“Mary, come on, we have to go,” Marlene, her best friend, was insistent, dragging Mary out from her bed and pulling her to her closet. In it, clothes from a better period of Mary’s life resided, the dust collecting on them like interest over time.
Marlene made a couple faces, showing her clear disdain for nearly every piece in the wardrobe. Nearly everything was unacceptable for a funeral, the bright colors screaming in Mary’s mind, telling her about happier days and nights of fun that she had since forgotten.
Marlene continued to search through the closet. There was bound to be at least something black in there. Everyone had something.
“Mary, c’mon,” she urged. Mary groggily pointed to a drawer at the top of the closet, and a nearly full shelf. Marlene had to grab a stool from the small, also dust-filled kitchen to reach it. When she did, after much blind groping and unhelpful, rude hand gestures from Mary, she pulled down a simple black dress.
“Well...” she shrugged. “This will do.”
It was a bit past the knees in length, with long black sleeves and a square neckline. A small black belt accentuated the waist of the wearer, and was fastened tight to the dress. Marlene nodded at it, and quickly threw it to Mary to put on.
“It’s too small. And plain,” she complained. She would complain about every dress thrown her way, if not for the no-nonsense look Marlene gave her.
“Mary, you have to be there, and I’m not letting you show up in that,” she looked down at Mary’s old sweatpants and stained t-shirt. She was 90% sure it was one of Lily’s old ones, and a look of pity crossed her face just for a moment.
“I can’t do this,” Mary sniffled. “I can’t do this. I can’t go in there and pretend.”
Marlene just shook her head. “You have to be there, and that’s final.”
Unwillingly, and quite unenthusiastically, Mary put on the dress. She came out of the bathroom and gave a small, sarcastic twirl to Marlene, who nodded approvingly.
After a dash of blush, and a touch of mascara, Mary was ready. She didn’t even see the reason for the mascara, as it would surely stain her cheeks when she sobbed later, but she allowed it nonetheless.
Marlene drove them both. When Mary protested, all she said was, “I can’t trust that you wouldn’t turn the car around, or off a cliff, or both,” so into the truck she went.
It was an old, red, Toyota Tacoma. It was probably one of Marlene’s most prized possessions. Her first car, and no matter how silly she looked driving it anywhere, she still insisted on bringing it everywhere. Even to a funeral.
The inside smelled like Mary’s closet. The fabric seats seemed to never forget anything, and she rolled down the windows to air it the inside out a bit. The church Lily was to be buried at was an hour away, and Mary wanted to be prepared for the long drive.
The smell of gasoline and dead skunk quickly infiltrated Mary’s sense of smell.
“Hey! Roll that back up!” Marlene yelled at her, Mary eager to oblige. She shook her head quickly, as if to get the memory of the terrible mixture of scent out of her nostrils.
“That reeked worse than this car,” Mary joked. Marlene poked her with her elbow, a playful smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Mary even let out a small smile. It was her first one in weeks. After a few minutes, when the skunk was sure to be a couple miles behind and whatever 18-wheeler had stunk up the road had merged lanes, she hesitantly rolled down the window again.
The smell of fresh air was a welcome one. She inhaled it, trying to pick out what she could. A hint of chocolate from a nearby store she smelled, and a touch of flowers from the side of the road were visible and obvious. Marlene moved too fast for her to pick out what kind they were, but the sweet smell stayed with her for a while. The blues and purples of the flowers replayed in her mind, creating a streak of blurry color in her vision as she watched the side of the road.
Mary stuck her head further out the window, and let the fresh air touch her face for what felt like the first time. It felt nice. It wasn’t a gentle breeze, one that a poet would describe as caressing her face. It was a force. She felt her hair fly wildly around her face as Marlene continued driving. It had no rhyme or reason to it, just carelessly tossing around her hair. Mary felt like laughing, and after the weeks of just sitting in bed, staring at nothing, she felt it ironic that the first time she felt truly alive was when she was headed to a funeral.
She put her head back in the truck.
