13 Reasons Why

Prologue

I watched as they lowered her into the ground, her casket decending slowly until it was no longer visible from where I stood at the gathering.

Her family, all of them in tears except for her father, who you could tell was so broken inside but had to apear strong in order to keep himself together. After all, that was his baby girl, his sunshine that had her life taken away at such a young age.

I walked away from the crowd of mourning bodies, the atmosphere was too thick with grief and depressing music that played from a small group of hired people.

Everyone said she looked beautiful, her hair and clothing done, but I couldn't bare to look at her. To see her like that. Not one damn thing is beautiful about seeing someone you loved in a casket.

I took a seat on a lonely, concrete bench placed by the edge of the road that wound its way through the cemetery. I came alone. I told my parents I wasn't coming to the funeral, that I wasn't feeling up to it, but I ended up going anyways.

I don't know why though, because coming here only made me feel like even more shit than I had before. It just makes the big ass train called reality hit me at maximum speed. She's dead now. I can't keep telling myself this isn't real, that it's a setup, that that wasn't her body I had seen. But it was. And the soulless body in the glossed mahogany casket proved it.

"She's in a better place, son." I looked up at the man who stood in front of me. I hadn't noticed his hand on my shoulder until he gave it a soft squeeze.

I wanted to laugh at his words and at how cliché they sounded. They say that about every dead person. Since being dead is such a better place these days.

I gave the man a small smile and he nodded to me, walking away briskly with a medal cane.

"Bunch of bull shit if you ask me." I was startled when Grey sat down next to me. Grey was my best friend ever since pre-school, he's the closest person I have besides my parents. When they didn't understand me, Grey did. He always understood me.

"It's life," i shrug.  "It happens to everyone eventually, Grey. It's inevitable."

He turned his head to me, raising his eyebrows. "You actually think this was just a natural death? That she-"

"I know it's not a natural death," i cut him off. "A natural death means it's your time to go."

"And she wasn't ready to die."