Venomous Love

Chpt. 11- Silence

If I had been expecting my friends to help distract me from Pat's death, I was sadly mistaken.

All four of us were silent as we ate in the cafeteria, everyone's eyes downcast, everyone stuffing their faces so we didn't have to talk to each other. Even though Pat had pretty much been a silent member of our group, her disappearance was heavily felt, the air thick with tension and remorse. It was awkward, and for the first time in a long time, I felt very uncomfortable sitting with/around my own friends.

And to think, all I had wanted was a fun day out on the town, I thought to myself sadly, biting into my sandwich.

The bell rang, and we all silently stood, grabbed what was left of our food and trays, and shuffled off without a word, not even looking at each other as we split up to go to class.

-

"How was school?" Dad asked when I got back home, slamming the door behind me and throwing my backpack onto the floor next to the door.

"Worse than I thought," I made a face, marching over to the stairs so I could go up to my room and get changed for Pat's funeral. The past few days I had to struggle to get the others to talk to me, and it was kind of awkward when we finally did lapse into conversation because somehow we all ended up talking about Pat, death, violence, or blood.

"What happened?"

"I couldn't get anyone to talk to me without it being awkward," I sighed tiredly, ascending the stairs and trailing my hand on the wall as I went up, "So the whole day was pretty much silent and boring. Again."

"That's too bad, I always thought your friends were the type who wouldn't stop talking," he commented from the living room, already dressed in nice black slacks and a white button-up shirt, ready for the funeral as he flipped through the newspaper, Dean nowhere in sight.

I paused at the top of the stairs, narrowing my eyes at Dad, "Shouldn't you be hanging out with Dean? Usually I can't find you without him hovering around."

"He went home only a few minutes ago; he doesn't really like attending funerals. He says they smell funny and are too awkward for his tastes."

"Lucky booger," I grumbled, stomping over into my room.

It wasn't so much as I didn't want to go to Pat's funeral as I didn't want to go to the, well, funeral. I wasn't a big fan of crying or saying goodbye to someone I knew and loved, and usually funerals were really boring anyway. Besides, every time I'd ever gone to one (which wasn't many, since Mom and Joshua hated funerals even more than me) I can't help but make snide comments in my head and think "BS!" whenever someone gets up to talk about our lovely deceased friend. Most of the time at funerals it seemed people went on and on about how good they were and blah, blah, blah, and if they couldn't think of anything honest, they made something up. Usually it just made me angry and depressed to go to a funeral just because of that.

Yeah, not the most optimistic person, am I?

I grabbed a black dress from my closet; the one Mom had specifically bought me for the funeral since I didn't have any nice black clothes. It was okay, a simply spaghetti-strap dress with a bit of shiny stuff all over it; layered with different types of black fabric at the bottom. It didn't quite go to my knees, but I didn't really care as I pulled on some black boots to go with it.

Deciding it would probably be best if I went ahead a fixed my makeup, but not really caring if I did anything with my hair, I was done in a few minutes and stomping down the stairs, where Dad, Mom, and Josh were all gathered in the living room, Mom and Josh grimacing at the thought of the funeral.