By the time we got to David's house, the rain was still pouring down though the thunder had stopped. As we got out of the car, I couldn't tell if everyone was crying or if it was simply the rain hitting our skin. It was more likely that it was the first of the two, what with what had just happened. I didn't entirely understand why we weren't rejoicing at the verdict, though I did feel the same emptiness that Claire, David and Lucas all felt.
"We can go and stay at mine if there's not enough space here," Claire offered, as we walked into David's cluttered living room. "But honestly, I'd rather not. I'm seriously considering packing up and moving somewhere else. That place just has too many bad memories."
Her voice sounded shaky and it was obvious that she was just looking for words that would occupy an otherwise stark silence. Perhaps that was why David offered to make hot chocolate, or why Lucas suddenly switched on the TV, or why I turned the volume up really loud. They all acted as distractions, because no one really wanted to think about what had happened. It wasn't entirely a victory because so much had been lost already. It was more about valuing what we had right now than what the verdict had given us.
"I don't want to write a speech," Lucas said, suddenly. "I'm going to go up there and say whatever comes in to my mind, and... and it might be stupid and the words might be messed up, but it's going to be raw and true and... It's what Laney and dad would have wanted."
"And what about what Maria would have wanted?" Claire questioned. "This is hard, Lucas, but you can't just ignore the fact that she was your mother. Yes, she wasn't the best person and yes she was your step-mother, but you can't deny the times that she did care for you." She walked over and gripped his shoulders when he avoided her gaze. "I'm not asking you to only remember those times, but don't isolate them. At least acknowledge the fact that she existed, that she lived and she gave you Laney. That has to mean something."
I sat down at the opposite end of the sofa and stared at the TV, not really taking in what was happening. Claire walked over and sat next to me, pushing my head into her shoulder blades. This time, it wasn't such an awkward hug.
In fact, it was quite comforting and made the funeral seem like a distant possibility.
Of course, it seemed like the complete opposite when it arrived. I woke up to cola cans and sandwich packets on the floor, with my muscles hurting from sleeping in such an awkward position. I tried to run a hand through my hair but it was much too tangled, and my clothes were all creased.
Lucas was on the other side of the sofa and was in a similar state. The only difference was that his hair was much shorter so it didn't look as messy as mine. I could see his hands were clutching the blanket draped over him with desperation, and sleep hadn't drained his pain. It had just acted as an opportunity for it to live, in the hope that eventually it would get tired and fade away.
"Morning, sweetheart," Claire said, coming in from the kitchen. "I brought all of your things over, so you can go and brush your teeth and get dressed. David made breakfast, so you might want to avoid that and just get some cereal instead. And we're going to drive up to the town hall in a couple of hours so we don't have long."
She made it sound as though she was reading off a list inside her head, though I could tell it calmed her down. It gave her back some sense of control, which - I knew very well by now - would give her enough spirit to get through the day. I hadn't thought about it enough, but Claire was an incredibly strong person even if she was nearly always hiding behind her anger. And whilst I had originally thought of it as a flaw, I had realised by now that it really wasn't. It was simply a human emotion that people were much too scared of. They believed it controlled you and hurt you. In reality, it was only a space for the other emotions to regenerate whilst all the negativity simmered down. It was helpful and beautiful.
"I'll wake Lucas up," she said. "You can go and get dressed now. I've got to call that annoying woman he was staying with." Claire sighed loudly. "She's been threatening to call the police, because he's been staying with us. The next time I see her, I'll probably attack her because she's working my last nerve."
I smiled slightly and walked towards the door, but stopped just outside it. Then I turned around to look back at her. "Claire?" I called. My hands were clutching the doorframe as she looked up. "I love you."
"I love you too, sweetheart," she said, smiling back. "But you've really got to get a move on. We'll be late if we don't watch the time. It travels too fast."
I nodded and walked upstairs, brushed my teeth and then sat down on the bed almost robotically. It was the room I had stayed in when I'd been living with David. Everything was catching up with me now, and I realised that I'd never just sat down and took it all in at once. So much had happened from losing my memory to Tim being convicted, yet none of it had produced anything other than a numb feeling. Now, my emotions were alive and were ranging from loss and anger to happiness and peace. I realised that we could finally move on with our lives now, because everything had come to an end. It really had.
I smiled as I thought of this, slipping into a black dress that reached just past my knees. There was a matching cardigan laid out onto the bed and it looked as though it would reach my waist. It seemed as though Claire had put all of her energy into sorting things out, so that her mind would focus on anything other than what had happened. I wondered if she would ever really deal with her emotions. Then another part of me wondered if she had already done that and that was why she was so strong.
