Heart of Glass

Lucy Raven stared down at the familiar face before her; smooth and flawless and beautiful in every way. The porcelain skin; those wide, doe-like brown eyes; golden flesh sprinkled with faded, chocolate brown freckles; the primitive cheek bones that might as well have been blessed upon a super model. Every single part of the girl in the satin-rimmed casket seemed to have been glowing; illuminated--either by the fluorescent lighting of the church sanctuary, or the glimmer of sunlight that shown through the stained glass window and brightened her features.

Yet it all looked so fragile, as if the smallest of touches would cause her beauty--her entire being--to shatter like glass. As if anyone even tried to embrace her, to feel the warmth of her skin beneath their fingertips one last time--if they even so much as dared--then every single part of her, every thing she had ever been would scatter into a million pieces--the edges jagged, sharp to the touch, cutting through the skin of whoever else tried to interfere with perfection. After all, this girl, the one who had had so much left to live for, was perfection; the perfection that was once a human. And now, as unfortunate and completely heartbreaking as it was, the perfection she once had been was nothing but a figment of the imagination, a memory hidden behind a cloud of thoughts: thoughts of love, thoughts of death, thoughts of Savannah.

Lucy sucked in a deep breath. Her mind was racing. Her poor heart was beating so fast and hard, that it seemed as if it would pound right out of her heaving chest at any moment. The girl’s nerves were on edge, causing her entire body to shake and quiver in both anticipation and agony. Her knees wobbled through the thin black tights she had slid on just a few hours before.

She painstakingly took another glance down at the lifeless girl, taking in each of her features once more. It was still sinking in; the realization of what had happened. And she was still, even after two days of being reminded over and over again by the constant pressure of her parents, and her friends, and, worst of all, the press, completely dumbfounded by the fact that she wasn’t dreaming. She wasn’t going to wake up to countless missed calls from Savannah, who was wide awake and very much alive, three streets over and four houses down from her own.

As much as she wanted to think differently, this was reality. Lucy was in her very own real-life nightmare, and she was staring down into the unmoving face of none other than her best friend.

She already felt as if her entire world had crashed down on top of her; nothing worse could happen.

She had lost Savannah. She lost her very best friend--the best friend a girl could ever ask for. She lost the one and only person in this great big world of glass that she thought she could tell anything and everything. She lost that one and only person in her life that understood who she was, and what she was meant to be. Savannah, in every sense, understood Lucy, as Lucy understood Savannah possibly more than she even understood herself. Savannah got it. And she was always there when Lucy needed someone; always right there waiting for her when she needed a shoulder to cry on, or a helping hand when things were just too tough to handle. And Lucy, so bewildered by her very own reality, struggling to piece her life back together with such an important person gone, could not ever lose anything as precious as that. Yet maybe, Lucy thought, I had been spending so much time letting Savannah help me, that I hadn’t even bothered to notice the fact that she needed help, too.

A cry mustered its way out of Lucy’s dry throat, a noise so painful that she had to clutch onto the sleek wood of Savannah’s casket just to keep herself steady. Her knuckles paled, as white as ghosts, as her fingernails dug into the structure.

Reality still weighed down on her, stronger than ever, slowly crushing her heart all over again, as each and every memory came flooding back into her wandering mind. Her eyes were glued to Savannah, with ultimately nothing that could break her gaze.

Lucy’s hand was shaking as it left the edge of the casket and inched forward, desperate for just one touch; just one chance to feel, if even for a moment, like Savannah was still alive. Even if it was only a split second of hope, only one tiny glimmer of some sort of miracle, it would be enough. A shiver ran up her spine as the tips of her fingers gently touched the cold skin of the girl’s cheek.

Immediately, she drew her fragile hand back, frightened by the feel of Savannah’s skin beneath her own. It was so strange to her, how real it felt; as if she was touching the skin of her best friend, living and breathing, in the flesh.

But she knew, just as they all knew, that she wasn’t alive. As much as it hurt to admit it to herself, as much as it ripped her up inside, ate a hole right through her broken heart, the truth was lying right in front of her eyes. And the only thing that Lucy had left to do, yet also the hardest, was to forget.