The Rest of Us

18-11-2017

Another day, another diary entry and it's still dreary November. Does this month ever end?

Look at me now, writing in a diary for two consecutive days—I never used to be able to do that. Maybe the novelty will wear off after a while and I'll write in it less and less until finally not at all like every single other diary I ever started. It's not that I was intentionally lazy with them; I just started to think it was a bit silly to keep a diary and I didn't really have time for it anyway, so what was the point? I have plenty of time these days though, so that's no excuse anymore.

I may as well use that time to carry on with my story. After the crazy craze, things died down at school a bit and nothing much happened for a while. Maybe that was the calm before the storm. The only thing I remember clearly from the calm period is seeing the third X-Men movie at the cinema with Alice, Maria and Georgia, finally settling the Great X-Men Debate that had plagued us since the second film.

Not long after that, it happened. The four of us were walking back to my house from the local shop, our arms laden with sweets ready for the Lord of the Rings movie marathon we had planned. The three Lord of the Rings films had come out before the four of us had met and we had all agreed we needed to watch them together, despite the fact this would take over nine hours. With hindsight, this endeavour was doomed to failure from the start, but why did it have to happen so tragically? What did Alice, or any of us for that matter, do to deserve this?

We got as far as the main road opposite my house. Maria had pressed the button on the crossing and the traffic lights had turned red. Alice had already started crossing by this point as the cars had stopped slightly before the lights changed. Out of nowhere, a car came tearing up the road at about ninety miles per hour, narrowly missing Maria, Georgia and I but fatally hitting Alice as she was further into the road than the rest of us. The car then continued speeding along the road like nothing had happened.

It had all happened too quickly for any of us to react properly. We stood in the road, silent, helpless and disbelieving as our best friend lie unconscious right in front of us. All thoughts of epic quests and bug-eyed hobbits had been replaced with feelings of horror and surrealism. This wasn't real. Things like this didn't happen to real people. It was just an elaborate dream.

Reality set in as Maria, Georgia and I realised this was no dream. I don't remember much of what happened next—a lot of screaming, crying and kind passers-by trying to comfort us. Someone must have called an ambulance as one arrived at some point. The paramedics quickly loaded Alice into the back of the ambulance and presumably tried to revive her as they journeyed to the hospital. We were looked after by the police when they arrived to investigate the cause of the incident and were asked to give an account of exactly what happened from our point of view. When this was over, we were taken home where I ran straight up to my room, stayed there and hoped for the best.

Unfortunately, the worst happened. Alice was officially declared dead at 10:15am on the 17th of November 2007.

There was not a dry eye in the room at Alice's funeral. Her family organised a truly beautiful service, with her mother giving the eulogy and her father reading some lovely quotes that really summed up Alice's life. Of course, one of the most memorable quotes was from X-Men and pretty much summed up the way she felt about God—"I've always thought of God as a teacher; a bringer of light, wisdom and understanding". I found it a bit amusing how her father neglected to tell us which character said that particular quote although I don't blame him for skimming over the fact it was Magneto. For such a rushed funeral with very little planning, it was a really good send-off. I suppose it was a bit simplistic looking back, but that's understandable—how are you supposed to prepare a funeral for a fifteen-year-old girl?

The police manhunt for Alice's killer lasted nearly a year, with the driver of the car eventually turning himself in the following October. Apparently, he didn't even know he'd killed anyone until about a month later when the news spread outside our town. Still, he waited eight months after finding out he'd killed someone to turn himself in, which angers me greatly but also makes me wonder why he waited so long. Did he suddenly start to feel guilty about it nearly a year after it happened? Did the guilt creep up on him slowly over the eight month period? Did he start to feel paranoid after nearly a year that he might get caught? I guess I'll never know.

When we went back to school, everything changed. Of course, it was announced in an assembly that Alice had died, provoking shock and sadness throughout the school. It was also announced that if anyone wanted to talk to someone, the school's pastoral team, along with certain teachers, would be available for this. Surprisingly, I actually briefly considered it but decided not to as I preferred to deal with personal issues in my own way. I think I seriously considered it for about two minutes, but for me, that felt like a lifetime. A few teachers tried to approach me about the issue, but I lied to them and said I was already getting help outside school. They probably knew I was lying but they didn't question.

The next few weeks didn't seem real. I still felt like I was in some kind of horrible dream from which I would awake. Maria and I stayed friends but Georgia became very distant. She didn't stop hanging around with us straight away; she just became very quiet and hung out with us less and less as time went on. After about six weeks or so, she'd floated away from us, leaving Maria and I as the only remaining members of our group. We tried to support each other but I suppose we were both too distraught to do this properly.

Neither of us could concentrate in class. Our grades slipped badly. I remember being asked about this more than once by concerned teachers but I brushed it off, saying that I was getting help outside school and would start to feel better soon. Maria probably did the same, although I remember her talking to a member of the school pastoral team a few times and she might have had a therapist outside school who she never told me about.

Georgia's grades slipped aswell but she refused to speak to anyone, even the teachers who asked about her grades. She just kept saying, "It will be fine," and very little else. She wouldn't talk to Maria and I or any of the other students or teachers, effectively isolating herself from the entire school. I wonder if she was like that at home with her family or if she tried to convince them there was nothing wrong by acting like she always had done. I suppose that's something else I'll never know.

I'm really tired—going through all this again has absolutely drained me. I doubt I'll get any sleep though. I never do these days. But I may as well try.