"Liv, I've got breakfast!" David shouted from downstairs. "Get it while it's still warm!"
I hurried downstairs and slipped into the kitchen, only to find Claire cutting her pancakes into neat little triangles and eating them one by one. David was looking at her as though what she was doing was unnatural. When he noticed me, he handed me a plate with two pancakes and some lemon syrup. Apparently, he'd made it and I found that it wasn't as bad as Claire had made it out to be. David wasn't a perfect cook by any means, but it was nice sharing an average meal with everyone else there.
Lucas joined us, making a similarly disgusted face when he saw Claire's triangles. "That's unnatural," he said, most likely echoing David's earlier thoughts. "You can't cut a pancake. You can roll it and you can stuff it into your mouth, but you can't cut it. You'll hurt its feelings."
"It's a pancake," she said, stressing the word and glaring at him. "It doesn't have feelings and I'm not going to stuff it into my mouth. That would be absolutely disgusting."
He offered her a crooked smile, even if it didn't completely reach the rest of his face.
"Yeah, okay," he muttered. "Let's just eat. Liv, can you pass the syrup?"
I did as he asked, and noticed that he was wearing a grey, sleeveless jumper over a white shirt. I was almost certain that he'd picked his own clothes. Claire would have picked something super smart for no other reason than to look professional and cool. He muttered a "thanks" quietly, as his hands came in contact with the bottle, but refused to look directly at me.
"We've got about an hour, but it'll take us another half hour to get there," Claire informed us all. "We should probably set out soon."
"Why do they call it the town hall when it's almost in the next town?" I asked. "That seems a bit stupid."
No one had an answer for that so everyone went back to eating their breakfast. The food wasn't really touched though, just swept around our plates. No one was really hungry, with their thoughts all focused on what they were going to say. I could almost guarantee that Lucas was rehearsing a number of lines in his head, even though he'd said he wouldn't write a speech. He was probably freaking out right about now, hoping that he wouldn't freeze when the time came.
"It'll be okay," I said, as I got up and put my plate in the sink. "Just pretend they're not there, because we're not doing this for them."
"When did you stop being so annoying?" he asked. "You're actually sprouting stuff that isn't complete nonsense. It's weird and it makes me wonder if we're all growing up too fast."
"That's not anything unusual," I replied. "Lots of people grow up too fast. It's what makes us normal. We've got something in common with others."
He rolled his eyes and I followed him outside to Claire's car. We'd all agreed that it had more space, mainly because it wasn't full of canvasses, clay vases and random statues of pigs. It was warm inside and the smell of leather was drowned out by a pine tree air freshener. Everything was so much like one of those advertisements on TV. A stranger looking in would never have been able to tell that we were going to a funeral; or that everything was not normal; or even that we were all worrying and thinking over the silliest thinks, in our aim to just forget, even though we knew we couldn't.
When we got to the hall, we found that there were lots of people already there. They milled around in the otherwise open space, talking animatedly but quietening when they noticed us. I hated the fact that we drew that kind of attention, the type that demanded pity even if the people subjected to it didn't want pity. It made it feel like we had no choice.
"Do these people have nothing better to do than stare?" Claire questioned. "That's the only thing they've been doing through the entire thing. They're so useless." When David shook his head, she added, "Well you can't say it's not true. Have you actually ever known them to help in any way? They're just there to believe in whatever the current news is." It sounded like she was on the verge of a rant. "When someone said Liv had murdered her best friend, they believed it. But now that the law has said that Tim did it, they're following that too. They just don't care about anything other than the gossip. It's just a matter of switching topics for them."
"You know that's not true, Claire," David said. "You know more than any of us that we can't base every single person in this room on that one interpretation. People lose focus when they're part of a group. I'm sure at least some of the people here wanted to help. They were just scared of drawing attention to themselves. I mean, wouldn't you be?"
She didn't answer and tried to ignore Lucas' glare at the mention of his sister's name. Instead, she walked off in front of us and took a seat in the front row of the hall. People continued to stare, but then began to follow our cue and sit down in their own seats. David sat beside Claire and I took the seat after his, whilst Lucas took the one next to me.
"Isn't any of his family here?" someone asked. "It seems a bit odd."
Lucas looked like he was about to get up and punch the person, even though the voice sounded feminine. David shook his head and he settled back down again. He stayed still for the next five minutes or so, as a man we'd never seen before got up on stage and paid his respects to the Carters. Then it was the school principal, Laney's art teacher and Mr Carter's business partner.
