After

I’ve never been to a funeral before.

It’s surreal to be here, in the graveyard. Wearing a black dress and seeing my best friend in a coffin. I’ve been to the graveyard before, of course. My grandma died a few years ago, so I always come to visit her. I didn’t go to her funeral, though. My mom didn’t want me to see her dead. I was only eight after all.

I can see why Mom didn’t want me to come today either. It’s sad. That’s the only way to describe it. The white roses covering everything and everyone crying. I’m the only one not crying. I’m still in shock.

All those books that say you look asleep when you die? Utter bullshit. Robyn looks dead. Her blonde hair looks dull and flat, nothing like how she had it when she was alive. She had always taken the best care of her hair. Her skin is paler than usual. Her lips are pale beneath the lipstick and her eyelids are blue beneath the makeup.

She looks dead. That’s all she looks like.

She’s wearing the yellow sundress I bought her for her sixteenth birthday. I remember her looking at the window in Forever XXI, gawking at the dress for weeks. Then I gave it to her for her birthday and her smile was the brightest I’ve ever seen. Nothing like the permanent pout her mouth will always be in until her body starts to decay.

I look at her neck and see the mark the rope left on the pale column. It’s not too bright because of all the make-up they had to put on her body before the funeral but you can still see it. As I’m staring at her neck, I notice a tear-shaped locket resting on it. I’ve never seen it before.

“She looks beautiful, doesn’t she? Even in death.” Says a feminine voice

I look to my right to find the owner of the voice. Robyn’s mom.

“She’s always been beautiful, Cheryl. Inside and out. I still can’t seem to believe that she’s dead.” I tell her, resting my hand on her shoulder. Robyn had looked exactly like her mother. It was like a stab in my heart. My best friend is gone.

“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” She chokes out. “I could’ve stopped her. But I didn’t even know until I heard the neighbor scream.”

“So, she really did hang herself in the tree house then?” I whisper.

“Yes, she left a note for me,” She says. “It’s the only thing she left behind.”

“Oh,” Is all I offer. Asking her what it says seems to personal. It’s meant to be kept between mother and daughter. “When did she buy that locket? I’ve never seen it before.”

“I don’t know.”

“So she’s just wearing it to wear it?” I offer.

“No, that locket was important to her,” She says, eyebrows knitted in confusion.

“But you don’t know how it was, do you?” I say in a weak voice. She shakes her head.

“The locket, she would never take it off, you know,” Cheryl points out. “It came out of nowhere. She would never let anyone touch it or see it. I was the only one to notice it but she told me in the note, that if anything ever happened to her, to give it to you.”

I look at her in disbelief. Cheryl’s green eyes, which look so much like Robyn’s, are twinkling with repressed tears. Robyn’s death hit her the hardest. Poor Cheryl, she’s so soft-hearted. No one deserves to feel grief like hers’.

“I can’t take it from her if it’s so important,” I blurt out.

“She wanted you to have it,” She responds and touches the object gently. “You should respect her dying wish.”

“But-“

Cheryl unlocks the locket from Robyn’s neck and gently caresses it in her hand. The silver locket shines in the sunlight and it makes me mad that it could be sunny on a day like this. My best friend’s mother gently places the locket in my waiting hand and pats my left cheek.

“You’re a good girl, Amy. I’m glad Robyn had a friend like you.” She says before the tears spill out of her pretty eyes and she walks away.

I look at the locket in my hand and notice that it has an inscription on the back. I can feel it. I turn it over and am confused by what it says.

It’s wrong. But it’s meant to be.

My eyebrows knit together in confusion and I open the locket easily with my long nail. It opens to a picture of Robyn and I on one side and I smile at the picture. We look so happy there. However, on the other side, it holds a picture of a teenage boy and Robyn. A teenage boy I’ve never seen before. Which is saying something because Robyn has shown me a picture of every boy she has every dated.

He’s gorgeous; all her boyfriends have been gorgeous. But he’s unnaturally gorgeous, too handsome. He looks timeless, in the tuxedo he’s wearing in the picture. And Robyn looks beautiful. The boy, who looks on the verge of becoming a man, has brown hair and gray eyes. He’s tall and muscular and pale. He’s beautiful.

Who is he?

I put the locket around my neck and look at my friend. She’s gone, it’s time I accept it. And it’s easy when I’m clutching her dead hand.

“Goodbye Robyn,” I whisper and let go of her hand.