A Sliver of Infinite

Chapter 35

The day came for Dane's funeral and Pam stopped by the house to see if we were coming. I overheard my mom apologizing and telling her she didn't think I was ready. They continued talking in mumbled voices accompanied by sniffling and crying, until I heard her tell my dad she would be back after. He agreed to stay here with me, maybe worried if left alone I'd succumb to the pain as well. My dad stayed home with me, keeping to himself for the most part, but I could hear him tiptoe down the hallway every so often to listen in on me, just in case I needed him.

I couldn't physically bring myself to do it. If I went to the funeral, it became my reality. I was holding out and holding on to whatever I had left. He was really gone and I was mad. So, so mad.

There was just no getting past the anger and frustration I now held in my heart for him. I felt so deceived by the fact that he could just cop out like that. Enraged by the fact that he could be so selfish as to just quit this life with me. No one would, or ever could, know me to the extent that he did. I would forever feel lost without him, and I hated him for that.

Waiting about an hour or so, I decided I needed to go to that burial site. As mad as I am, I can't in my heart not be there when they put him into the ground. He mattered too much. I threw on some black leggings, Dane's hoodie that still held his scent, some old sneakers, and snuck out of my window, riding my bike to the cemetery by myself.

I take the back route, entering into the area through the back of the place. I roll to a stop on the gravel beneath me, finding a dark place on top of the hill. Hiding behind the safety of a cluster of large oak trees, I watch the scene unfold from a safe distance.

There is everyone. Many family members and classmates surround the site, some crying, some holding onto others for support. My mother holds Pam near the front, where she can barely stand on her own. That was her baby, her only child, that she was now forced to bury, leaving her completely alone. I share her pain but in an entirely different way.

Watching the pastor say a few words to everyone, I feel a new wave of emotion overcome me. Why are these people even here? They couldn't have cared less when they were all talking shit about him and spreading rumors throughout the school during his breakdowns. No one else helped hold him up while he emptied his stomach because of his new medications. No one else sat there and listened to the lies he told, pretending they were true, just to keep him in a safe place until help was called. No one loved him to the depths that I loved him or knew him as well as I did. No one.

Everyone simply wants a piece of the sympathy that comes along with losing a classmate. It's sickening. They didn't know him. They didn't care to know him until it serviced them. I adamantly wanted them all to leave.

Instead, I watch with what feels like a sword piercing my chest as they lower the very piece of my heart into the ground that I can never get back. A part of me is forever going to be left here, in this small town cemetery, dark trees surrounding, graves of other loved ones passed. An invisible string tying me to it. A future I'd never know, a future I'd never see, left here, in the dirt of the earth.

I stand there, bike on the ground, clinging to the tree in front of me for support as I watch everyone say their goodbyes and leave one by one. As the sun begins to set around me, I contemplate the total desertion I feel seeing the grave site with no one around it, the way it would be more often than not now. He was left here, alone, as if it mattered. He wasn't in his body anymore, yet the thought still bothers me.

I make my way to him, falling completely apart on his grave. I cling to the freshly dug dirt, gripping it into my cold hands, as if it was my only line to touch him, the closest I could get to feeling him in my arms again. I cry and cry until everything goes black and I fall asleep curled up above him. I had completely exhausted myself and only slightly remember my dad picking me up in his arms like a small child off the ground, bringing me home again in the falling light of day.