Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 997(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
62
Noah
When someone as young and vibrant as Zoey dies so abruptly, the entire town feels entitled to pay their final respects. Not that the assholes pouring through the church doors had any respect for her while she was living.
Tarni, Abby, Cora, and Shannan are among the crowd of kids from school, leading the way into the church foyer with big, ugly sobs shaking their shoulders. Those tears aren’t for Zoey, though. They led the mindless mob of students that made her school life a living hell. If anything, their tears are for themselves and the guilt they carry.
How the hell am I supposed to go in there? How am I supposed to say goodbye?
It’s been a week of hell.
The second Zoey faded away, the agony grasped hold of my heart and refused to let go, but something told me that it would only get harder from there. The first night was excruciating, going to sleep alone and rolling over to hold her, to pull her against me and whisper sweet nothings in her ear, only to find her no longer there.
Who’s supposed to hold me up? Whose eyes am I supposed to search for to pull me out of the darkness? She was my whole universe. We were entwined as one, formed together as part of the same soul, and having to slice that down the center, it feels like part of me died with her.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive. Is it even possible?
Zoey’s funeral is due to start any second, and despite knowing I need to be in there, my feet feel glued to the pavement. Once I go in there, once the funeral starts, I’ll be forced to say goodbye, and it all becomes too real.
I’ll have to face the fact that I’m never going to see her again, never going to feel her touch, never going to see the way those beautiful eyes light up when she smiles at me.
Her smell. Her warmth. The way we made love.
I try to tell myself how blessed I was to have her in my life. I had the chance to love her so fiercely, so purely, even if it was only for a little while, but it does nothing to take the sting away from the fact she’s gone.
“You going in?” I hear a small voice beside me, and I glance to my right, finding Hope, looking just as broken as I feel.
I shrug my shoulders, my gaze sailing back to the church. “I know I should, but I can’t bring myself to move.”
She nods. “I know the feeling,” she says. “This is my fourth attempt to get through the door.”
I glance toward Hope, a small smile on my lips. “You were a good friend to her,” I say. “I don’t know how much she ever told you about high school, but you showed up right when she needed you the most, when I couldn’t be there for her. Especially during those last few months. You made her smile, even through the hardest times. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for that.”
“There’s no need to thank me,” Hope says. “Because when it comes down to it, she was exactly what I needed too. Without her . . . I was heading down a bad path, and she opened my eyes to the important things in life. It’s me who needs to thank her. She was like the sister I never had.”
I nod, both of us gazing back toward the church. “We’re going to regret it later if we don’t go in,” she finally says before letting out a shaky breath. “Come on. We’ll go together and then after, we can get wicked drunk.”
Fuck, that sounds good.
I blow out a heavy breath, feeling unsteady, and as Hope takes a step toward the church, I walk with her, somehow feeling as though there’s an invisible hand in mine, pulling me along.
Hope sits beside me in the pew with Mom and Zoey’s family on my other side, and when the funeral starts, Hazel shuffles across the pew and squeezes in between me and Mom, clutching on to my hand like her only lifeline, and it’s that touch that keeps me together.
The ceremony is beautiful, classy just like she was. A few songs that Zoey had chosen are played, and fuck. They hit me right in the chest, especially as In The Stars by Benson Boone plays through the church.
I somehow find the strength to stand up and read the words I’ve written, each one of them describing the life we had together, the love we shared, and the rare friendship that became so much more. Then after another song that destroys me, Hazel stands up, and holding her father’s hand with tears streaming down her face, she says a few broken words, telling Zoey how much she’s going to miss her.