CHAPTER SIX
OVERLY CAFFEINATED
LEON
I had already been bumped against at least seven times in the span of fifteen minutes. It wasn't rigorous counting, or anything even remotely similar to that, but I desperately needed to focus on something as trivial as that to prevent myself from snapping at anyone in the church.
That was easier said than done, but it wasn't, by far, the hardest thing I had to face that morning.
I was purposefully avoiding looking at the casket people gravitated towards, which was probably the main reason I kept being shoved aside, but I didn't know what would happen by the time I got there. People carried flowers, both for the burial and to decorate the church, and I had no idea how there was any space left around the casket with all the bouquets and the flower garlands.
Then, there was the framed picture of June staring back at me. Her eyes, so blue they were almost blinding, seemed to follow me everywhere I went, even though she was frozen in time and my life was supposed to move on without her. She was laughing when the picture had been taken, with an orange light to her right casting golden highlights upon her face—Sofia's photography trademark, to mimic light leaks.
Out of all the pictures they could have chosen for a funeral, they just had to go ahead and choose one that would steal all the attention from the actual reason we were all in the church and force people to compliment someone else.
The bell had just chimed and everyone who was outside was returning to their seats. I saw Sofia with Grace and Meridian, with Grace limping a bit as she walked next to them, but no one tried to help her. The whole situation annoyed me, a quasi-perfect replica of the dynamics we maintained in high school, but I wasn't going to be the one starting drama in the middle of my girlfriend's funeral.
Christina was quick to join them, immediately sliding an arm around Grace's waist to steady her movements, and I could finally breathe with relief now that I knew I wouldn't be forced to intervene. She then gave Meridian a one-arm hug, a gesture he reciprocated in the same way, as one of his hands held Sofia's. Sofia's hug came quickly after, and I walked away from them.
Felix was busy playing the politician, almost like the host of a house party. He spoke to everyone he saw, pointed them to the food and refreshers table, pointed them to their seats, explained we didn't know the cause of death, and all that fun stuff one would use as an ice breaker at a funeral.
A small hand squeezed mine and I jumped in my place, startled. When I looked down, Courtney stood one step behind me.
"I'm sorry," she said, because that was the logical Courtney-like thing to do. When in doubt, she apologized, even for things that weren't even her fault. "I didn't mean to scare you."
"It's okay."
She dropped her hand, smoothing down the creases on her black dress, and nervously looked around us. The benches were filling with people and soon there would be no room left for the two of us. I knew we were all supposed to sit together—at least, that's what everyone else expected us to do—and pretend to be some kind of picture-perfect group of friends mourning June.
We were mourning, but we weren't perfect—we hadn't ever been, and we sure as hell wouldn't start being one now. We were just that good at playing pretend and had even managed to fool each other for a while, but our house of cards was beginning to crumble.
"We should go find somewhere to sit," she continued, standing on her toes. Her pink hair stood out in the middle of all the natural colors, and people were staring—both at it and at how the two of us were clogging the aisle by simply standing there, not doing anything. "I think I see some empty seats next to Xena."
I looked down at her. "You want to sit with me?"
Courtney furrowed her brows, staring up at me as if I had randomly started reciting poems in Japanese. "Of course. Why wouldn't I?"
"You know." I ran a hand through my hair, even though I knew we were just stalling and delaying the unavoidable. We couldn't simply run out of the church before the ceremony and casually waltz back in time to see the casket be lowered to the ground; the mere thought of that vision sent shivers down my spine, upsetting my empty stomach even more. "We're not—"
"Leon, we're friends, we're all hurting, and we all want to support each other." She grabbed my arm once again, squeezing even harder than before, and dragged me behind her as we made our way towards Xena. "You're being supported by your friends, whether you want to or not."
I knew there was no point in arguing with her, and I certainly wouldn't be the type of person to make the funeral revolve around me, not to mention we had already wasted enough time, so I obeyed like a well-behaved puppy. Xena gave us a polite nod and a small smile when we sat down, letting Courtney hug her for a brief moment before going back to patting her cheeks with a paper tissue.
