When rainbows fall

Chapter 11. Poppy

"Cosette? Are you okay?" I ask her, sitting down next to her, there's a cut on her forehead and she's been crying. "What happened to your head?"

"Can you believe it? I walk into a door in the kitchen, and fell over. And everyone is saying that I'm a slut. That I'm boring. That I'm fat. They say I'm a criminal. Can you believe that?" She laughs as she starts crying.

"No"

"It's whatever. Everybody hates me"

"I don't hate you, I'll never hate you"

"Sure and pigs can fly"

"We'll work it out, people will forget about it in a week, less if something happens on the bachelor" and she laughs slightly, but because of her crying it comes out choked and strained.

She just continues staring at the grass, maybe it's growing. I sit there next to her silently. It would be so normal if it wasn't the fact that she wasn't crying, or that she seems to prefer to hang out with anybody but me these days. I can't remember the last time it was just us, no Sarah, no Tommy or anyone else. Just us, the perfect pair.

Sometimes I worry that she doesn't want to be my friend.

"Do you want to wag? We can go to the park or the movies?" I ask, wanting to cheer her up.

"Don't you have something to do with Sarah?" Cosette asks, and even Max would notice the venom in the way she says her name.

"No, actually I don't. I was looking for you"

"Why?"

"Because you're my friend"

"Really? It doesn't seem like it" she mutters, Her arms wrapped loosely around her knees, she's staring right past me.

"What's that supposed to mean?" and the second I asked I knew I should have just left it as another one of Cosette's mysteries.

"I don't know but it just seems that you'd rather be friends with Sarah then me"

She is just being ridiculous now.

"You're both my friend. I'm allowed to have friends other than you. And don't say we exclude you, we always try to invite you to things but you always say no. Why didn't you- you know what? I can't be bothered. Come find me when you're not being so difficult"

"Poppy, wait!"

But I just keep on walking.

~~~~~

The funeral is on Wednesday, and I don't think I can do it. That means she's actually gone and she's never coming back. I don't have anything to wear. I don't know which is worse anymore.

The invitations to the funeral were cutthroat. Not even James Forrester made the list.

The word invitation sickens me, like we want to be there. It doesn't help that her face has been plastered on every newspaper and her face smiled at me on the news. I can't escape her.