It wasn’t too long after before the pair pulled up to the church. Down a long dirt path they drove, weaving mindlessly to the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. The church, made of light gray stone and standing at a respectable height, was surrounded by gravestones. Mary felt a bit sick, looking at each one of them.
She couldn’t help but imagine how many of the people under the dirt had had people in their lives like hers. How many more would. And how soon, Lily would be one of them.
Despite this, it was a peaceful place. The grass, yellow and light green due to the season, matched the stone of the church. You could hear the waves crashing against the shore, but it wasn’t an overpowering sound. It could lull you to sleep, and wake you up just as easily had Mary felt the need to lie down near this place. But she feared that if she did, she may never get up.
“This is nice,” Marlene remarked. Mary could tell she meant it. “Lily would have liked it here.”
Mary let the name hang in the air. It brought too many memories to answer to. Memories of Lily’s hands, of Lily’s words, of her gorgeous, fiery hair, and of everything else so perfect about her. How she always smelled like pine and vanilla, a surprisingly beautiful combination. How she never backed down from a challenge. How she couldn’t marry Mary. How she had tried to stay friends, and how Mary was too much of a coward not to give her anything she wanted.
Mary shook her head again, dissipating all the bad memories. That wasn’t what she was here for. Marlene, at her side, squeezed her shoulder. It helped her breathe.
As a team, they made their way inside. Mary tried to avoid as many eyes as possible. She recognized those of Lily’s parents, piercing through her as well as an x-ray.
Their hate. Their wonder. Their disbelief. Mary knew they didn’t imagine she would come. She knew what they thought about her. They didn’t like the girl who had turned their daughter queer. They didn’t like the girl who had nearly convinced their daughter to run away. They never would, Mary had accepted a long time ago. The girl who wore cropped tops and had more than one piercing was not an acceptable friend for their perfect child, even less an acceptable dating option. They were part of the reason Lily had cut things off, Mary knew it. She was glad Marlene was now leading her away, as she wouldn’t have resisted the urge to scream at them much longer.
And there were so many things she would say. She would tell them how their daughter wasn’t as perfect as they thought. How she had snuck out with them before, and how she had been the best at drinking games they played in the common room at their boarding school. How Lily would still be alive if they had let her go with her. How it was their fault.
But Mary resisted. It wouldn’t be fair to Lily. She loved her parents, she loved her sister, and Mary wasn’t going to stop that. She just had to accept that she loved them more than she loved her.
Mary squeezed her eyes shut, stopping the tears. Inside the church, everything felt stuffy. Despite the draft that somehow got in, Mary felt warm inside, like her heart had caved in and the wreckage had caught fire.
Mary caught the eye of another guest, one of their friends. Remus Lupin had always been there with Lily, studying or playing pranks on Lily's future husband, it didn’t matter. He was there.
He gave a small wave to Mary and Marlene, who had taken seats in a pew in the back row. He was holding the hand of another boy from their school, Lily’s husband’s best friend. Mary recalled his name as Sirius Black.
She waved back. She could see from her seat the looks that had been passed down from her to the pair from Lily’s parents. It was silly, really, that they hadn’t put together how many of Lily’s friends were rebels. Or queers. Or both.
Sirius had a number of tattoos on his arm, enough to rival Marlene, and Remus was covered in scars. They had surely never met them before.
Mary continued to look around. There was Dorcas Meadowes, Marlene’s wife, who had arrived separately. As she looked at her, stunning in a floor length black dress, Dorcas began to walk over to them.
Marlene smiled at her, and Mary left the two of them to grieve together. Lily was their friend too.
There was nobody else who she knew there. Who she really knew. There were some of James’ friends, some of their old professors, and people who Mary assumed were Lily’s coworkers, but nobody who Mary knew.
Remus and Sirius made their way over to her. Mary could see a thin layer of concealer under Sirius’ eyes, most likely covering whatever red and puffiness was left over from weeks of crying. It couldn’t have been easy, losing your best friend. Mary had nearly forgotten James had died in the crash, too.
