Two Can Keep a Secret if One of Them is - Season 1

Episode Four - Chapter 17: Goodbyes

Goodbyes are something that just don’t sit well with me... I always find myself somehow saying hello again but this time was different. The casket was place at the front of the services accompanied by every single flower under the sun, but the white lily’s were the most outstanding. The lily’s were beautiful but somehow resembled the ghostly paleness of the lifeless body that was resting in the coffin and no matter how hard I tried to look away I couldn’t. The song danced across my mind “ring-a-ring rosey a pocket full of posey” until it drowned everyone out around me. I felt someone’s hand come down on my shoulder shocking me from my thoughts but just as it did the song emphasised “we all fall down!”. I looked at Zayn holding my shoulder and steadying me, he had a pained look on his face and a deeper sadness in his eyes. The whole service was filled with sobs and sad words chucked in with the occasional reminiscing laughs that turned into dead silence, haunting us.

I was shaken by the fact that I stood here with one of my best mates gone but now the police want to speak with us after? I deleted all the messages I had been sent by this “A” person because I knew blaming this on someone anonymous would just make us look even guiltier but maybe the police were just asking if we knew anything that could have led to this, right? I mean... we have nothing to hide! However even saying that to myself I didn’t believe it... these texts have planted a seed in my mind that I have everything to do with Josh’s death. With this the tears filled my eyes and I couldn’t stop them from spilling over and cascading down my cheeks and landing on my black tie, one by one they burst leaving a trail behind them.

My name was called to the microphone to say my goodbyes but I didn’t want to say goodbye... I couldn’t. I left my seat with the others trailing behind me with all eyes on us, usually this would feel normal but it just created an uncanny feeling of eeriness. My head was held down the hold time looking at my strides that carried me closer to my destination, I cleared my voice and shuffled my page. I took a deep breath in and shakily greeted everyone “I ... you know this is supposed to be my moment to say goodbye but... I don’t want to” I looked out to everyone and then to the coffin. “Saying goodbye means forgetting and never meeting again... and I won’t forget... I will meet Josh again. He was and still is one of my best mates and I never thought I would be up here today...” I took a gulp and cleared my voice looking to the back of the church where to figures stepped inside... the police. I paused for a moment and watched them judge everything I said “Josh was an amazing person and I will always remember the first day we met him. He was grinning from ear to ear as we told him we wanted him to be our drummer and the moments we had on stage together were the best. You know getting to know him has probably been one of the highlights of my life and it feels utterly wrong standing here today. I don’t think anyone should ever say goodbye to Josh because he has touched all of our lives in a way that he will never be let go and I just want to say to him now that I love him and thank you for being one of my brothers and closest friends” my voice cracked and I stepped back into the others letting the next person speak.

As the service ended we carried the coffin out of the church and into the rain walking right passed the police officers holding their belts. The rain streamed down the coffin as if the sky was crying for Josh and seeing his mother crouched sobbing and crying, cursing the stars for Josh’s fate, made me realise how fragile we all are. As Josh was lowered into the ground I stood there with my body stiff and my eyes fixated on the one lily left on the top of Josh’s coffin. I said a payer or two and felt my heart sink with every lowering movement of the box.

We sat on the chairs in the rain outside and just let it soak into our clothes; the chill didn’t affect me at all because I already felt as dead as most of the graves here. Niall looked like a child being crushed by the fact that they just found out the Easter bunny and Santa weren’t really. Josh really was closest with Niall and this would affect him more than anyone, I couldn’t look at him without feeling the shock of everything over and over again. Josh’s mum made her way over to us with a black umbrella protecting her from heaven’s tears but it didn’t protect her from her own. “Thank you boys for speaking, I really appreciated it” I felt guilty because this last year we had taken Josh away from home... basically stolen him from her and he was in a accident aimed at us... we weren’t even there for him when he did go. “We needed to say it” Zayn piped up finding his voice and I added “sorry for taking Josh from you... this past year” she looked at me with a saddened smile “you let him live his dream” and with that she hugged each one of us and walked away.

We weren’t left alone for long as two deep, bellowing voices broke our deadly silence “what do we have here Frank?” one of them said holding his belt tightly and the other one responded “suspects I believe John”. Playing good cop bad cop wasn’t going to get anything out of us because we had no light to shed on the situation. “Come with us” said John marching us in a line to the back of the church out of the rain with John in front and Frank behind. We all looked at one another completely confused and unsure of what to do so I questioned “officers, how are we suspects if we weren’t even in the country?”. They didn’t like the fact that I had caught them on their bluff “we’ll be the ones asking the questions and you will answer, got it?” I let out a sigh of frustration and sat down. “Now... tell us about the night of the accident and don’t leave anything out” Frank said pacing around the room. “If you’re going to arrest us officers don’t we have the right to remain silent?” Louis stated in a smart way smirk us he said it “look here punk... we have a murder case on our hands and you five are prime suspects... or witnesses in a way. Doesn’t matter if you were here or not but you were all at the first event that created the rest of this so tell us what happened” John lent in looking at me for the answers. I sighed and retold the story of getting into the car, the lights turning green, where everyone sat and the car slamming into us. I told the tale in the exact order not missing any details because it was all I saw every night I went to bed, however I left out the new piece of information we had gained as it was slipped under the door to us.

They hadn’t believed a word I said as John was still leaning into me almost close enough for our noses to be touching but he finally backed away. I felt the weight lift from my shoulders for a moment and let out a sigh until Frank swung something at us we didn’t expect to hear “we got an anonymous tip sent in and this was found at the scene of the crime” it was Niall’s four leaf clover key ring from his car keys. Everyone was shell shocked and I felt the tension in the air rise until I could feel myself almost combust. My phone vibrated in my pocket so I pulled it out to see a command from A **Welcome to the A-team Liam, now lie and say you don’t know who’s that is or Danielle gets it – A**. Lies just dig you in deeper and I would never intentionally lie but this was different “what’s that meant to be? Did someone murder him with luck?” mentally bashing myself up as the others looked at me uncertain.