The Lasting Days Of Samantha Piper

8- Partly Grieving, Partly Not

[I'll leave you with three chapters this week because I'm feeling grand. Enjoy!]

"The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope."

—Claudio in Measure for Measure

TROY's POV

The crowd of Santa Monica Cemetery thins as the burial ended.

I watched half-consciously when Samantha's coffin was being transported on the narrow grave dug beneath the earthly dirt and soil.

Her coffin was a glossy shade of white reminding me of a well maintained set of teeth, it was carved with blooming flowers and curly vines within the corners; I watched as slowly, the white was being hidden in coats of browns and greens from the ground.

The scene for me is like saying goodbye to Samantha one last time; though now I have been imagining myself digging that dirt and clawing her coffin to free her from that suffocating space (yes, I'm also dreaming that she's breathing inside of it).

I wish, if I could just do it, I'll give her one more chance to live and love her better than the love she has ever known. But I have loved her that way, didn't I?

Maybe it wasn't just enough. Or obvious enough.

After the farewell prayer, my mom Alexandra Pendelleton insisted on bringing me home. But like Hazel Grace Lancaster from The Fault In Our Stars did (one of Samantha's recommended films), I decided to be alone for the mean time. In my case I barely have my own car so I end up walking home. Well not actually, I didn't go home.

And I am just partly grieving; the majority of my parts still expected Sam to be there somewhere unfathomable but I know that she'll come back so she's not really gone for me. I don't when did I even start feeling this way.

Right now in my head, there is nothing but a chaotic peace- that kind of silence that hides the sadness and aching of the present, unable to show out.

I tried to convince myself that if I attend her funeral and see her perish within the surface of the living, I'll finally, finally feel like she was already gone.

But I should've known better, she is still alive in me. It's like scattering her ashes on a nice lake within a summer cottage and expecting my own self to accept it and move on, but instead I kept some more of her remains inside the jar and brought her home with me.

My memories of her was like the ashes; scorched, thousands of pieces, a leftover of a promise but still it is her and will always be and mine to keep.

I don't know how this is possible... of how I'm still crazy in love with a girl who is not alive anymore.

Maybe her death came as fast the light, but its acceptance is coming like the sound of lightning- expected but not quite heard, slower than the sight itself.