To free herself from their gaze as they approached, Mary looked towards the front of the room. Two side by side pictures of the happy couple. If that’s what you could call them. Mary recalled a memory, from about a year ago, one of the last times she had spoken face to face with Lily.
They had met in a nice cafe, on a particularly rainy day. The gray haze from the outside provided the inside of the cafe with a cozy, warm light to contrast it. Lily had asked if she wanted to get coffee and catch up, and Mary agreed. She would never have denied Lily anything, especially back then.
Lily had said it was to catch up, but after only a few minutes of awkward small talk she had started to complain. About the price of the house James wanted, about how he folded his laundry, about how often he went out with his friends, everything. They had spent the last hour of the meet-up dancing in the rain, with very few complaints being spoken. It had only hurt when later, as they dried in the heat of Lily’s nice new car, she had twisted the knife in Mary’s heart.
“Thank you, for being here,” she had muttered, a bit quietly.
“Of course. Always,” Mary replied. That was their thing. Always. But it wasn’t always. It was hardly ever. It was maybe once every few months. Nothing was always. Always was a few stupid promises made in their teenage years, a few whispered words left to rebellious winds and over rushing waters. Always was forgotten, and torn, and misused and broken and in the wrong hands.
Always was the vows at Lily’s weddings. Always was left out in the rain, becoming soaked and drying and getting rained on and surviving hurricanes bigger than the scars left by the same word. Always was a load of broken promises and white lies.
Always was what kept Mary from reaching out. Always was what warned Mary not to come to the funeral. Always was the look in Lily’s eyes when Mary told her that she wouldn’t leave her.
Mary had kept enough of her promises. Lily’s always was drowning in a sea of sorrows and broken dreams and unrealistic hopes and expectations. Her always were probably written in the same ink that was on her marriage certificate to a man she never truly loved.
Their meeting ended soon after. Mary didn’t remember what happened next. She just went home. Well, she went to her apartment. Home was the girl in the car driving away. Home was the girl about to be buried 6 feet under. Home was dead, now, and then, too.
Remus and Sirius had reached Mary by the time she tore her eyes away from Lily and James’ smiling faces. It appeared they had thought she would start talking first. She didn’t.
The silence was peaceful. The only person Mary had talked to in the past few months was Marlene, and sometimes by extension Dorcas. They were good company, and Mary was grateful she had them. If she didn’t, she might not have even come here today. Or gotten out of bed at all. She would have wasted away and joined Lily. She didn’t think anyone would miss her, but now that Remus and Sirius were here, and seemed at least a bit interested in her she wondered if she might be mistaken.
She knew they expected her to talk first. During her years at their shared boarding school, Mary talked a lot. She was very good at it. She talked with Lily, with Marlene, with the professors, with Lily again, with other friends, with the kids from the town nearby, and with Lily. She talked with Lily about everything and nothing, all at once and never. Remus and Sirius both knew this. Though she was used to letting people down by now, to seeing the look in their eyes when they realized she wasn’t ok and never would be again, she still felt obligated to make conversation with the two.
She decided to point out the most obvious thing, the (tiny) elephant in the room.
“So…you two?”
They both nodded, dreamily looking into each other's eyes. Mary nearly felt sick, it was so gooey and disgusting. It was sweet, but gooey and disgusting. It made her incredibly sad, and she again resisted the urge to cry as they nodded in sinc.
“Yep,” they answered at the same time as well. “We started dating during school, but kept it a secret. Of course.”
Mary nodded. She knew too much about secrets. And nodding was easier than admitting her own about relationships.
“Was it hard?” She asked. They shook their heads. She felt a stab of guilt. It was a very personal question. But she had to know. She had to know if they had gone through their own fights about exposure, their own talks about the risks and the ways and the scary thought of if someone already knew. Mary was sure they hadn’t explicitly hidden it, like she and Lily had, but she had to be sure.
“We were on the same page. Mostly,” Remus said. It was what she expected. Of course they were. Couples should be.
