Memories

This short story is about a girl who loses her best friend to a car crash and the grief and recovery that follows.

Memories

Stella. She was my best friend. I placed a bouquet of flowers over her name engraved in stone. Stella. Here is the sunlight. See the way the small grains of mica on her gravestone sparkle. See the way it casts a shadow on the bright grass, grass too bright for this shadowy place. See the shadows. See the dozens of shadows, too many to count. See a cross here, an angel there. And see memories.

Laughter. Stella’s copper hair flashed as her head whipped around, her eyes meeting mine. I flash a smile back at her, confident. We both got straight A’s in school, and we both knew we deserved them. Stares. People stared at us, daring us to look them in the eye. We did. Lunchtime we spent together, speaking of things of little importance. We wasted too much time. Time. Time  spent waiting for her the next day before class. Why was she so late? Then her mother, in a white hospital room with a broken arm and lip, crying, her daughter was lost, the car had veered of the road...Gone.

A week or so after the funeral, it started. The haze clouded my mind for the whole day. It was hard to know when I was awake and when I wasn’t. But the haze was better than the emptiness. Whenever I cleared the haze from my eyes, emptiness took it’s place. The haze filled the gaping puncture shot through my life. Emptiness, awareness, exacerbated it.

A month or so after Stella died, I got my first report card. I was failing. Worse yet, I didn’t care. Fighting noises filtered through the crack under my door at night, the shadowy silhouette of my parents sharp where the lights threw them onto my bedroom wall.

“Just give her a little longer, she’s just-”

“Dead. She looks dead, can’t you see? She used to be the brightest kid in her class and now… You can just see it in her eyes! She needs to get away from this place…”

I didn’t care what my parents said. Stella and I had been close friends, such close friends that we never had to say what we were thinking, the other already knew. Losing her was like losing half of myself.

I remember how difficult it was to open my eyes every morning through the salty crust of dried tears that clung to my lashes like glue. I remember how my mom asked my how my first day at my new school was over dinner and how, for a moment, I had thought, New school? I remember the worry and hurt that had flashed across her face when I didn’t answer right away. I remember the comforting hand of my father that grasped hers, squeezing tight when I got up quietly to go into my bedroom, silent tears streaking my face.

Then there was Alice. Her golden hair was always pulled into a ponytail, her sneakers always tied, her fingernails clipped, and she smelled faintly of lavender. And she always smiled, even at me, who didn’t smile back. She said hello, and don’t you think the weather outside is terrible? I mean really, the audacity to rain on the first day of school! And the haze stirred. It shifted. And I smiled.

Slowly, I put my life back together, piece by piece, and I learned how to remember Stella without mourning her.

Today I’m back at her gravestone. I place a bouquet of flowers over her name framed by sparkling mica, and I can almost see her flashing hair and sparkling eyes in the setting sun behind her grave. She deserves my memory, but she wouldn’t want me to mourn. Not at only thirteen.

Author's Note

First of all, thank you so much for reading! What do you think about the mood of the story? Would it help to add more background to develop the plot more?