c h a p t e r o n e : p a r t y
Alisha Miracle died at 6:52 am on Wednesday.
Actually, that was when her little kitty found her in front of her history stories, maps and her back resting against the bookshelf so that she was still sitting, cross-legged on a bundled up stack of purple colored clothes. The cat had gone crazy, as I was told later. It had run out in the kitchen, biting and clawing just anyone it could find. Sensing that something was wrong, Maria the mother let Kitty drag her into Alisha's room, and the rest is history.
The doctors and police were called and chaos was made. Joseph, the father busied himself in calming down Maria; boxes of tissues were soon running out.
I wasn't told about it until the evening, when me and my dad were in the living room watching MasterChef. I had been planning on making a cheese wrap for Keegan so that she would stop pestering me about paying her back. Though I wasn't sure I'd get that recipe on the quesadilla episode. Mom suddenly came into the room all dressed up in a sombre color of grey and black.
She had said, and I quote, 'Hey Aidan? Fancy coming along to Maria's? We are going to pay them a visit.' I should've known that something was wrong when she said Maria's instead of Keegan's, but I was too busy in making my evil plan to slip a red chilly in her cheese wrap I would make.
As I sat in the car that night, I should've thought that Keegan was my best friend and there was no reason for my parents to chat with her parents.
I should've thought that it was unusual that my morning alarm didn't go off that morning, resulting in me waking way past after school had started.
I should've thought there was something wrong when I didn't receive any call from my school questioning my absence.
And I should've thought that I hadn't got any call from Keegan that day, telling me an amazingly boring fact about history.
I only realized it when an horde of police and an horde of 'lost in tears' people I didn't know (later introduced to as the relatives) were seen scurrying around by me in the humongous garden Alisha and Mariah had a shared affection for.
See? I wasn't told that my best friend was dead until I saw her entire clan of family crying to the heavens above. The person who told these adults to hold back everything from teenagers and then drop it like a bomb was a person who needed to finish their primary schooling first.
The details were being denied to me, them fearing that it would be too much for me to bear. But Joseph, her father took me aside for a while in the camouflage of helping him find more chairs for everyone, and told me everything. He asked whether she had ever mentioned being suicidal. I was about to open up my mouth to say something, but then I thought about what she had once told me, I mumbled a small no.
Poor guy Joseph, I had always liked him but seeing him in a state of grief made my heart squeeze painfully. He was trying to treat all the relatives with respect and was trying his utmost not to break down completely. These buffoons who had come rushing to precipitate over Keegan (I am not in such a state that I'll start calling her the body) clearly didn't give a damn about her, since that was one of the things she hated with an utmost passion. People crying over her.
As for me, I was suffering from a loss of tears. I was supposed to be in thick of mourning, crying out to whoever was up there to take care of Keegan. These ridiculously religious people were ridiculous; like Keegan ever even went to a church to pray. Hell, she didn't even care about anything much outside of her mobile and bookshelf. Yeah, she sure did love social media.
As I was thinking about this, I supplied tissues to Keegan's uncle or cousin or the next-door neighbor, whoever they were, reminiscing about their dead wife. I was in half-mind to ask whether he had come to the wrong mourning party. At long last, I was called in the midst of all this nonsense. As a guy who had been hearing nothing but "Wooo" and "Booo" and "Hooo" in the past hour, a sharp voice calling out my name was sure to give me a shock.
"Aidan? Son, are you still here?" I jumped and the uncle-cousin-neighbor who had been crying his eyes out on my shoulder glared when my bone bumped with his chin.
Muttering a nonchalant apology, I made my way over to where people more close to Alisha huddled together. My parents, her parents and David, Alisha' old-age home friend. He was the one my eyes immediately directed themselves towards. He looked how he looked before, but his eyes looked darker, almost black.
Alisha once told me that no one in this world has pure black eyes, they are just very dark-shade of brown. This was what I only heard in songs and books; that deadened look of gloom. While I was in close proximity with them, they all turned to me. My mum had her arm around Mariah and it felt that it was the only reason Mariah was still standing. The rest of them looked like I was hurt puppy; the big box of tissues in my hand couldn't make it more picturesque.
"Aidan?," my dad spoke softly. I looked over to him, he looked tired - but a sad kind of tired.
"David," he looked over to David who was watching the other people in the room dully. At the mention of his name, he glanced back at me. I tried to smile, but it felt more like a constipated one. I wonder whether smiling would feel different now? Or I'll ever feel that I'm smiling.
No, I won't. I'll be completely fine.
I don't know why, but I know I'll be fine. Sad, yeah but fine.
O-kay. I now get why people talk about the f-word. It's very...suspicious and untrustworthy. Not to say repetitive.
"He would like to talk to you. You okay about that?," dad asked. I reminded myself to breathe plenty, then nodded. I walked away out of the house, into the back garden where there was a noticeable lack of human population. David was behind me.
"So," came his weak voice from the back. And in that one soft syllable, I detected his grief. I had never heard such hopelessness in his voice, in the short period I had known him for. I turned to face him, but his face was devoid of any feelings. Unnaturally.
"Yeah?"
"How're you feelin'?", he asked quietly. At this, I paused and contemplated his question. Then,
"I don't know. I really don't. Guess I'm...fine." He gave a low chuckle and shook his head. A second's pause, then solemnly he asked one last question, "She told you, didn't she? That she would do that?"
"She did."
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