It was May 11th. 10 days since the funeral. Today would have been Nova’s 17th birthday.
I woke with a headache, something I was starting to get used to. Nowadays, my daily routine consisted of going to school, coming home, doing my homework, and then staying up until the early hours of the morning either reading, watching TV, or staring out my window into Nova’s darkened, empty one.
My headache only intensified as I remembered that today was Nova’s birthday. I wondered what we would be doing today if she wasn’t dead. Probably skipping school, driving around as music poured out of the speakers with the windows down. I sighed; today would be another day of counting down the hours until I could go home and lose myself in the words of a novel or the reflection of my silhouette on the TV screen.
Nina skipped school that day, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Lately she had been coming to school only once or twice a week. The teachers didn’t see any reason to talk to her about it as she had straight A’s and somehow managed to ace every test she was given.
“Shouldn’t we do something tonight? She would’ve wanted us to.” I said to Sam afterschool as he was getting into his red, beat-up minivan.
“I mean, it’s a Wednesday though. I have 3 tests tomorrow, and my grades have been slipping since it happened.” Sam looked regretful. We both didn’t need to acknowledge what the “it” was. Since “it”, I hadn’t bothered to look at my grades, trying to avoid the pit of desperation I knew would hit me after seeing all of my missing work.
“Okay, ya.” I mumbled, feeling as if Nova was already being forgotten.
“Hey, we’ll do something this weekend.” Sam said, trying to cheer me up. I gave him a halfhearted smile and said bye and drove home.
Finishing about 20% of my homework, I gave up when I found a worksheet that dealt with balancing chemical equations. I told my parents I was spending the night at Sam’s to work on a project, and drove to the local bakery. I bought a red-velvet cake, which was Nova’s favorite, and then drove to a convenience store to pick up a pack of 20 rainbow candles. The sky was turning dark just as I entered the highway and drove the 15 minutes to the cemetery.
I walked through the gates holding a red velvet cake and a pack of 20 candles, feeling extremely self-conscious even though I was the only one in sight. I walked through a winding path to where her grave was, the ground still fresh from the funeral. The cemetery wasn’t as creepy as I had imagined; I had nothing to fear with my best friend 6 feet under right next to me. I sat down in the completely dark cemetery and lit 17 candles on the cake.
I sat there for a while, humming and enjoying the silence. The time on my phone read 11:34 pm. Then I started to talk to her, or maybe myself. I talked as if she was right beside me, which, in a way, she was, but not the way I would have preferred. I talked about everything and asked questions to which I got no reply except for the slow wind rustling the tree branches. At 3 am I started crying, first slow drops on my cheeks and then messy sobs that had me leaned over on her gravestone. At 4 am I blew out the candles and fell asleep, exhausted and miserable.
I woke up at 5 am with a new sense of clarity as the sun began to rise. I was suddenly restless, thoughts were bursting out of me and I couldn’t contain myself. I called Sam.
“Yes?” He mumbled and yawned upon answering.
“Oops, sorry. Did I wake you?”
“Uh, ya. It’s 5 am. Anyway?” Sam yawned again.
“We need to figure out what happened to her. I won’t settle for a suicide or an accident or whatever the papers will call it. I need closure. We need closure. We were the ones who knew her best.”
Sam took a while to think. “You’re right.” He said finally, “We need to do this. If not for us, then for her.”
“See you at school.” I smiled and hung up, feeling exhilarated even though I had slept for only approximately an hour. I left the cake there, seeing no reason to take it, and started the drive to school. I was wearing yesterday’s clothes and looked a wreck from the amount of crying and the lack of sleep, but I was determined, determined to figure out Nova and determined to somehow unravel her thoughts and what had happened on that Saturday night.
