His sister helped us design the simple layouts for each of the flags, we only had the job of painting them. (Yes we were fully aware that we could've done this on the computer, we just thought it'd be more fun and creative to paint them.)
Halfway through painting, Ross dipped his brush into his can of dark green paint a bit too vigorously, causing it to splash up and land on my blue jeans.
"Rossss," I whined in a child-like manner, "These are my new jeans!"
Ross, not really taking me seriously, began laughing and waving his paintbrush around, as if it was a magic wand. "I thought it could've used a creative touch." he chuckled, and resumed his work.
Being the little kid that I am, I dipped my brush into my red can and brought out a large blob of paint.
"Hey- hey, Ross.."
Before Ross had even turned around properly, my paintbrush attacked his face, leaving dark red patches across it, including his beard.
"Sam what the hell!?"
I chuckled, and bent down over my flag and began painting once more. Just as the tip of my brush marked the surface, I felt something cold and wet splatter the side of my head and my hair. I reached up with my empty hand and my hand came back green. I tilted my head towards Ross - who was rolling around on the floor finding this whole thing very amusing - and smacked his arm with my paint-covered hand.
This whole thing went on for another 10 minutes whilst Barry and Craig shot puzzled looks at each other. When Ross and I finally gave up trying to win this paint battle (I totally won, for sure), we were both covered head to toe in random patches of paint and looked sort of like bad modern art.
I smiled to myself through my tears at the memory. Ross and I had a special friendship, different to the ones we shared with Bazz and Craig. Not only did I love Ross, but he is my best friend. I know him better than anyone. Shit; knew him better.
The way his mouth curled up on one side when he grinned, how he rubbed his beard when he was thinking.. the way his laugh - not his normal chuckle, his real laugh which he uses when he's really finding something funny - kind of reminded me of a horse. I think that's what I'll miss most; his laugh.
My smile quickly dispersed into a frown. I looked around at the few people left who were gathered in little groups by the road, gossiping whilst waiting for cars to pick them up and take them to the after party. (Barry and I weren't going; there was nothing to celebrate.) How could they be so happy whilst surrounded by hundreds of bodies, one of which was Ross'?
A loud, over-dramatised sob from Mrs McNae drew my attention back to the grave. The digger was now reversing onto the path, finished with covering the coffin. Mrs McNae and I made brief eye contact, and her eyes weren't sad at all. They burned with anger, scorching my soul and marking it permanently. She was the first to approach the grave, clutching a bunch of white lilies. This angered me slightly; had she forgotten that Ross was allergic to lilies? Then again, when Ross moved out from her house to join Twin all of those, she vowed never to contact him again as he was "throwing his life away", so she had probably forgotten most things about him. Ross actually studied Graphic Products before he joined the band, and was planning on becoming a teacher in England, but when he had the chance to become a real guitarist, he accepted it without hesitation. His mother had all ways disapproved his strumming obsession, and had blamed me for ruining his life.
Mrs McNae quickly walked away from the grave after stroking the stone with a trembling hand, and I watched as she paced towards her car which was parked on the curb, and unlocked it. She couldn't get away faster.
I shook my head at the floor, appalled. Who was she fooling?
"Poor lady," someone muttered from behind me. For some reason, the hoarse croak didn't register as Barry's voice.
Barry took my umbrella off of me and handed me the flowers, and his fingers slightly grazed mine in a sympathetic gesture. Slowly, I approached Ross' grave, my whole body trembling as I clutched a bouquet of irises, Ross' favourite flower. Rain trickled down my neck as I knelt down on the sodden earth and leant the bouquet against the grave stone which read;

"Here lies the body of Ross McNae (27th March 1991-27th February 2015)
Beloved son, friend and lover.
May his soul be put to rest as the light
of Doctor Spencer guides him to
eternal life."

I had to argue with Mrs McNae about what was written on the stone. At first she refused to have "lover" written, as she's always been against mine and Ross' relationship. After arguing for hours over the phone, I finally agreed that she could write the short passage if I could get what I wanted.
"Hey buddy," I whispered, gently caressing the picture of Ross' smiling face on the grave stone with my fingers. "How're you doing, huh?"
I listened silently for a response, but all I heard was the wind whistling through the trees eerily. The deafening silence screamed louder than the squeal of brakes that was forever on repeat in my head. Tears sprung to my eyes as I hung my head in shame.
"I'm sorry. This is all my fault," I breathed, my shoulders beginning to shake as I let the tears run. "This is all my bloody fault!" I collapsed sideways so that I was sitting directly above Ross' coffin, sobbing, clawing at the dirt, wanting to just fall into his arms. Wet soil began soaking into my pants, but I didn't care.
"Hey, Sam.." Barry put a hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off. He spoke sternly: "C'mon, there's going to be a storm soon. You can come back and see him again in a few days when the weather isn't being a bastard."
It was all coming back, it was too much. I grabbed handfuls of dirt and threw them aimlessly, sobbing, sobbing, sobbing.
"Ross," I choked out repeatedly.
"Sam, for fuck's sake!" Barry gripped me by the back of my blazer and tugged me away, and I sat weeping on the grass.
I composed myself after a few moments, and Barry joined me on the grass. No words were said until Barry held out his hand for me to take it. I bit my lip hesitantly, but then nodded. There was no point in sitting here crying when I did this to myself. I stood, up using Barry's hand for support and tried to wipe the wet off of my pants.
Barry looked me in the eyes and whispered, "Just be glad it isn't you who's 6 foot underground."
The emotion bubbled, and I barged past him, angered by that comment. He didn't understand. He still had Craig. I would trade places with Ross in a heartbeat if it meant he could be here again.