Diane Young [Camp NaNoWriMo July 2014]

Elijah West

"To me, and to many others, she was Ellie. She was a picture of intelligence..."

I have decided that I like this girl.

Not a like as in, let's be friends. I like this girl a little too much for comfort, which is why I am now shuffling among the pews in this very lovely church, much to the disturbance of my new gay best friend. She was my friend before, sure, but now since my old gay best friend has sadly died, she (her name is Tiffany) has now risen to the position.

"Elijah West, why are you like this?" She said in between sniffles. We were at a funeral, see, and the girl I had decided to like a little too much was standing at a small podium reading a poetically just eulogy for my ex gay best friend.

"Tiffany, listen to the eulogy. This girl is amazing."

With a tearful irritation one can only achieve under these circumstances, Tiffany rolls her eyes and looks towards the girl with the messy hair and bright eyes. I think she looks quite good, even though she's nothing on me or even my twin. I have always said the underdogs are the bigger dogs.

She's looking down now, and she has been for a while. It's giving me time to stare at her face without feeling like an utter idiot. Not that I am one. I shift my top hat and place my hand underneath my chin, totally enthralled.

By some strange chance (is it fate? Is it destiny? Maybe it's God, considering we are in a church), when the girl looks up again, it's right at me. And I stare back at her because even though her eyes are dark brown and glossy with unshed tears and her hair is a complete mess, this is a very big deal.

She glances at my top hat before continuing, looking my way only generically and I listen to her thinking that this girl right here, this blonde girl with almost black eyes is actually deserving of my attention.

So I'd say we better become friends.

"... Sometimes dull, sometimes bright, always changing, always shifting whenever the clouds moved against her, but always there no matter the angle our world had spun us to."

Next to me, Tiffany let's out a loud cry and I look away from the girl and give her an awkward pat on the back. She looks grateful but still very sad and I feel bad but I still pat her on the back. Then I look back up.

As the eulogy is rounded up, the girl holds her cue cards and I think I see her eyes beginning to pool with tears, but she stops them just as the speech ends.

"Thank you," she said and nodded before looking down and walking away. The previous speaker comes on after, looking very solemn for no good reason. He didn't know Ellie.

"That was Diane Young," he said, and I stop listening to what he's going to say next.

Her name is Diane Young, as in dying young, as in one of my favourite songs, as in she is more brilliant than I thought she was. Guessing from her lovely eulogy, she was the best friend Ellie deemed too important to tell me about and the one I was slightly dreading seeing.

"Hey, Tiffany, that girl, she's Ellie's best friend." I muttered. Tiffany looked at me incredulously.

"What the hell?" A man in front of us looks around disdainfully.

"She's Ellie's best friend and probably the most important person here!" I whispered once more.

"What? I was her girlfriend for goodness sake, and I'm not more important than some random friend?"

"Exactly."

"Elijah West, don't make me slap you." She hissed with venom.

I frowned. "You wouldn't do that to this face, would you?"