Close As Strangers // c.h.

25

*Calum's POV*

It's been 3 days.

Three days of absolute hell.

Kelly had contacted me the night Ren passed asking me to stand up at her funeral. She told me that she wants all of her friends to stand up, even if its just a few words, to fill in for the lack of family members. Of course I said yes.

She also told me that she contacted her father. It took me aback, but I didn't stop her. She has no one to vent to anymore about these things, and I'm the closest person to her; therefore, I let her talk.

Apparently, he had not heard about his wife's death from around a year ago, and he had a rampage about that. She let him take it out on her, then she had to drop the real bad news.

She tells me that this time, he didn't scream, he cried. Him and Kelly just stayed on the phone for an hour crying to each other. She was hoping that he would fly out to at least come to the funeral, but he said that he couldn't, he just couldn't face that his two most important girls in his life, even though he hadn't seen them in years, we gone and passed.

I let her cry to me over the phone and of course I shed a few tears in that process. She told me that she was sorry that this happened, and that she wished it was her gone and not Ren, but I told her that you can't let yourself believe that. We have to accept what has happened, even if we have to saftey pin our hearts back together, and try to carry on the best we can.

Because honestly, there's not much more we can do about this.

Over the past three days, it has felt like a dream. Like none of this is real, that I will be able to drive over to her house and find her there, smiling and laughing as always.

And I don't think I'm ever going to get over the fact that she won't be there.

I've spent the last three days locked in my bedroom, not having an appetite for anything. Everyone has stopped by every once and a while to check in on me, but none of them stay long because of my lack of being able to hold up a conversation.

Besides writing and staring at my walls, I've been working on what I want to say at the funeral. I know for a fact that no matter what I plan to say, I will break down and won't follow it, but it is better than going in without a plan.

When I first sat down to begin it, I sat there for an hour not being able to put any writing down on that piece of paper. The only thing on that piece of paper were my dried tear stains.

I miss you, was the first thing I managed to write.

After I put down those three simple words, the rest started to just flow.

I worked on that speech for over four hours, not taking breaks for anything or anyone.

I say what needs to be said.

When it was all said and done, I had four pages of my sloppy thoughts down on paper.

I have never been bad with words. Ever since I found out I was a good songwriter, I have been able to write more, talk better and just overall be more sociable with people. People tell me I'm a voice of reason, but after writing this, I'm second guessing everything everyone has ever told me.

The writing on this paper is a great representation of what my mind is like right now; jumbled, sad, stressed, and over all a scary place.

I sit at my desk and reread my writing for another time as someone knocks on my door.

"Yeah?" I respond. I look back to find Mali entering my room. "Hey Mal, what's up?" I ask trying to cover my cracking voice from the tears that are threatening to fall. I've gone from never crying to not being able to stop crying in the past week, and it sucks. Why can't I just put my walls back up like before, back when I was strong.