Lost, Lost, Lost

I put on my black jeans and my new black long-sleeved shirt. It was November now, and after all a funeral was meant to be dark. I slowly lowered myself onto my bright blue and green bed and died a little more inside. Each day since the day he died was killing me, and each day was another day without a phone call from Chris. Broken promises is what life is built upon, isn't it?

I flopped back onto the cushy bed and felt sorry tears fall down the sides of my face. Was it my fault that this happened? No, I wasn't the one who gave him AIDS. Sadly I lifted myself from my bed and walked to the mirror, remembering once upon a time when I looked in the mirror right before Seth and Brick came over to see me and Rahne.

"Oh my god, he actually likes me!" I put on some eyeliner and leaned back, looking at myself. I looked like a fox, in a boyish way. My hair was short and it flipped out like a skater boy's would, and I was wearing a big orange sweatshirt. If I was a straight boy, I would get a lot of girlfriends, besides the fact that I was also wearing my huge plaid pajama pants that were actually meant for men to wear. (They had a hole above where the crotch was.)

Rahne looked me over and agreed. "You also look like a hobo," she giggled. I looked back in the mirror and thought it over. Maybe I looked homeless, but I didn't like to linger on that fact since one of my great-uncles was homeless for many years before he came across a rich lassie who fell in love with him.

"Maybe, but he'll love it... I think." My insecurity started rising again. Rahne was making me more nervous than usual. "Oh, what am I saying," I thought out loud. "He likes me and there's no turning back now." I huffed and opened the door, seeing Brick and-- Oh God, Seth. He looked like hot as usual. His dark brown hair was hanging over his eyes, sort of flipping but at the same time looking great. His deep, teddy bear eyes is what had me the first time I saw him.

I ran up to Seth and gave him a huge hug. He wrapped me in his huge arms and kissed the top of my head. "Tonight will be even better," he said. I looked in his gorgeous brown eyes and felt my heart soar.

"I'm sure it will be," I replied.

I shut my eyes and willed myself to stop remembering the past. I needed to look forward to the future, my future without Seth. I looked away from my mirror and wiped my eyes from my previous leakage.

Finally I put on my black converse. If this was a funeral, I was dressing casual no matter what people told me to do. Seth loved the way I dressed and commented on how beautiful it looked on me every day, for the most part. And I believed him for a while, until the night we were separated. That night I felt like the ugliest girl on the planet, sitting on my couch in front of a lecturing cop and angry parents. I didn't want to deal with that crap anymore.

But look where that got me: The hospital.

"Ren? Are you ready to go?" Rahne ran up the stairs and burst into my room. "C'mon, let's go." Her eyes were filled with depression. She was remembering, just like I was. Just like anyone who knew Seth was. Did everyone know how he died? I had to get the information from my previously good friend, Ant, Seth's brother.

"It was AIDS," he had told me. I had asked him how he got sick. "He missed you and felt sick after the hospital. He said something about how you left him but he wasn't clear about it."

My fault, just like the hanging attempt was. Of course. I would never, ever forgive myself for causing my first love to die.

*****

I put my head down as people raised themselves to the podium to talk about their memories of Seth and their good times with him. I didn't say anything.

But I heard a familiar voice from a while ago speak, and I looked up to see a boy with long brown hair and gorgeous blue eyes that looked like the ocean water in the afternoon. He talked about how much of a hoot Seth was in Behavioural Health.

His speech was the only one that made me sob.