CHAPTER ONE: BURY THE DEAD

LYRA

The skies were grey and bleak as the rain fell gently. The sea of black clothes and the weather seemed to be in agreement. The coffin was lowered into the wet ground and a girl broke out of the crowd and held onto the coffin, crying. Two teenage boys grabbed her and held her tightly despite her struggles.

The dead would not wake even if she cried a river.

I huffed angrily and shoved my handkerchief into my pocket. I was tired of wiping away the evidence of my grief when it was obvious my tears were not going to stop anytime soon, and to be honest, I did not care.

I glanced at the girl who had hanged onto the coffin, my curiosity getting the better of me. It was a pretty brunette with eyes so red she should have been unrecognizable but I couldn't forget the girl who had followed one of my best friends around like a lost puppy.

I smooth down my long black skirt as tears clouded my vision.

God! My emotions were getting the best of me.

My mind raced with a thousand thoughts as the priest spoke. I tried to figure out how this happened and why. When I came up blank, I forced myself to stop staring at the ground and start looking at other people.

My eyes met with Mrs. Thatcher's, a petite woman who had done a lot of modeling in her prime. She had been the best of the best. I couldn't figure out if it was just my imagination but Mrs. Thatcher seemed to have grown older during the past month.

Who wouldn't? In a span of one month, she had lost her niece and now, her only child.

The burial service ended sooner than I would have liked and I found myself wanting to stay behind.

Had we really just buried my best friend? Was she gone?

The group marched to their cars and people bid each other goodbye with tears in their eyes and fear in their hearts. Fear that the ones they had just mourned with, would meet a similar fate--death.

"Let me give you a ride home," Grayson said

I didn't glance at him, I couldn't stop staring at the Thatchers and wondering. How did this happen? We were a few minutes late. Just a few minutes and she was gone.

"I'd like to make sure you get home safely" he insisted.

I frowned at him. If he had any sense at all, he wouldn't tell me why he was insisting on giving me a ride. I knew why and I resented him for even thinking about it.

"No. Don't give me that look. I'm doing it for my sanity and nothing more" he sniffed.

He did have some sense.

"Gray, I want to stay here for a while, this all seems so unreal and I.....I just.....I don't know" I breathed as I struggled to put sentences together without breaking down. "Could you? Could you wait with me?" I whispered.

"I was going to wait with you regardless" he managed a small smile and no words were spoken after that. No words were needed.

We found comfort in the silence and the rain.

An hour passed by as we stood at the cemetery, each of us lost in our own thoughts. The wind blew harder and the rain fell heavier. I lifted my head to the sky and let the rain soak in.

I had always found a certain peace in the rain. I found peace in how it washed everything away. How it made everything seem new.

I inhaled the sweet scent of wet soil. If she could be here right now. If she could see me now. Hell! If she could see us. I saw her in my mind, smiling and burying her face in her hands. I could hear her voice as she scolded us.

'Get out of the rain, you'll catch a cold and I won't nurse you back to health'

Liar. She would mother us back to health. But she wasn't here and the voice in my head wasn't her.

My eyes shot open and I locked fingers with Grayson, yelling, so he could hear me over the rain.

"We can leave now!"

He squeezed my hand and led me to his car.

"I....we are going to have to talk about this eventually. All of us. I can't stop feeling like I did something terribly wrong."

"Me too" I answered and the rest of the car ride was spent in silence.

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I settled beneath the warm sheets of my bed as I watched Grayson drive off. When his car was no longer in sight, I turned my back to the window, smiling softly to myself as I lost myself in my memories.

MARCH 16, 2010

I swung my legs, trying desperately to drown out the happy chattering from the cafeteria behind me. The skies were grey with clouds and the puddle of water in front of me looked promising. I looked at Elise, admiring the pretty purple bows in her hair, hating myself for finding joy in the small fact that I was not alone.

I had not been the only one who could not pay for the bake and eat. I wondered if Elise could not afford it, did not want to attend, or hadn't been able to pay on time.

Curiosity ate away at me like a disease, burning through my resolve to stay quiet and causing me to swing my legs harder as I summoned the courage to ask.

"Why aren't you inside baking like the others?" I asked. Elise stared at me, startled by my question.

"Why aren't you minding your own business?" she snapped. I recoiled and turned away from her.

"I'm sorry---I'm not like this I swear" she apologized. "We couldn't afford it. My mother said that we have to save up every last penny. I also felt guilty spending twenty dollars on just me for a few cupcakes" Elise explained.