“It was hard,” he amended, clearly after seeing the distraught look on her face. Mary wondered if he had guessed it. If anyone else had, besides Lily’s parents. By the sympathetic and not disgusted looks most people were giving her, it seemed they hadn’t. But Mary nodded in agreement.
“Well, I’m happy for you. These past few weeks must’ve been hard,” she told them. Sirius nodded, and Remus squeezed his hand.
“It couldn’t have been easy for you either, Mary,” he said. “I know how close you two were in school.”
Mary nodded. They had been close. So close. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, they were close. They were closer than peas in a pod, than grains of sand, than drops of water in a vast ocean. But like the water, they had been pulled apart by the currents. Like the sand, they had been played with and tossed apart. Like the peas, they had been squashed and separated and swallowed whole by things outside their control.
Mary left the conversation to go outside. It wasn’t that Remus and Sirius were bad companions, or that they weren’t good to catch up with, but she was overwhelmed. The atmosphere of death was so close to them, surrounding the 3 of them and suffocating them. Mary didn’t like it, so she left.
She had been doing that a lot recently, according to Marlene. Leaving conversations when she didn’t like them. Or even when she did. Spacing out, that’s what she called it. How Mary wished she could just space out. Leave the planet and get lost in a vast plain of nothing but stardust and asteroids. But the next best thing she had was the plain of dead grass that surrounded the church outside. There were only a few others outside with her, and after seeing the look on her face they quickly went back in.
Mary didn’t care. She was numb to everything by this point. The half a mile hike to the edge of the cliff did nothing to her legs, yet she still sat down by it, lost in the blue of the ocean it reflected. Was it an ocean? Or was it a sea? Maybe it was the English channel, Mary mused. She chewed on the possibility of seeing France on the other side. Maybe she would jump in and swim to it. Or maybe she would die on impact of the water, and join Lily. That was what she wanted, right?
She sat on the edge of the rock, contemplating what lay below the jagged cliff. A tiny island, really no bigger than a celebrity’s million dollar house, was visible off the shore. It had a tiny cave on it, that water fed into quite easily. She wished the water would carry her towards it, and that her and her soul may sink into the cave just as easily.
A thought occurred to her, that she may be missing the ceremony. The lowering of the coffin. The covering of dirt. The erasure of what Lily was. What made everything official.
Mary buried her head in her hands and began to dryly sob. Nothing came from her eyes, thankfully keeping Marlene’s hard work intact. Lily was gone. Everything Lily was to her was gone. Her vision blurred with brand new tears, and the rocks and waves below Mary swayed dangerously, rising invitingly and sinking back to a normal distance. Mary was scared of what was down there. How many bodies were recovered there, because surely there were people who would, and had been buried there?
She looked back to the graveyard. How long had she been outside? A procession of people had come out of the church doors, and had surrounded two above ground coffins. From her half mile away, Mary could barely see a blonde head searching for something. Mary assumed it was Marlene for her. She worried too much. Or was it too much? Mary was sitting on the edge of a cliff, thinking about all the people that had died there. All the people who had died in her own life. Lily, her parents, some of her friends from school. Mary was actually sure that it had been at one of their funerals she had also seen Lily for one of the last times. They had waved to each other the same way Remus had waved to her. She hoped with all her might Remus wouldn’t die next. For Sirius, for his parents, and for herself.
Her eyes returned to beside her, where a head of red hair sat in the same position as her. Just barely looking over the edge. Mary nearly apologized to the girl, before she turned around.
Lily.
Mary knew it was impossible. Lily had just been lowered into the ground. Mary could see people covering her body with dirt this very moment, a priest speaking over the joint burial. Because of course Lily and James were buried together. They had died together, they were together, and they were buried together. It all fit with each other like a morbid puzzle. Which piece was Mary? Where did the ex who can’t get over herself or the girl she loved fit in?
Nowhere, she knew. She didn’t fit in with Lily’s new friends, or her husband, so why did she keep trying? Why did she answer every one of Lily’s calls? Why did she agree to meet for coffee? Why was she at the funeral of a girl she considered dead long ago? She didn’t know. She wouldn’t ever get over Lily, she had previously assumed, but maybe this was a sign to start trying. Nothing was more permanent than death, not even something called Always.
