dealt, and I just want to know why.
Why! Why?
The unfairness of it all is pressing down on me, an impossible weight pushing me down. In this moment, I feel like I’m going to keep sinking until I’m completely flattened. I’m going to be crushed by these feelings of unjustness until I am dust. Then, I’m going to blow away without leaving a trace that I was even here.
I sit in our bed, the smell of Stella still potent on the sheets. She’s always smelled like comfort, like happiness…two things I will never get back.
No matter what happens in my life, I will always know that I’m here, and she’s not. I didn’t have a choice in the result, but I feel guilty all the same.
I’m here.
She’s not.
And nothing I do can ever bring her back.
Lily
“What do you mean?” I shriek into my phone.
“She had brain cancer, honey. I guess they’ve known for a year,” my mom’s sad voice answers.
“She died?” I question again as tears fall down my cheeks.
“I know. It’s a shock.”
“Why…why didn’t he tell me?” I think about what Jax’s life must have been like over the past year, and I’m devastated that I wasn’t there for him, that I didn’t know.
“Susie says that no one really knew, besides Jax and her parents, until the end. Jax said Stella wanted to live her life as if she weren’t dying.”
“I can’t believe this.”
“I know, honey.”
We don’t say anything for a few moments as I cry into the phone.
“The service is on Saturday,” she says.
“Okay. I’ll get a flight out tomorrow,” I answer automatically.
“Well, let us know when your flight comes in. One of us will get you at the airport.”
“Okay, Mom. Thanks for calling.”
“See you soon, sweetie.”
I drop my cell phone onto the couch next to me and fall to my knees. I’m grateful I’m alone in my apartment because I can’t hold in my grief. I sob into my hands as I rock back and forth.
I’m so sad—for Jax, for Stella, for her family. So much pain radiates from my chest. I know it’s a fraction of what Jax must be feeling, and that thought brings more agony.
But nothing hurts more than the shame I feel because, amid the shock and sadness, a small sense of relief surfaces. It appears before I know it, and it paralyzes me with its presence. And no matter what I do, I’ll never be able to convince myself that it wasn’t there.
Jax
The funeral is beautiful…I suppose. The entire church is covered in pink roses. Candles are set in front of every stained-glass window. The altar is adorned with fragrant flowers and the warm glow of more candles.
If one didn’t know that this was a funeral, they might think we were at a wedding. Everything about this place radiates peace, love, and serenity. It’s no surprise that Stella brings beauty to death, as she did to life.
I sit in the front row, the large portrait of Stella staring back at me. I can see all the details of her face, every perfect one, and it guts me. I love…loved her smile the most. She would light up a room with her gorgeous grin. Her eyes were so expressive, warm. I always felt like they were the instruments for her superpower, giving her the ability to look into the soul of anyone and know what that person needed.
Thinking back, it is so true. No matter what I was feeling or what I needed, she knew without question. She was such a good friend to me in college, constantly there to listen to me vent, to provide comforting words, or to be the sounding board for the world of Jax’s problems. She let me bounce ideas off of her until I found my answers. Perhaps she was already an angel in life.
Did I love her enough? Was I enough?
She deserved the world, and I don’t think I gave it to her. I tried, but she deserved more than I could give. If I’d only had more time to be better, to do better by her…
Someone else steps onto the pulpit to say beautiful things about Stella. There has been a never-ending line of people who feel compelled to share something. I tune them out and remain focused on her portrait. I don’t need to listen to everyone’s words. I know what they will say. I know, better than anyone, what an awesome person she was. I’m drowning in my own memories of her. I don’t