The Best Kind of Friend

Replaying this whole scene brought tears to Chelsea’s eyes and she watched them fall into her Cheerios which now resembled that of dog food.

Ben eventually did wake up. One week after the accident. Chelsea had never really warmed to Ben but now she felt as though he was all she had left. Oddly enough, she didn't blame him for the accident. Instead she blamed God, she blamed the world, and she blamed the doctors for not doing more. But most of all, she blamed herself.

Chelsea finally got up from her place at the bench and tipped her bowl of soggy Cheerios down the sink. She glanced at the clock. It was already 6:30am.

'Well, only 4 more hours to kill,' Chelsea mumbled to her cat that was lying lazily at the bay window. She suddenly winced at her poor choice of words. Today was the day of Tess' funeral. She didn't know if she could face it. But to make things worse, she was the one giving the speech. Everything inside her hurt. And the pain had only grown stronger. People say losing someone is like having a hole in your heart. For Chelsea, she felt as though something had eaten her entire heart out and just left a fragile shell that could break into millions of tiny little pieces if someone were so much as to bump her.

She took out a piece of paper from her notebook and grabbed a pen off the counter. There was just so much to say about someone who has been your best friend for 17 years. Yet everything she wrote down just felt wrong. Finally after an hour she gave up trying to write. She decided that she would say whatever came to her. That is if anything at all came to her. She wasn't even sure if her brain would be able to process her thoughts and turn them into words. She hadn't spoken much to anyone since Tess had died, not even much to Ben when he woke up from his coma. She sighed and resorted to her room where she laid out her clothes she was going to wear to the funeral onto her bed. It took all her will power to take a shower and get ready. All she wanted to do was crawl into a hole and never come out.

Three hours later Chelsea pulled up her car at the front of the massive church. She got out and the first person she saw was Ben. She immediately ran to hug him. He felt cold and stiff, as if he weren't really a human but rather an inanimate object. As if the life had been sucked right out of him. But I guess in a way, it had. Neither of them said anything. No words were needed. Chelsea looked up into his eyes. They were bloodshot and his face was unshaven. His chocolate brown hair was scruffy and he looked as though he hadn't slept in days. This was probably the truth. She noticed the massive scar just below his hair line. Chelsea thought about how awful it will be for Ben having to look in the mirror every day. He would see the scar and instantly be reminded that the love of his life was gone. And all because he had turned his eyes off the road for just a few seconds to look into Tess' beautiful eyes. Instead, all he saw were the headlights of another car, coming straight towards the passenger seat.

Chelsea felt bad that she hadn't even bothered to call him, but what could’ve she said? She wanted so badly to tell him that everything would be okay. But she new everything was far from okay. She wanted to tell him that it wasn't his fault. But she knew it wouldn't make a difference. So they walked silently into the large church together and took their seats in the front row.