June's parents sat in front of us, along with Grace, Christina, Sofia, Meridian, and Sofia's own parents. Part of me couldn't help but feel like I should have joined them, but, at the same time, I didn't want to be forced to deal with Sofia, regardless of how childish that sounded.
(And, trust me, I was well aware I was throwing a tantrum, but that wasn't the right time to admit it out loud.)
The church immediately went silent as soon as the official ceremony began. My chest tightened when June's parents stood up to speak to the crowd in front of them, her mother before her father, and that was when the whispering slowly restarted. People attempted to dissect their speeches as much as they possibly could, as if they were experts on the art of mourning and could tell whether two grieving parents were doing it properly.
I quickly found out multiple people thought June had killed herself. I clenched my fists over my legs, knowing that couldn't possibly be true; I'd known June like the back of my hand, better than I knew myself, and, if I had even suspected she felt so terrible to the point of taking her own life, I would have done something to help her.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe I hadn't noticed, maybe I had shrugged it off. She was always so quiet an extra moment of silence wasn't alarming to me, but perhaps it should have been.
I could have done something. I could have stopped her—from going to that motel that night, from texting everyone, from dying . . .
Felix gently patted my back, and that was the moment when I realized two very important things: firstly, he was sitting next to me, meaning I was squeezed between him and Courtney, and I hadn't even noticed his arrival, which was so out of place in someone like him. Secondly, I was crying—ugly crying, even, with the sobs and the fat tears.
The gnawing feeling in the back of my head didn't seem to want to go away anytime soon. I feared I'd have to live with the guilt for a long time—the guilt of not having done anything, the doubt regarding any signs I could have missed, the anger over never getting to see June again. No one in this church, this town, this state, this country, this world ever would.
Then, Meridian rose from his seat right in front of me. Sofia barely had time to squeeze his wrist one last time, eyes swollen from all the crying, and I easily assumed I probably didn't look that much better myself.
He crossed the aisle in stiff, hesitant steps, and we all held our breaths. Whatever he was going to say, it was bound to be painful; after all, they were pretty much joined by the hip whenever he wasn't at college and she wasn't dead, and I dared to say he knew her better than Sofia and I combined. If anyone held the answers to what happened on the night she died, it had to be him.
I was determined to make him tell me the truth. It wasn't fair to anyone involved—hell, to anyone who ever gave a damn about June—that there was only one person who had all the information, and they were voluntarily choosing to keep it from the world.
My anger was poorly placed. I knew that. However, that knowledge didn't stop my blood from boiling in my veins, threatening to burst out of my body and coat everything in red. I felt it build up inside me, a cloud of thick smoke tightly squeezing my heart and my lungs, nearly shattering my ribs into minuscule pieces with how hard I tried to keep it inside me.
Meridian didn't look at me. He didn't look at Sofia, either.
Instead, his blue eyes were fixated on his parents' chalky, sunken faces the entire time he stood behind that microphone.
"I guess the only thing I have to say is that I'm really sorry," he began, and Sofia's shoulders instantly went stiff. Grace leaned to the side to whisper something in her ear, something I didn't catch, and I forced myself to keep paying attention to the speech. June's parents hadn't asked me to prepare a speech, and I wanted to assume they hadn't asked Sofia either for the sake of equality. "Mom, Dad, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have to go through this; I'm sorry you had to put so many things up and running on such short notice and while grieving. I'm sorry you lost your daughter." He stared down at the paper rectangles he held, then turned to face the casket and June's photo. "I'm sorry I couldn't—I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me. I'm sorry I didn't support you nearly as much as I should have. I'm sorry I didn't do more to help." He took in a sharp breath and wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. When he spoke again, his voice was clogged, as though there was a knot in his throat. "I'm sorry I didn't pick up the phone that night. I love—I miss you, kiddo."
I held my breath. Sofia lowered her head, and it clicked in my brain.
She didn't know what Meridian had told June on the phone because he never actually picked up—now, she was dead, and we all felt incredibly guilty over it. However, some of us had more valid reasons to feel that way than others, and I sure as hell hoped he knew that.
