Chapter Four

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It was raining the day of Grace's funeral. Thick sheets poured down from the heavens, unstoppable.
Michael had never liked the rain. It had always been too wet and too cold. But now, Michael stood in the graveyard without an umbrella, letting the drops of water soak him, letting the torrent pour over him. It seemed so temporary now, being wet. You could always dry.
When your little sister dies, though...that can never be reversed.
So Michael stood in the rain letting it soak him, because the thought of drying off later made him feel like there was still hope in the world. But mostly, every drop reminded him that he would never see his sister again.
Michael couldn't look at that tiny coffin any longer. He looked over to the priest, reading the bible or whatever book it was that he read. It could have been anybody, reading anything. To Michael, he was just random man with a random book. The words he was reading didn't mean anything. They were just stupid words on a stupid page.
Michael looked over to his parents. His mother was clutching her husband, hanging off of him and letting out wails of agony, her face distorted into a mask of misery and tears cascading down her cheeks. His father stood straight, his face tight and hard looking. To any stranger, it might look as if Mr. Clifford was being strong for his wife and son, and everybody who needed a rock to lean on, but Michael could clearly see that his father was weaker than he had ever been. His outer appearance was just a facade, a dam to hold in the ocean of emotions that was crashing around inside him now.
Michael felt his throat clench up, and before he could think about whether he wanted to hold them in or not, the tears began to run down his face, mixing with the rain. He had cried so much in the past few days that he was surprised he had any tears left to shed, but they poured down nonetheless. Michael heard a loud sob, and he wondered for a moment who it had come from until he realized it had been him who had made the noise. He squeezed his eyes shut and sank down onto the wet grass, pulling his knees up to his face and wrapping his arms around his legs. He squeezed himself into as tight a ball as he would go and then pressed his eyes into his knees, pushing until little explosions of white filled his vision.
He felt a soft hand on his shoulder and he only pushed his eyes harder into his knees, watching the kaleidoscope of colours swim in his vision. He expected the hand to belong to his mother, and he knew seeing her again would only bring more grief. If there was anything worse than what Michael was feeling then, though, Michael didn't want to live to feel it.
"Michael..." Someone said, her voice thick with tears.
Recognizing the voice almost immediately, Michael looked up and turned to face his friend, Marcia. Her dark hair was wet from the rain, her blue streaks appearing a dark shade of navy. Her mascara was running down her cheeks and anybody could have guessed that it was from the rain, but her red eyes proved otherwise. She had loved Grace like her own little sister, and losing her must have been almost as hard on Marcia as it was on Michael.
Zack stood behind her, another one of Michael's close friends. His spiky black hair was dotted with beads of rain. His face showed only sympathy. Zack had barely known Grace.
Michael jumped up, wrapping both of his friends into a tight group hug. He had never liked hugging, but at that moment all he wanted was someone to hug him, and lie to him and say that everything was going to be okay.

Sorry, that was a really short chapter, but I felt like that was a good place to stop it. Plus, I'm really happy with this chapter and I didn't want to ruin it by adding some crappy part at the end that's only there because I wanted the chapter to be a bit longer.
Anyway, thanks so much for reading, I hope you like this story  so far!

Loser_Luke

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