I flicked the cigarette and watched as it bounced across the pavement. She was on that kick again. Nikki was always working on a new self-improvement project and this year was repairing personal relationships. This was a conversation I definitely didn’t want to have right now.
“Can we not talk about this right now? I have enough to deal with today.” I looked down at my right hand and rubbed at the bent in c-shaped scar on the back of my hand near my thumb. I didn’t remember getting it, but lately whenever I start getting irritated it would start to burn like it had happened recently.
“You can’t hide your feelings forever Elle.”
“You know I think I’m starting to remember how you die. I think it had something to do with bees.” I tapped my chin, pretending to be deep in thought.
“Bees! But I’m not even allergic to bees!” The door to the funeral home opened and the pallbearers lead the people out with my mother’s coffin in hand. I moved towards Aunt Sue and away from Nikki’s squawking.
She has been hounding me since day one to let her know how she dies and every time she asked, I gave her a different answer. A hit and run. Suicide. A freak accident involving a blender. And now bees. She was more obsessed with death than I was. Really why would you want to know when you die?
It’s not like I didn’t know. I just didn’t want to think of her that way. If I let myself think of the way she goes then that was all she would be. A label permanently imprinted on her face every time I saw her and there would go my one and only friend.
I let myself be ushered into the black limousine reserved for immediate family and leaned against the door. I knew her. If I told her she would never let it go. She would be looking over her shoulder all the time, more worried about dying than living. I couldn’t do that to her.
Nikki’s small hand pounds against the glass of my window. I tried to school the emotions on my face to show nothing as I rolled down the window. Giving her my best poker face, I waited for the usual explosion of questions.
“Come on Elle! You can’t be serious! Bees?” Her face would almost be funny if I hadn’t seen it so many times before when I had fed her one of my previous lies. I rolled my eyes at her and started to roll the window back up.
“You’ll just have to wait and find out like everyone else.” I bit back a grin when she smacked the glass and let out another muffled “Come on,” before she marched towards her own vehicle.
“You really should be nicer to that girl. I don’t know how she stands to be around you as it is.” Aunt Kate snide remarks always made my day. It maybe mean and unkind, but the fact that I know exactly how she dies fills my step with a little bit of a pep whenever she got into one of her tirades about my character.
“Oh Katie, leave Elle alone.” Aunt Sue glared at her sister and reached over to pat my hands with a small smile. I quickly moved it out of her reach and stared down at her own paused in midair. She cleared her throat and dropped the hand. She knows not to touch me. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…well anyways, don’t listen to her. She’s just a bitter old woman. You’re perfect the way you are.”
“Thanks Aunt Sue.” I gave her a small smile in return and turned to look back out the window. For all her suspicions, I have always like Aunt Sue. She’s always standing up for me against Aunt Kate, even if her older sister was right in most occasions. At least I wouldn’t have to see any of them for a while after this. College was right around the corner.
One good thing about not having that many friends growing up was there was always plenty of time to study. I actually had the highest GPA in my graduating class. If I wasn’t a social leper, I would have been valedictorian, but no one wanted to hear inspirational speeches from the death girl. I could just imagine what my speech would entail.
“Thomas Jefferson’s class of 2019, though many of you will die before you have time do anything exceptional in your lives, you made it through high school. Your lives will go on to be completely boring and meaningless and while your husbands and wives have affairs behind your backs and your children end up in juvie, you will think back to this day when you were at the height of your lives. Congratulations you poor sad fuckers.”
Or something like that.
While I wished I could say I got into Princeton or Harvard with my stellar GPA, but unfortunately the big Ivy League colleges looked at more than just grades. So, what if I didn’t want to be a cheerleader of a mathlete? Did that mean that I didn’t deserve a great school? I could be the next Marie Curie or Rosalind Franklin but no they only cared if I had spirit. Which I didn’t. Not at all.
Unlike Nikki. She had so much spirit it was coming out of her wazzoo. But since Nikki didn’t have any such high standards, despite what her parents would want for her, I would be joining her at the big UN of O in the fall. Majoring in whatever I found to be the least nonsensical and touchy feely. Probably a lab tech. I could hide in a tiny lab every day and blow shit up.
Nikki was going to be a nurse.
“We’re here kiddo.” Uncle Bob who had been snoring most of the trip, kicked my black ankle boot with one of his dress shoes. I glanced at him and then looked back out the window. We actually were there. When had that happened?
“Come one kiddo. They ain’t gonna start without you.” Uncle Bob waited outside the door for me as I smoothed out my short black dress over my knitted tights and stumbled out onto the gravel of the graveyard road.
So, this is what a graveyard looked like. For all the deaths I’d seen I’d never actually been to a funeral before, let alone a graveyard. I had enough problems with the dead. No need to rock that boat quite yet.
I followed the trail of somberly dressed people as we made our way toward where my mom’s new home would be. It was a lot cheerier than I would have expected a graveyard to be. I mean where was the darkened skies, the crows, and all the creepy weeping angels? Maybe that was only a nighttime attraction. Shouldn’t have signed up for the midnight special.
A hand grasped mine in theirs before I could pull it back. When I followed the hand up to the owner’s face I relax. It was just Nikki. No more visions for me today.
Yay.
“How you holding up?” She gave me a small concerned look.
I rolled my eyes at her. “How do you think?”
“Well, judging by the scowl on your face I’m assuming your Aunt Kate said something rude again and you are trying to decide if it is worth it to tempt the fates and kill her early.” I snorted and tried to cover it up with what looked like a distraught cry of anguish. God, do I love this girl.
Nikki pulled me into a hug in front of the coffin that held my mother’s body and pretended to be comforting a crying daughter, when really I was trying hard to breathe through my laughs. She gave me a particularly hard pat on the back. Her signal for knock it off already, it wasn’t that funny. What can I say, I was easily amused.
When I finally had myself under control, I pulled back from her and took my rightful place next to the coffin. The minister was staring at me as if he knew I hadn’t really been crying. I narrowed my eyes and jerked my head towards him. I almost started laughing again when the large man startled at my hard gaze and quickly looked down at the book in his hand. My eyes wandered away from the man as his gravelly voice went on to talk about walking through the valley of death.