Mary assumed she was hallucinating. Out of grief? Out of love? Why else would Lily choose to be here?
She looked away from the girl, to her other side. Lily was sitting there, too. How was that possible?
She looked back at the other side of the cliff, quickly. Lily was gone. Mary prayed that when she turned her head, she’d be gone on the other side too. She wasn’t.
“No.” Mary said. Whether to herself or to “Lily” she didn’t know. Lily apparently did.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Lily.”
“Mary.”
“Lily.
“Mary.”
“Lily. You’re not real.”
“Mary. You’re not ok.”
Mary scoffed. As if she didn’t know that. As if she wasn’t aware she cried herself to sleep every night. As if she didn’t feel bad everytime Marlene looked at her with increasing levels of concern and pity. Lily’s attitude didn’t sit right with Mary. She had spent weeks in bed, sobbing her eyes out and doing things that ruined her life, job, and friendships, and this hallucination thought she could just tell her she wasn’t ok. The dark circles under her eyes were proof. Anyone could tell just by looking at her that she wasn’t ok.
Mary vaguely wondered if this was her brain’s last hope. Using the person she loved most in the world to convince her to change. But she’d changed enough for Lily. There was only one way to change to be like her again. One last idea in a quest for similarity, but that would be incredibly detrimental.
“Mary, I’m not a hallucination,” Lily said. If Mary had an ounce of happiness left in her, she would have smiled. But the brief moment of ecstasy from the car ride had passed.
“That’s exactly what a hallucination would say. And how would you know what I was thinking if you weren’t from my mind anyways?” Mary’s face was all angles as she said the words. It had been forever since she had last eaten, her appetite gone with grief.
“Because I know you, Mary. I know you better than anyone will.”
“Nobody will know me ever again. You should know that, if you know anything about me,” Mary said. It was true. She had no plans to move on. Why would she? Her heart was as cold as the bodies that were just buried and they both knew it.
“Don’t be like this,” Lily muttered. Her eyes had the decency to break eye contact when she said it. Mary just continued to stare blankly at the spot on Lily’s head where her eyes had just been. It was flecked with blood, and when Mary now looked at the rest of her, she could tell that it was too. Lily was probably the same as the moment she had died.
“Why not? Why shouldn’t I?” Mary asked her. Even if this Lily wasn’t real, which she was becoming less and less sure of each moment, she had every right to antagonize her. Lily had left her, then she had the audacity to die and only leave Mary the small pieces of her own broken heart, and twice as many scars.
“Maybe you’ll meet someone here. They’re not going to like you much if you’re a complete sourpuss.”
Mary let out a small chuckle. Nobody had called her a sourpuss since the 4th grade.
“You did.”
Lily nodded. She was right, she had. She had done more than just liked Mary when she was in a bad mood. She had loved her, and had tied their heartstrings together one by one to share Lily’s ever present good mood. For everything Lily stole from Mary to give to James, Mary could bet she hadn’t used that metaphor with him.
Mary wasn’t done. “We’re at a funeral. Your funeral. Everyone here is a sourpuss.”
Lily poked her, almost in the same way that Marlene had on the drive up when Mary had insulted her car. Her finger went straight through her ribcage, but just for fun, Mary let out a sarcastic “Ouch.”
Lily rolled her eyes. “You need someone else to make you happy.”
“Shut up,” Mary said. She meant it. She knew it was rude, she knew Lily probably wouldn’t, but she had to at least ask. There was nobody else, didn’t she understand that? Lily had taught her a language she couldn’t, and wouldn’t speak with anyone else. She felt like telling her so, but it would take a thousand words to tell Lily what she felt for her. The guilt, the remorse, the love, the hurt, the confusion, the always. But Mary barely spoke these days, not even to Marlene as much as she used to. Her voice was already hoarse, and she didn’t want to waste her words.
