• It was raining. Not hard, but not too soft; it was the beautiful pitter patter kind, the kind where you want to dance and play in but your mother says it will get you sick. Yes. That kind. She used to love the rain when it was like that. She used to. Not anymore. She used to like the outdoors and wasn’t a fan of being stuck inside with nothing to do. Adventurous, one would say. She used to enjoy reading when she had a fast, on-going book in her hands. She used to love to watch movies and mess around on the computer. She used to diss school and make the teachers sound like they were demons. She used to play with her dogs and help out in the animal shelter. She used to make up creative ideas for her and her friends to do. She used to play videogames until her eyes would pop out and her hands would go numb. She used to help people with, basically, everything. But not anymore.

    She used to be a very caring person, a shoulder to cry on. She used to help you with your problems, no matter how complicated they would be. She used to be relied on to crack a joke at the right times. She used to be a smart-aleck girl, always had something to say. She used to be a gentle person. She used to be like Superwoman. Not anymore.

    But she also had problems. She also had issues with life. She had tears stain her pillow at night and she had the feeling to shoot people in the face. She had those feelings, too, and most people couldn’t help her. There was the occasional person, but people are stupid. They don’t understand. I did. But I couldn’t help. I just can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t, and I feel like a crappy friend. I shouldn’t feel like that anymore.

    How can you be friends with someone when you can’t even help your best friend with her issues in life? She helped me, yeah, and my issues weren’t even that bad. Her mother passed away. Her uncle committed suicide. Her grandfather passed away. She had a crapped up step-mother who didn’t understand why she did things. She wasn’t the favorite. She always did something wrong when she didn’t. She tried so hard and, yet, she couldn’t please her parents or her siblings. She had friends down south from here who are druggies, who have STDs, who have been in juvenile. But she wasn’t that kind of person. People thought she was, just by her appearance, but she wasn’t. She tried to live life to the fullest, like any person should do. But it ended and she isn’t that person anymore.

    Have you ever thought about losing your best friend? I mean, really losing her, I mean your friend dying. Well, have you? I have. Many times, and I have to stop thinking about it to stop shuddering and crying into my pillow. I just couldn’t bear the thought of losing my best friend, the one person whom I cared so much for. The person I trusted, the person I loved, the person I came to for comfort. All that would be gone, right? Yeah, it would.

    Bark! Bark! Bark! The dog didn’t like being in the rain, and neither did the other dog, though, she kept her muzzle shut. I looked around, tears refusing to come anymore. They dried up like the Sahara Desert has many, many, many years ago. My eyelashes kept the rain from coming into my eyes. My hair was soaking wet, but I didn’t care. At the moment I didn’t care about anything. I just stared out into the woods. The woods. It was dark, so the woods were mysterious and uninviting. At least, they were uninviting to everyone but me. I wanted to escape the world like my best friend had. She was able to leave the world, but she left me on it to mourn over her. I hated the world. I really did. I wanted it to die and wither away in a fiery pit of hell. That is exactly how I felt.

    I looked back to the casket that held my friend. People surrounded her, wishing her luck to wherever she would go. I hoped she was in Heaven with her mother and grandfather. I really did, because that’s what she wanted to do when she died, she told me so a long time ago.

    I was farther away from the others. I wanted to mourn alone. Actually, I wasn’t completely alone. I had my friend. I felt her in my heart the minute I knew she was gone. She was there, guarding it with her steel strength. I felt it. I knew she was there.

    I looked down at the muddy puddles forming and saw my reflection. It was blurry, but I could’ve swore that person in the puddle wasn’t me. She looked like me, but she wasn’t… me. Have I changed? Was it because of this whole tragedy? Could be. I would never know, though, because I didn’t think too much on it.

    A yell came from my friend’s casket. It was my name being yelled. The person whom yelled it told me to come over to him. I did, reluctantly, but slowly and did so looking down. When I finally reached the casket, the person who yelled my name told me to say something to her. I looked down at the chestnut casket and thought about what I would say. Doesn’t she know how I feel about her? I’ve told her numerous times how amazing of a friend she was and how much she changed my life and honest things like that. I could tell her all that then, but I didn’t know what to say to her now.

    The casket’s lid used to have no design on it at all. Before the funeral, I spray painted it something in orange. It was some random design that I made up out of the blue. It had swirls and ribbon-like things all over the cover, twisting and turning, running over each other. I signed it at the bottom, and then I printed my name under that with Sharpie so that people knew who did it. I wasn’t intending to get in trouble; I just want my friend to have a decorated cover. Nobody said anything about it, though, and I was happy.

    I stood there for a long time, thinking of what to say to my departed best friend. Finally, standing in the rain, I thought of what to say. Or sign. She taught me sign language two years ago, when we were both in ninth grade. I learned a lot and I knew how to sign almost as well as she, which is quite impressive in my opinion.

    I signed, “The rain falls from the place you are at now, and I believe it is from you crying.” I looked up at the sky for a moment. The sun was peeking out just a little bit, but it was there, shining magnificently behind the dark gray clouds. I smiled and continued. “But I know that you are smiling at me now, because I believe that signing these words to you makes you proud. I love you, buddy.” I felt a tear. I let it fall and looked up at the sky again. The rain was letting up and the clouds were slowly moving away to let the sun show off its vibrant rays. “I’m proud of you, too,” I said out loud. With that, I sank down into the mud with my hand on the casket and cried. The tears were hiding in an oasis in the Sahara Desert.