Every Cloud

Chapter Eight

I live up to my promise, and I text Finn. It takes me a while to come up with a message, deliberating whether to directly ask him if I can bring my friends to his party or if I should wait and see if he's alright with me coming first. In the end he replies enthusiastically, telling me it's fine to drag along a few friends if I want to. I thank him, and call Grace to let her know, who squeals and immediately gives me the offer of staying at hers afterwards with Carly.

"Sure," I smile, actually meaning it, before saying my goodbyes and ending the call. It's a Wednesday afternoon, and I'm holed up in my room, by the radiator as usual, with a Spanish textbook open on my lap. It's not exactly fun, but I received my exam timetable today and Spanish is one of my first few exams. The miserable slip of lemon-coloured paper is wedged in my planner, reminding me that I still have a ton of work and revision to do before next week. I spend an hour or two flicking through some glossy pages of verbs and vocabulary, thankfully whizzing through it, before doing a few practice listening papers online. The accents are fairly thick, which makes them hard to follow, but I manage to keep up, and finish for the night, content. That's one subject down. 

My hands curl around folds of crushed velvet. I look down at my wrists to see them swathed in black lengths of the stuff. I stand up, feeling the weight of my exquisite gown drag behind me as I take a few steps right, as if I'm at some sort of morbid version of prom. The material cascades down onto the floor in a waterfall of soft, luxurious material, a pearl clasp holding the ensemble together at the front.
"If you'd like to proceed outside for the final blessings." A voice booms, chilling me to the core. No. No.
I stumble along outside, following the mass of mourners who slowly snake round to the dug-out grave in one long procession.
" We are here today to witness the burial of a beloved mother, sister, and friend to many, her-"  The voice blurs into silence. A woven basket of ice-coloured lilies is passed around, the flowers so frail looking that the petals are almost translucent: I pick one up but the second my fingers curl around the petals they flake and crumble, until I'm left with nothing but a withered-up stem.
"If you'd like to place your flowers in the casket..." A voice sounds out of nowhere, muddled and slow as if I'm hearing it underwater. But I can't, because I don't have a flower to give. I step over to the edge of your coffin, I reach over my hand to let the pathetic excuse of a lily drop down onto your body, but all that comes out of my clenched hand is a scattering of grey ash, raining down in a billowing cloud.
I gasp, peering over the edge, and expecting to see your fragile body coated in silver dust like one of the poor victims of Pompeii after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, but there's nothing there. Nothing but a few dead lilies speckled with a wash of ash.

I wake up in a cold sweat. My positive mentality seems to have been swept away this morning, after having had yet another dream about my mother last night. You can't be gone, please, you can't be. I try to grapple a hold of my dream, to remember why you weren't in your coffin. Maybe this means you aren't gone mum, you can't have left me, it's not right. You're still here, and you're going to march through this door any minute, I just know you are. Please mum, please. I don't know what I'm pleading for in my head, or why I thought it was going to work, because you're not here. And you haven't been for a long, long time. Not only have I woken up in the clutch of another haunting dream, but it's as if the cobwebs have been washed away from my vision, the rose-tinted glasses lost. You're actually gone, and I've never felt more alone.

☼

Silent tears stream down my face as I pull on my school uniform, finally draping my winter coat over my shoulders. The tears don't stop: not as I shove my feet into a pair of boots, nor as I sneak downstairs and shovel down two bowls of cereal, even though I feel sick to my stomach. It's still early, much too early for Beth or Zach to be awake anytime soon, so I make sure to slip the key for the backdoor into my pocket on my departure. I wander down to the pier, where she'd come sometimes to draw or paint, or to try some of her complicated yoga sequences down on the sand. The black water lunges at me again and again, the cold waves lapping over my feet and completely soaking my boots, but I don't really care. I'm not ready to leave for quite some time, and when I do finally trudge back up to the road my heart is heavy, and my cheeks still wet with meandering, fresh tears.