Letters From The Dead

Chapter 6

Christmas was the quietest I’d ever seen. We didn’t have any people over and there wasn’t some big production of a meal and we didn’t even spend it with each other.

The gifts lay under the tree untouched as my mother went out for a walk that lasted all day and my father stayed holed up in his study, working.

I dug out the one I’d gotten for Deidre a month and a half ago, tossing the perfectly wrapped box up and catching it a couple times before deciding to go visit the cemetery.

I pulled on my coat, ditching the gloves and the hat like I always did, before stepping out, my boots crunching against the pathetic inch of snow we’d gotten.

The walk was a half hour of me going moderately fast, clutching the gift tightly, my fingers white and cold around the package. I had music blaring in my ears, some song that I had no idea where the heck I’d gotten it from crooning out the words to a love song. It made me want to gag, but I was mature and poised and I didn’t gag at cheesy love songs on the street.

There weren’t a lot of cars passing by, and I figured everyone was inside spending the holiday with their families. A tiny Chinese buffet was open at the end of the block that the cemetery was in and I stopped in, buying an order of refried rice to eat as I sat at the headstone. My mom hadn’t really been up to cooking lately.

There were only a few people in the cemetery, and no one near where Deidre was buried. The spot was still mostly dirt, but a few sprigs of fresh green grass had managed to sprout before the inch of snow fell and killed it. Her headstone was smooth black marble, her name engraved in slinky cursive, her date of birth and date of death in small letters under.

At the very top of the stone was an engraved picture of her from one of her modeling shoots, and I made a face at it.

That wasn’t Deidre—that was some made up version of the girl I knew. I’d grown to like the small scar on the left side of her face from a biking accident when she was little, and the freckle at the edge of her eyebrow that was almost unnoticeable except to the trained eye. But this picture, it didn’t have either of the Deidre Flaws, trading them for heavy eye makeup and dramatic lips, her hair fluffed back and puffy.

I riffled through the back pocket of my jeans for the picture I always carried around, a picture of her at the end of freshman year, looking into distance at some boy. I’d taken it with my phone then, and had long since printed it out because that was how I thought a model should look. Exquisitely beautiful, but still with minimal makeup.

There were creases all over the wallet sized picture on printer paper, and I smoothed them out as best I could against my knee before sticking it in between the ribbon and the wrapping of the gift that I’d left unsigned at the foot of the stone.

“Hey Deidre,” I murmured as I stepped back, glancing at the quote-less space under the two dates. “It’s only been a few weeks or so since you did it, and already, there’s been so much changed. My mom barely even stays in the house since I told her—she’s offended and embarrassed at her refusal to believe in all that stuff before something happened to someone she knew—and my dad works all the time now. School’s been out for three days for the winter holidays, and I haven’t done anything but lay on my bed and stare at my ceiling.”

I smirked a little there—Deidre always called me a lazy bum, but even she couldn’t resist just laying on my bed. It was so comfortable. “I bet you did it on purpose, making sure I checked my email every waking minute for another letter. Are there actually more?” I sighed and glanced at my phone that I’d set on the stone. I wanted to check it so badly, but I would resist. I had will power.

“I miss you, Dee,” I said quietly. “I still look at my phone, thinking that I’ve missed a text you sent me. I don’t know what you expected would happen. Did you think that everything would miraculously go on without you? It’s not. At least not for me. I don’t think I’ve had a real conversation with someone since before you did it. Even Eric is getting annoyed with my vague answers and spaced out persona.”

I paused, grabbing my phone like a demon and shoving my cold finger into the home button where it already took me to my email since I’d just left it there last time.

I guess my self control and will power were left at the house.

No new messages.

“I don’t care when it is, Dee,” I said finally, “I just want another letter. I don’t care what it says or how long it is, but I felt like we’re almost still together with the first one.”

I willed my eyes to well up with tears, but they didn’t. They stayed as dry as always.

“Why can’t I cry about it, Dee?” I asked, “Why am I not bawling every minute about the fact you died? Am I a bad friend? Am I really that heartless?”

There wasn’t an answer. I glanced back at the picture of Dee in her modeling pose, before shifting my eyes downward to the picture I’d left.

I continued in a low whisper, my breath fogging in front of me. “I miss you, Dee, every day, every minute. Why’d you leave?”

I whirled around at the sound of a twig breaking behind me and caught someone ten feet behind me, clearly listening.

*gasp* who do you think it is? obviously you can't guess, because there aren't a lot of characters introduced at the moment, but if you want, you can tell me suspicions of how this person is going to be part of the story. I hope you all like it, and I know I say it a lot, but it really does mean a whole load to me, each and every one of the reads on the story and the comments and the votes. :)