“I thought you’d be more surprised to see me,” Lily mentioned.
Mary shrugged. “I’m beginning to get used to the astonishing things the mind creates when it is unwell.”
Lily nudged her, and half her body went through Mary’s again. “What will it take to convince you I’m real?”
Mary shrugged again. She was doing a lot of that, these days.
“Would you like a love confession? Something old fashioned, Romeo and Juliet style.”
Mary dryly chuckled, just for a second. “You do know that a love confession would need love, do you not?”
“Mary, be serious,” Lily told her. Mary savored the sound of hearing her voice again, just for a few moments. Lily may not be real, but she was comforting. More comforting than Mary could have imagined, hearing Lily’s voice was. That’s when Mary decided she was real. She couldn’t have imagined Lily this perfect. She had to be. Ghost, spirit, soul, whatever she was, she was real. Mary wondered if anyone else could see her, or if everyone down at the funeral thought she was crazy. Everyone who hadn’t already.
“You have enough love for the both of us,” Lily murmured, whispering it into her ear. Her words were like knives with pretty handles. The words hurt, but what carried them was one of the most beautiful wonders of the world. Mary wondered if Lily meant for her words to hurt as much as they did.
“My heart shattered when yours stopped, Lily. You know that.”
Mary hoped her words hurt Lily, just a little. From the look on her face, they did not.
“Summer without me is as cold as winter. Winter without me is even colder,” Lily replied, agreeing. Mary glared at her.
“If you’re going to quote Lemony Snicket, at least make it true. You know the way that quote goes.”
“I know that you are supposed to be the one saying it, the correct way. But you did not, so I had to change a few things,” Lily sniffed, jutting her bottom lip out. Mary used to love the way she did that. Not so much anymore.
“When we were together, I felt breathless. Now you are. The Vile Village,” Mary quoted. Her words hung in the air.
“You made me read that series,” Lily grumbled.
“And I haven’t read it since. But those quotes always stuck out to me,” Mary shot back. “Makes sense now.”
“They were so romantic,” Lily sighed.
“Maybe to a Beatrice. Not to a Lemony.”
Lily actually looked hurt, and Mary felt proud of herself for a split second. Yes, let her feel the pain. Every single bit of the hurt she caused, could at least be reflected for a fraction of impact. Lily hadn’t even shed a tear yet. But Mary still felt bad.
“Lily, I’m sorry,” she said, finally.
Lily just shook her head. “No, you’re right. I’m rotting away this very moment.”
She paused for a moment.
“And I know I’ve done much worse to you,” she added. She had, most certainly. Every fight had cut into Mary worse than any knives ever had. Every apology that had tried to heal the wounds left only wrapped them in bandages, never to be healed. And Mary’s whole body was covered in them now. Some wounds were so old, the bandages had fallen off, only to be replaced by other, fresh scars. Mary knew her supplies was dwindling. The last of the bandages and knives sat right next to her, doing what they did best.
They sat in silence. Mary could barely admit to herself how much she missed this. Doing absolutely nothing and being mostly content. It had been years since their last time sitting like this. Mary couldn't even remember if she knew it at the time that it was their last. That the bliss would end. It was only a month after that Lily’s parents introduced her to James.
“Did it hurt?” Mary asked, out of the blue. She was referring to dying.
“When I fell from heaven?” Lily joked. Mary rolled her eyes.
“No. The crash did, but not when I died. That was relieving,” she answered. Mary didn’t press. Relieving of what? The pain, the fire, the shock? The pressure, the responsibility, the lies? Mary didn’t know, and she figured it was for the better. She didn’t want to know if she was one of the things Lily was relieved from.
“You were the best part of school, I hope you know,” Lily commented. Mary wondered if they had moved on from conversation to just throwing around random things, but she nodded off handley anyway. She could believe it.
“You were the best of everything,” she confided as well. Mary looked back towards the churchyard, and the gravestones. Someone was shoveling the last mounds of dirt over the twin coffins. She wondered what the stones said, but it was easy enough to imagine.