They all talked about how good the family had been. They mentioned how they would always think fondly of Laney and how Maria Carter should be forgiven so she that could rest in peace. They sprouted a number of lies, making up stories that everyone knew were not real in any way but crying over them anyway.
It was absolutely pathetic.
And then they called me on to stage. "We have here today Laney's best friend, Olivia," the principal introduced. "I've been informed that she'd like to say some words."
When and who had informed him of that, I would never know but I stood up shakily anyway. David smiled softly and Claire nodded, whilst Lucas walked upstage with me. The principal appeared slightly shocked at this, aiming a questioning look at Claire who simply shrugged and smiled. There was nothing he could really do though, so he walked back to his chair and left us alone.
I was the first to speak. "I'm not really sure what to say," I said quietly. "I actually had a dream last night, where I was writing a speech down but I've completely forgotten what it was about." A couple of people laughed. "That's why I'm going to wing this and hope that it comes out alright." I took a deep breath. "I don't have something extraordinary to say about Laney Carter. She was my best friend and I can't even begin to explain what that meant to me. We had some sort of joint understanding and I loved her like she was my own sister. We had fights and she wasn't perfect." I laughed softly. "She'd absolutely hate some of the speeches today. She always disagreed with the way dead people were treated, like they were perfect or something. Laney Carter, my best friend, would want to be remembered with each and every one of her flaws. She was reckless and wonderful and I miss her more than anything else in the world. Laney Carter was -and always will be - phenomenal to me."
A few people clapped, whilst others looked offended. They were probably the ones that had made up the stories, painting Laney as a faultless or perhaps flawless angel. They had made it seem as though they were being kind, though - to me - they were tearing away her humanity. No human was perfect, and that was what made them human. Making someone divine and unattainable was like putting them on a different level to us, which only pushed them further away. I didn't want that.
I stepped to the left a bit, as Lucas stepped forward. He adjusted the microphone and coughed into it a couple of times, before bringing out a pound coin and turning it in his hand. He took a few deep breaths and tried to relax, eventually becoming still with his arms resting on the podium.
"You people didn't know my sister, or my mum, or my dad," he said, taking deliberate pauses in between the words. "I'm not blaming you for that, because I don't know a lot of you either. It's just the way the world works. But what I'm hoping is that I can explain to you who they were in the few minutes that I probably have." The coin was being flipped over and over again in his hand. "Lots of people say that Laney - because we're all starting with Laney - had a lot to offer the world, but I want you to know that she didn't want that. She wanted a fair deal, a trade if you like." He smiled as a few people let out gasps. "She wanted to turn this place into something beautiful, something fair. She gave to the world, only for it to break her into pieces. She got nothing back, or at least I thought she didn't. I suppose she got my love, dad's love and Liv's love, which you would hope was enough for her.
"It wasn't," he continued. "And I honestly don't blame her. She made others happy for a long, long time and it drained her. Those people didn't give her the same happiness back, so she could recharge. She was dying even before she was killed and no one - not even us - was capable of saving her. She was gone because she couldn't cope in a world with people that lived only for themselves. She was honest, even if it sometimes came across as really annoying and whiny. She was just my sister and there aren't enough words to explain who she was.
"I guess my dad was the same as her. He just wasn't as extreme. He was a good guy and he did love all of you. He always loved the idea of a community, the idea that so many people could join their thoughts together. It was just so beautiful to him, and to my mum. Her happiness was based on his, and when he left so did she.
"She became someone she wasn't and I regret not ever noticing that. I was too busy wallowing in my own self misery, which was pretty stupid. I never really appreciated her. Well, not enough anyway. She really wasn't perfect. For a long time, I wondered if I hated her and if I could ever forgive her for what she'd done. And now I know I can. I can forgive her for everything, but I can't forget.
"And that applies to everyone. I can't forget what Laney, my dad, Tim and all of you did and didn't do. That's just like I won't forget what Claire, David and Liv have done for me, no matter how annoying some of them have been. By that I mean, Liv." He mouthed sorry when I glared at him. "But even though I'm trying to sound all high and mighty, I'm thankful that I had the moments with them that I did. And I know that they'll be with me every step of the way, because I'll learn from their mistakes and take knowledge from their successes. They'll live on because of that."
"That was so incredibly moving," Claire could be heard saying, in between tears. "It's probably the most truthful thing I've heard today." Then, she added, "Yours was good too, Liv," before blowing her nose really loudly.
