Piper
Death is an invitation. Though many receive it with fear, I’ve learned that it’s better to celebrate the spirit passing from one plane to the next. I coddled myself in the knowledge that life did not simply cease to exist, without ever wondering how it felt to be left behind on said journey.
They found Priestly’s fingers knotted through a clump of stones at the riverbank. Lifeless eyes stared at a sky the color of a funeral.
Except for the shock of ebony hair, the discoloration made Priestly unrecognizable. A tear separated the beige arm from his burgundy jacket, and a shirt as white as the underbelly of a fish or a gemstone polished to perfection shone through the hole where his letter should’ve been.
For all his friends, nobody claimed to have seen Priestly during the final hours of his life. They couldn’t determine whether he jumped or somebody pushed him. The bruises on his rib cage faded, the broken bones that hadn’t healed from years of bullying, and his lips twisted into a sinister snarl. They didn’t know him like I did.
Priestly never would’ve jumped. He wrung his hands while he packed back and forth the swatch of pink carpet that peeked out from beneath my bed. His nails were bitten to the quick, and he spat curses at everybody in this godforsaken town. But why would he jump when he had gotten this close to freedom?
I listened to the dull thud of dirt clods hitting his casket as they lowered him into the ground. The crane creaked. A brisk wind cut through the cemetery, and friends in letter jackets crowded around Priestly’s headstone. They muttered words that they hadn’t used to describe him in life. He had always been a good friend. He looked forward to graduation and wouldn’t hesitate to share a beer with somebody in the back of their truck. Priestly always knew how to have a good time.
“I’m going to miss him,” one of the jocks sniffed.
“They took you from us too soon.”
I rolled my eyes. Though he fought hard for his spot on the football team, they never treated Priestly like he belonged. He had been cut to second string following an incident with the quarterback, and they had taken the things from his locker and dumped them in the urinal. His eyes blazed as he swore that one day he would get his revenge.
He crawled through my window after a party got out of control, eyes bloodshot and looking for a place to sleep where his parents wouldn’t give him hell for reeking of stale cigarettes and beer. He winced as he uncurled his fists, swollen knuckles protruding through ghostly white flesh. His parents put on the performance of a lifetime. Slinging an arm across her husband’s shoulder, Priestly’s mother sobs hard enough that it shakes her entire body. An umbrella strap spills between her fingers, and it falls to the damp earth as forgotten as the many times she didn’t defend her son from the monster-in-training.
Priestly told me everything.
They muttered to themselves under their breath, so they didn’t have to bear the weight of the accusations. He would’ve hated how maudlin it is. My eyes burn holes through them, and they can’t get away from me quickly enough.
I haven’t shed a single tear. Their relief is palpable as they lower Priestly into the ground, as if he’s taking their sinful secrets with them. But they don’t know that the book of spells tucked beneath my arm makes anything possible. I’m going to bring him back. I have to. Our lives have always been intertwined, and this isn’t how my story ends. I refuse to believe that Priestly crossed over without me or that he did so of his own volition.