"We couldn't afford it either. The bills are piling up and I felt bad about it so I didn't ask" I said after a few moments. "The cupcakes won't be tasty, I can assure you. Mrs. Crawford is a terrible cook. She'd make an even worse baker. We are safer out here"

Elise giggled and the tension disappeared slowly as we chattered on. She went quiet soon, staring at the space behind me.

I followed her gaze to find Hansel approaching us with a plate of cupcakes.

"You can come in now and bake some more with us" Hansel smiled at us, handing us a cupcake each.

"But we haven't paid anything" I argued.

"It's been settled" she beamed at us.

"Really?" Elise smiled. Hansel nodded at her. Elise screamed and jumped off the bench, running for the cafeteria with a half eaten cupcake in her hand.

"I don't like this Han" I hopped down and frowned at her. "You paid for the both of us and I don't like it. I don't like___"

"Receiving help" she finished. "I was like that once and it cost me a lot. Sometimes Lyra, we all can use a little help and there are people who would gladly help without wounding our prides or making us feel small" she turned to leave. "Come on. We haven't got much time left" Hansel called out.

I smiled the biggest I had ever smiled. I felt the happiest too. Someone was willing to help without looking down on me. I run after Hansel and locked elbows with her as we hurried to join the others.

PRESENT DAY

I whimpered as sobs wracked my body. I couldn't accept it. It couldn't possibly be true. My best friend could not be dead. She just couldn't.

How on earth did we get here?

The door was pushed open gently and I sat up in bed with a smile on my face. My mother shook her head at me.

"Why are you not crying when I'm sure you're hurting real bad?" mum sniffed.

"It's nothing mum" I smiled, all traces of my tears gone except from my red rimmed eyes.

"All those feelings you keep locked up. When are they gonna come out? You'll explode some day Lyra and it'll hurt worse. I really wouldn't want that." she brushed the hair out of my face before holding me in a tight embrace. My black sweater was wet. It made my skin itch and mum's hug made it worse.

"You can hide from as many people as you'd like but don't hide from me" she kissed my hair.

No matter how much mum assured, I couldn't cry in front of her. My pain was not hers to carry.

My phone rung, breaking our moment.

"It's probably Grayson" I chuckled, picking the call after my mother slipped outside quietly. I put it on loudspeaker, stripping out of my wet clothes.

"Allium?"

"I can't...I.... I can't.... I would have called her but__"

"It's fine Allium. Where are you?" I asked, putting on an oversized hoodie with Grayson's name printed in huge letters on the front after wiping myself with a smelly towel I found lying the foot of my bed. I had a wardrobe of Gray's clothes from the many nights I had spent at his place.

"My room.... I can't breathe" she cried.

"I'm on my way. Keep talking to me" I said, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder as I wore a brown sweatpants and my shoes. I rushed down the stairs and waved my mother goodbye before leaving.

"What happened?" I asked, getting into a cab.

"I'm a coward. I couldn't show up for her funeral" she chuckled bitterly.

"You wouldn't have survived it" I laughed softly.

" Did you see her body inside the coffin? Maybe she's not really dead"

"Allium" I sighed as I paid the cab driver.

" I've been doing some thinking and I don't think she's dead"

"Allium" I chastised, taking the stairs two at a time.

"She can't be. When I left her, she was completely fine.....she wouldn't do that" Allium rattled.

"Allium!" I yelled, staring at the bleeding thighs of the brown skinned beauty. "What were you thinking?" I hissed, grabbing the pocket knife from her bloodied hands.

"You do it all the time," she protested, a faraway look in her eyes.

"Me. Allium. Not you" I sighed, grabbing the first aid box from under the bathroom sink.

"Pathetic isn't it? No. The word is hypocritical. It is really hypocritical of you. You can hurt yourself but I can't" she hiccupped, the strong smell of alcohol choked me.

"What the hell?" I cussed, grabbing the empty bottle of liquor. "Are you insane?" I smacked her across the head.

She only giggled in response. I grabbed her and helped her kneel in front of the toilet bowl as I stuck my fingers down her throat.

With a loud gag, Allium spilled her guts and collapsed onto the cold tile, her breathing labored.

"One dies from suicide and the other wants to try out alcohol poisoning" I paused and pulled back Allium's hair aggressively. "On herself" I finished, wiping Allium's mouth with as much force as I could muster.

She responded with a groan, burying her head in my neck.

"It wasn't suicide" she muttered drunkenly. Oh Allium.

"What?" I stroked her hair as she kept muttering inaudibly.

"She was so pretty too" she cried.

"I know" I said softly as I dragged her to her bed and pulled the sheets over her snoring form.

"Don't self-destruct" I kissed her cheek but at this point, I knew self-destruction was unavoidable.

Hansel was everything. Now, we were nothing.