David moved away as she did that, before shrugging his shoulders and going in for a hug anyway. I heard her telling him to get a new jumper, because she could definitely see a hole but hugging him back anyway. I smiled at that and walked back down the stage and out of the hall, with them. The people inside stared after us, unsure of what to do. I was sure that lots of them still had things they wanted to say. We just wouldn't be there to listen to it.
"That wasn't too bad," Lucas said to me, as we walked out towards the river just opposite the hall. "I'm pretty sure that lots of people in there hate me though. They're probably talking about it right now."
"Like they have nothing better to do than talk about you all day," I scoffed. "You're so conceited."
He rolled his eyes. "I have reasons to be conceited. I mean, look at me."
"There's nothing to look at," Claire shouted from a bench, ten or so feet away from us. "I think you're becoming delusional."
"Leave the poor kid alone," David replied. "Let him live in his little bubble."
"Thank you!" Lucas shouted, but wrinkled his nose when he realised what David had just said. "Hey!"
I laughed, but walked closer to the river at the same time. He followed me, as I took out the letters. The police had given them back near the end of the trial, because they hadn't served as great evidence. Lucas himself had been there to speak out, so that was probably why their worth had lessened. They were still important to me though, and I wanted to send them away as best as I could.
I brought a spade out of the bag that Claire had lent me, noticing how Lucas' eyes widened. I then prepared to get digging, watching as the hole got bigger and bigger as the pile of grass and mud did.
"You've got a spade in your bag?" he questioned. "Have you got a lawnmower in there too? You're so weird."
"Shut up," I muttered. "This is important."
"You're digging a hole so that my letters have a home," he stated. "I can see how it's very important."
I glared at him and continued digging, only to be stopped when he took the spade out of my hands and starting doing the job instead. He was sitting cross legged, and the pile was growing a lot faster now that someone else was doing it. I watched as he used a different technique so that the spade made cleaner cuts.
"I planted a lot of vegetables with my dad," he informed me. Then, he asked, "Do you want to put the letters in now?"
I nodded and began to place them in one by one, in order of the date they'd been written in. The first one went to the bottom whilst the last one sat at the top. Already, the envelopes were turning slightly brown from the mud, but it was okay. They were being buried in a place that had just heard our story. The letters belonged here.
I watched as Lucas began covering them. I almost felt like tearing at the soil and pulling them back out again, but something stopped me. I left them alone and looked on as Lucas took the spade and patted the mud down. He then began using the edge of the tool to engrave words it in to the brown surface.
"What are you writing?" I asked.
"Can't you be patient for once?" he questioned. "You're like a little kid."
"Shut up," I muttered.
"You just want me to stop talking, because you're jealous of my voice," he said, lightly. He sounded as though a lot of weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. "Don't even try to deny it."
"You're really conceited," I muttered. "I really want to hit you with the spade."
"After the whole closet incident, I'd rather you didn't," he said. "I still can't believe you poked me with that umbrella. My butt still hurts."
I rolled my eyes. "Man up."
I became quiet as I saw what he'd written. The words were so messily engraved that you could hardly tell what they said. I couldn't even begin to imagine how awful his handwriting would be, but that thought was quickly swept aside as he handed me the spade.
"Live on," he read. "Sincerely, Lucas... and that's as far as I got. You can write your name as well as if you want, unless you want an umbrella or something to do it. Though knowing you, I wouldn't be surprised if you got one out of your magic bag."
I stuck my tongue out at him but wrote my name down anyway, just as people began coming out of the town hall. It was much harder than it looked and I scolded myself for judging his handwriting too quickly.
"It looks pretty good," he commented. "It's too bad that the rain will probably wash it away soon or, you know, the grass will grow over it."
"It's wonderful," I said, smiling up at him. "I'm happy with it."
He smiled back and dotted the 'i' in my name by poking his finger into the mud. By the time I realised what he was about to do, there was mud on my nose. Claire looked annoyed by this fact, but said nothing, only shaking her head instead. David smiled softly and looked at the river, as though he was some sort of fisherman looking out to sea.
"I think I want to live like this for the rest of my life," Lucas said, almost giddily. "It's so... peaceful that only something as horrible as school could ruin it."
"But that would be boring," I replied, laughing when the grass hit his face.
I was aware of people staring at us but they were ignored because this was our moment. Moments simply existed and there was never going to be something exactly like them again. They never returned, only resurfacing occasionally through memories. And memories weren't enough, so I wasn't going to give up a single second.
I was going to exist. We were going to exist.