Emily Bean

Best friends... for life? How a friendship can end so abruptly at such a young age.

Finally, after so many years of trying and not succeeding, her life had become as close to perfect as it would ever be. Her B- and C-grades had become A’s with the occasional B, boys fought over who she had smiled, waved or winked at and suddenly all the girls were claiming Emily as their friend �" many bragging that they had been friends all along, but had just been very quiet about it. Her real best friend, though, sat in the front row with both their parents; the only one with a real right to be there. As another group of blondes with straightened hair and perfect teeth came up to the coffin to be seen crying over the girl they had never really given a damn about while she was eating in the same cafeteria, studying next to them in the library and sitting in the seat behind them in Maths class, Steph couldn’t help but think about what her best friend would really have thought of this whole stuffy, pretentious ceremony.

She imagined Emily in the seat next to her, whispering sly comments about each of the blondes, and the hickeys they pretended they could not, but in reality, didn’t want to cover up. Emily would have sat making faces at her father, her tennis coach and Frankie (their only other real friend) as they made their speeches about her and their best memories of her �" she would try to make them laugh as they stumbled and choked on their words. And, of course, every time the priest got up to speak she would have turned to Steph and made a screwed up face with buck teeth �" a rather realistic impression, even just in Steph’s mind. Suddenly, imagining this, Steph burst into laughter and while everyone around her just looked at her incredulously, and somewhat pityingly, she couldn’t take it anymore �" and ran down the aisle, heaving out onto the grass outside the church in fits of uncontrollable laughter.  The whole affair was so pompous, so much older than they both were and Steph knew Emily would have thought so too.

As her father followed her outside, she suddenly realised she would be in big trouble. What kind of a person would run out of their own best friend’s funeral in fits of laughter? But as her father reached her, he held out his arms and that was all it took �" she fell into them, and suddenly the giggles turned to sobs. 

“I know, sweetie,” her father whispered. “She would have hated it.” And as she could hear the strain in his voice, Steph realised it wouldn’t be easy for him either. They had often joked about his “other daughter” who was always at their house. Steph and Emily really had grown up as sisters, never having had any other blood-related ones. But the two had become so close that they just referred to each other as “my sister” �" they even began to look alike, with the same frizzy brown hair, braces and a similar, strange shade of green in their eyes. In fact, at the age of 12, they looked uncannily similar and although they had grown out of it in the four years since, Steph still had the photo of them at the beach with the same bikini on, looking like twins, stuck in the side of her mirror.

Steph once again composed herself as she looked up at her father and nodded. He took her hand, and they walked back into the church to say a final goodbye to her true best friend and sister; so unwillingly taken by a ‘sober’ driver who had gone back on his pledge. As she took her place once again in the front row, Emily’s mother took her hand and squeezed it, as if to say “I know,” and Steph once again imagined Emily sitting in the seat next to her, but this time rather than showing off that cheeky grin Steph had come to know and love, she sat there smiling kindly and offering a shoulder to cry on. 

Author's Note

I think it ends very abruptly and suddenly and although this may tie in very well with how Emily's life ended, I don't think the story feels quite finished. What do you think? Any feedback would be awesome :)