When Meridian started crying again, completely destroyed, overwhelmed by all he felt, I half-expected him to recompose himself—but, then again, who was I to talk? Hadn't I been moved to tears by Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont's speeches?
They were the ones to join him up there, and neither of their faces looked accusatory.
At least they didn't look at him like that. When he returned to his seat, I made sure to let him see my own facial expression—and, boy, was I furious.
FELIX
I didn't know how, but I had successfully managed to burn my hand with one of the candles from the vigil. Other than my aching palm, everything seemed to be going smoothly—by that, I meant the main emotions filling the school grounds were sadness, grief, and confusion, all of which I'd take over anger any day. After all, it was my job to ensure the night would be as drama-free as possible.
In fact, having all three Beaumonts at the vigil was the greatest accomplishment of the evening, but it still left an awfully bitter taste in my mouth whenever I remembered there were supposed to be four of them instead of just three. Worst of all, I kept expecting June to show up at any moment, or even to urge people to stop staring at Meridian like that.
I supposed I owed Sofia an apology for the way I'd talked to her on the day of the assembly, but she was like smoke. Whenever I thought I could get a moment alone with her to discuss things, she'd quickly remember there was somewhere else she had to be—with Grace, with Meridian, with her parents, with Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont—and I was failing miserably at being a minimally decent friend.
"Felix," Xena called, and I nearly dropped the bag of ice I was holding. Her hair, so blonde it looked like the sun, was free from the ponytail it had been tied up into at the funeral. "Hey. Are you okay? You're"—she set a hand on my arm, and my heartbeat instantly sped up into erratic rhythms—"shaking."
"I'm fine!" I blabbered. "Other than my hand, I'm just . . . kind of overly caffeinated."
I let out a nervous laugh, which only happened whenever she was around. I was the editor-in-chief of a newspaper, valedictorian, and junior prom king, all of which involved me being a social butterfly and talking to people. Being around people in general didn't make me nervous and I was more than comfortable with presenting anything in front of a crowd and public speaking in general, but she . . . she was different.
"Thank you for doing this," she continued, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "You really helped turn such a horrible thing into something almost beautiful." I nodded, not really knowing what to say. "Part of me still feels like she never really left, which is super weird, isn't it?"
"No, I don't think it is." Around us, people helped each other lighting up their candles and shared messages of support. Even though it was for a terrible reason and this vigil wouldn't bring June back, at least there was some sense of community, a feeling of belonging, where everyone had come together to pay homage to her. "She's . . . I mean, I don't think people are going to let this go anytime soon. At least we won't, and neither will her family. It's so recent, so new, so strange . . . it's normal for people to have their theories about what happened. They're curious."
Her green eyes filled with tears. "I miss her, Felix. I don't want things to go back to how they used to be, as if she was still here, but I don't . . . I don't think she would have wanted us to mourn forever. How can people expect us to get used to this? How?"
I frowned, as Christina and Grace slowly made their way towards us. "They think it's temporary. They think we'll let it go once we have a cause of death, or something."
"I'm glad someone here has some common sense and admits it could have been an accident," Grace remarked, and Xena dropped her hand, with a crimson flush tinting her cheeks. I cleared my throat and turned to face them. "I think most people think she did it to herself. I mean, after Meridian's speech . . . I suppose it kind of makes sense for them to think that way, but we knew June. We saw her every day. We would have noticed something."
Christina shook her head. "I can't even imagine what must be going through his head right now. And his parents, too; if they didn't notice, if we didn't—"
She cut herself off as the sound of heels clicking against the floor of the gym echoed somewhere behind us. Aiko Sato crossed the distance between us in quick steps, wriggling her hands in each other.
"Mom?" Grace called. "What's going on?"
"Gracie, honey," Aiko sighed, with a hand set over her heart. "The police is outside, and they want to talk to you." Grace's face turned as white as paper. "They think you might know something about what happened to Juniper."
shut up i know i take ages to update and i never finish anything (meanwhile, the four completed books on my profile flash me the middle finger) but ENJOY THE DRAMA.
dedicated to sev (beautlies) bc she knows how to (properly) drink coffee