Chapter 28: So Long & Good-Night.
Frank
Today was the perfect day for a funeral, it was gloomy and raining. It was perfect for Eliese's funeral. She always told me that she wanted her funeral to be on a cold and rainy day in New Jersey. It was cold and rainy.
Eliese had requested that everyone wore black and red, no other colours, just black and red. I knew why; those were her favourite colours. I wore a black jacket with a black dress shirt and a black and white striped tie. I didn't care that it was black and white instead of black and red, she knew I'd wear it. I didn't own any dress pants that were for School so I wore a pair of black skinny jeans.
My heart bound up into my throat and my stomach fell into my ass as I approached my best friend's casket. Eliese has gone through countless years of torment and now she finally looks at peace. She looked so restful and happy. The way she looked was almost as if she wasn't dead at all. She just laid there in a pair of grey dress pants, a plain black tee shirt with a leather jacket. It wasn't her leather jacket though, it didn't have buttons and badges on it. It was a fraud.
Jimmy, Katie and Jessica were at the funeral with their parents and friends. Everyone Eliese has ever met was at the funeral, crowding in the pews of the Church. I sat in the second row behind her mom. She was sobbing sadly with her only child beside her. Tom was there too. Joe and Barbra sat up front with Jimmy and the girls. Matt, Zack and Brian sat in the row behind me while I sat with Gerard, Rae, Mikey and Ray. Rae was crying sadly, patting the white tissue under her eye to prevent her makeup from smudging.
I couldn't concentrate on what the Minister was saying, I was wallowing in sorrow. I couldn't believe she's gone. It's been only a few days since she died. Actually it's been a couple weeks. They had to transfer her body from California to New Jersey so that took some time. But nonetheless, she's gone. She's no longer here.
"Eliese requested that her best friend, Frank Iero said something." I was drug out of my mindlessness only to find that I was standing behind a microphone in front of a Church full of people. I could see Eliese's mom watching me, nodding softly as if she was mentally hugging me. I inhaled deeply and buried the pit in my stomach.
"I don't actually have anything prepared. But I think that's how she'd want it." I began slowly, speaking for the first time in weeks. It felt weird to speak, as if now there were more than just one person to listen to what I had to say.
"I've known Eliese since we were four years old, we instantly became best friends. Growing up we were like yin and yang but we were always be each other's side. I can't remember a weekend I didn't spend at her house or she didn't spend at mine. Eliese was the slightly off centred leader and I loved that about her. Fuck, I fell in love with her in sixth grade." I said shakily. I was so nervous and sad, I could barely contain myself. I was boiling over and there was nothing no one could do to stop it.
"When Eliese came to me on Graduation Day and said she was going to California to meet her biological father I knew she assumed, anticipated me to join in on this adventure. I did. I didn't know it at the time but Eliese knew she was dying and she wanted to do something, go on an adventure as her final sha-bang. Eliese tried to help me realize that I'm not the person I thought I was, I was someone better. I'm gonna cut this short because I can't," I breathed as I choked on a sob. I couldn't continue on with talking about her like she wasn't there. I couldn't get used to the idea of her not being here any longer. I swallowed my tears and bucked up.
“I don’t want to talk about Eliese Sullivan’s death with anybody, other than Eliese Sullivan.”
Her mom didn’t even see me to the door like she would usually do; she just remained on the couch with smudged makeup and mascara tears. She hasn’t said a word the whole five minutes I’ve been here. I looked at her with a sorrowful expression, I wanted to say something but there was nothing to say. Her entire family just sat there in funeral clothes. Her little brother didn’t have anything to say; neither did her stepdad and I was afraid if I opened my mouth to say something, her mother would fall to shambles.
I sighed heavily as I stepped out into the rain from the house with the last box wrapped tightly in my arms. The old baby blue van taunted me in the driveway. I had to carry the box of my things to the van her mom just gave me. She didn’t want it in her driveway anymore. The keys hung on a key ring that I had my finger through the loop.
I wonder if her dad has shed any tears yet. I know I’ve cried many oceans over my best friend. But I don’t know about the rest of her family. I know her half sisters did and so did her half brother, along with everyone else; they came to the funeral. But they didn’t stay long afterwards; they had a flight to catch.
Things haven’t been the same since she left us. Things have been bad again and I’m scared that since she’s not here to help me through this, I’m not going to get through it like I did last time.
I opened the van door and shoved the last box that occupied her room into the passenger seat. I was overwhelmed by the smell of cigarettes, perfume and coffee. I shivered and allowed Goosebumps to rise on my skin under the warm jacket I wore. Everything in that van reminded me of her. Everything I saw of every second of every minute of everyday reminded me of her. She was my best friend and I loved her.
I tried to hold myself together while I drove down through the rain that washed away the pain that filled New Jersey. With every mile I drove more butterflies would fill my stomach and more memories would play like a movie on the silver screen in my head. For so many years she accepted me as I was but then she managed to change me for the better. She taught me so many things in the short period of time she had left. I thought we had oblivion but we didn’t, we had no forever. In a short summer we made more memories than we did in fourteen years of friendship. She showed me how to open up and let the world in, she showed me how to take a risk and she showed my how to love.
I had to pull over to the side of the road, the moment the tires hit the gravel I held my head in my hands and the tears wash my face like they have since she left. I didn’t want to breathe in that moment, I’d smell her. I didn’t want to see the world; she’d be everywhere I looked. I didn’t want to listen to the rain, it’d tell me a story only she could. I didn’t want to live in a world without her in it because without her in it, there is no world.
I gasped for air and let the sobs fall from my lungs desperately. Tears streamed down my face as I let my head rest against the steering wheel. I stared down at my lap through blurry eyes and wallowed in the pool of sorrow. It was in that moment that I didn’t feel alone anymore, I didn’t feel full of sadness and angry; I wasn’t alone any longer. I lifted my head up off the steering wheel and looked at the box sitting on the passenger seat. My name was written on the top in thick black marker. My eye brows fell together when I saw something shiny near the top of the box, just beneath the soggy brown cardboard. I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned over the gap between the two seats. I opened the box to find her greatest possession sitting on top of a black Misfit hoodie. I smiled wearily as I pulled the fancy camera out of the box. This was her greatest gift. She wanted to be a journalist but she was such a great photographer. This is the camera that started everything.
