Funeral Flowers

The boys drop their bicycles just outside the pitch, under the spectator stands, and jump over the boards easily. The girls arrive a few minutes later and the boys offer to help them out, but they shuffle over the planks on their own, funeral dresses stretched tight over their thighs. They settle down in the soft grass of the field, huddled close together, Hanna’s head in Emma’s lap, Jacob and Gabriel shoulder to shoulder. The sun is inching down the horizon, setting their light hair ablaze in copper light. A strand of Hanna’s sizzles as it touches the burning end of her cigarette, and she scrunches her nose up at the smell, nostrils still red with dried blood. Emma laughs for just a moment, and then she seems to remember where and when she is. They sink back into their solemn, sleepy silence as a human-shaped empty space, heavy like a presence, looms among them.


They haven’t seen each other in two weeks - not since the accident, the night of the party, the night Stef swerved into the guard rail with his brand new car, stumbled over it and rolled down the hill. They visited the first day after it happened, and then the next, taking turns in sitting next to the cold, white body hooked onto the machines, a body that seemed completely void of that essence that made Stef Stef. Their eyes were bloodshot, lips chapped, hands clasped, white knuckled, around course books and paperbacks as they murmured to that comatose body. The moments they all caught together were few, but precious in their togetherness.
“It’s not really true, you know,” Gabriel explained on the second day, over a paper cup of coffee, in the hot white hallway of the hospital. “He can't actually hear it. When we talk to him.” He said what they’ve all been thinking, and then they hid whatever they had to say to Stef somewhere deep inside, somewhere dark and quiet. They held each other for a few minutes, one by one, and then went to pack their bags. There were exams to be had and interviews to go to; these things just can’t be put off, no matter how heavy one’s heart is.


The phone calls come from Stef’s brother, matter-of-fact and lawyer-like, you’re Stef’s best friends and you should know this, we’ve decided to take him off life support, perhaps you would like to come home and say goodbye. I’m sorry, the answer comes in four different ways, we’ve already said our goodbyes. I’m so, so sorry. See you at the funeral.


Jacob arrives with the morning train and barely has time to go home, kiss his mother, put on a suit - his brother’s, loose in the shoulders but almost right everywhere else - and have a cup of coffee, taking extra care not to somehow spill it on his crisp white shirt. He then hops on his bike and pedals through the small town, wheels rattling on the cobblestones, and in the end he’s one of the firsts at the church. The building is heavy with a thick, floral scent, the room with the casket packed lushly with white lilies and carnations, and it’s ironic, Jacob thinks, because Stef was allergic to just about any flower. He could’ve died a second time in this room. Stef’s mother, seemingly pulled together from head to toe with hair lacquer, pulls him into a tight embrace, and Jacob finds his throat is so tight he couldn’t say anything even if he wanted to.


Emma and Gabriel find each other outside the cemetery gate, silently lace their fingers together, hold hands throughout the procession. Gabriel squeezes her hand gently but firmly from time to time as if to tell her, “hold still, we’re gonna get through this.”


The casket is open and Hanna finds, with mild surprise, that she does not want to look but can’t look away. Stef’s pale face pulls her gaze in again and again, her eyes keep returning to the white cheekbones, bruised all the way to the forehead, again and again, and the room goes spinning around her. She feels something warm and heavy, like a drop, land on her chest, and another, a dark liquid trickling from somewhere. It takes her a while to figure out it’s her nose - she raises a finger to her face and it comes away dark red and glistening. She pushes through the crowd, half-covering her face and struggling to breathe, and sits down heavily onto the grass of the cemetery. It takes for a while for the rest of them to find her.
“After the lunch is over,” Hanna says as Emma finishes dabbing at her nose with a napkin, “let’s go somewhere. Just the four of us.”


The sun is halfway behind the horizon now and it’s getting colder by the minute, but they don’t mind. They’re lying close together, half on top of each other, fingers buried in the silky cold grass of the field, in someone else’s hair. A cigarette makes its way back and forth between them, warm breaths hover over cheeks. The knots in their throats ease a little, laughter bubbles up, quiet and tentative and self-aware.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Hanna says, quiet and contemplative, and after a beat, the others softly hum in agreement.
“It’s okay,” she repeats, eyes set on the golden clouds. “We’re gonna get away with it.”