| T H R E E |
Days passed by so fast, I didn’t realised it’s a Sunday. Sunday. I had never hated this day so much not until now.
Mom made me wear this black knee-length dress. I’m not a fan of dresses, but she said it’s all about formalities, though it’s not like I couldn’t wear some pair of jeans and not look appropriate but considering it is Chloe’s funeral. Chloe’s funeral.
Back then, Chloe and I used to casually talk about how we would die. How our funeral would go, would our picture be already taken for the ceremony? That time we would laugh through it, but now that I think about it, none of it sounds funny. I didn’t know how she would die and now that she is, I still don’t have the answer to it.
“June, dear are you ready?” mom called from downstairs.
“Just give me a minute mom!”
I took my shawl and purse that’s laid on my bed, and glance around my bedroom to see if I left something and what caught my eyes was the portrait of me and Chloe just on top of my drawer. I stared at it for awhile. She had her arms wrapped around me and we were both smiling, mom took that picture at thanksgiving.
Looking at it, gives back old memories. And it hurts, it hurts to know that I can’t have that anymore, because Chloe’s not here anymore. I caressed the picture, feeling sentimental.
“I’m sorry I left you...I’m so sorry Chloe. If only I knew that something bad would happen to you, if only I did something, I just-“ I wiped the tears I didn’t realised had started to fall.
“I promise, I’ll find out what happened to you, I just know you didn’t commit suicide you’re not like that. I know you. I won’t stop till I get some answers.”
I wrapped the shawl around me and clutched my purse, closing my bedroom door gently and heading downstairs to where my mom and dad is.
“You okay June-bug?” my father asked, I nodded back at him. I’m glad both of my parents are here for me in one of the most hardest times of my life.
“Well, come on then, we don’t want to miss saying goodbye.” I know my mom was just trying to lighten the mood, but saying goodbye? Somehow I’m still not ready for that. I know it’s hard, and I know it will be hard. I took a deep breath and exhaled.
• • •
During the whole ceremony, I couldn’t help but sit there stiffly on the pew. I was glad that the funeral was private and well exclusively just for family and close friends, but I still don’t feel relieved knowing that there are a pair of eyes watching me. Mr. and Mrs. Morrely thanked us for being there for them, I was supposed to be the one to hug them tightly for their lost but instead they hugged me much tighter as if I was the one who needed the comfort, like I was the one with the lost. And they couldn’t be any more right.
I was too speechless to even give my eulogy much more look at Chloe inside the casket. All I could do was stare at the picture they used, a picture I had taken at one of the events in school. It’s funny how back then I didn’t know they’d use that picture for her funeral.
When we headed straight to the cemetery where the coffin would be buried underground, I saw a glimpse of a girl who resembles someone I know. I wasn’t quite sure that it was her since it was only her back that’s facing me. She was getting out of the gray car, helping someone out, but I didn’t see who it was because of my mother.
“What are you looking at?” mom whispered in my ear.
I turned my head to her direction and muttered, “Nothing, mom.”
The priest had said the final blessing, and each of the guest would drop off flowers on her coffin, red roses because Chloe loves roses...She loved roses. I placed one in the middle, I didn’t want to see her in the casket because I wanted to remember her as the best friend who was always there for me, who loved me almost like I was a sister from another universe. I wanted to remember her as someone who wasn’t pale and lifeless but glowing and all alive.
Most of the guest had left, but I still stand there, staring at the ground where her body had been buried. I haven’t talked to Sienna for days, not since our last conversation at the parking lot. I didn’t understand what she meant that Chloe wasn’t who I thought she was.
I tried to look for her, to talk to her but every time I do get the chance to there's always something or someone that would bother us, and now the more that I try to approach her the more she ignores my existence. That or she avoids me in every possible way.
In the background I could hear my parents having a conversation with some other guest and as I continue to stare at the grave and having a thought to myself, I felt someone coming closer, finally the steps stopped abruptly beside me and in instinct I looked at the person next to me.