Lily June Evans-Potter, beloved wife, daughter, and friend
side by side with
James Fleamont Potter, beloved husband, son, and friend
Mary imagined a rose on Lily’s headstone. Nothing extravagant, just something nice. A symbol of romance, regret, tragedy, since the dawn of time.
She wasn’t sure what was on James’, as she had never gotten to know him much. She had never wanted to.
Maybe later, when time had closed the wounds bandages could not, she would have made an effort. When seeing Lily didn’t feel like her dreams, heart, and hopes were breaking all at once. Maybe if she actually found someone else. When was a better time to start that, than now?
“This is the last time I’m ever going to see you, isn’t it?” Mary asked, turning back to the edge of the cliff. But Lily wasn’t there. Lily wasn’t there? Lily?
“Lily?” She asked. She begged her mind to bring her back, if she was a hallucination. She begged her to come back if she wasn’t.
“LILY!” She screamed. For a second she hoped the church couldn’t hear her, then decided she really didn’t care. She had decided weeks ago, the day, the hour, the minute, the very moment she heard the news, that she wouldn’t care about anything ever again. And she had held herself to that, up until about 30 minutes ago when Lily had showed up.
To her relief, it was not her own voice echoing back from below the cliffside below. It was a voice sweeter than sugar, smoother than jazz, more musical than a piano. It was Lily’s.
“Down here, Mary,” It whispered. Mary peered over the edge, her stomach to the grass. The grass stains on her dress would be huge, she thought vaguely.
“Lily? Why are you down there?” Mary asked.
“I belong here, Mary,” she told her, solemnly. Mary couldn’t see her face, just her red hair whipping around her body. When had it gotten so windy?
Mary was desperate to get one last look at Lily. She could feel the clock ticking, the time until Lily had to truly join James in the most permanent way possible. To her right, she saw a small pathway. That had to be the way down to the rocks. Getting up and dusting herself off, Mary began to climb down.
The wind didn’t help, to say the least. It pulled Mary’s curly hair, shoving in her eyes and around her head. It clouded her sight, and the noise of the sea combined with the vision problems made nothing easy on her climb down. She was damp by the time she was at Lily’s ledge, due to sea spray and sweat.
“I love you,” A voice said. Mary couldn’t tell who, or what. She just wished that Lily would show her face.
“I love you too,” another responded. Mary felt like she was watching a rom com. The voices were taunting her, and she realized why it seemed like neither of them were talking. The ledge they were on was filled with echoes, both of their past, and everyone else who had ever stood there. What they had said to themselves. What they had thought.
Mary could swim in a pool of their last moments forever. She recognized this one as the last time Lily had said I Love You back, and meant it. Lily was the only hoax she’d ever believed in. No other sadness in the world could substitute for her.
“Give me a reason not to join you,” Mary nearly screamed, then stopped. Her words would be etched into the air forever, for all like her to hear. She couldn’t scream this at them. It was for Lily, and Lily only.
Lily didn’t answer. She simply sat at the edge of the cliff again. Mary joined her, and grasped her hand for balance. Though it was lower than the cliff above, Mary was still quite high above the crashing waves and sharp rocks below. To her surprise, Lily’s hand was warm. And solid.
“You know I’m dead, Mary,” Lily spoke pityingly, as if she didn't want to continue. “Why do you still follow me? You can’t join me.”
Mary thought about this. She was grateful Marlene wasn’t here. And that Remus and Sirius hadn’t followed her outside. She was grateful that none of the guests at the funeral came to ask her how she was doing, when she was above the cliff.
Mary thought about everything she was grateful for. Marlene & Dorcas’ never ending help. Her parents paying tuition early, allowing her to stay at school long after they had died. Lily. She would never stop being grateful for Lily, no matter how much she wanted to regret her.
Lily had changed her life. Lily had come into it and broken the puzzle piece of Mary, rearranging and cutting pieces until all that was left were what Lily wanted. She hadn’t known she was doing it, but the cardboard of the puzzle was covered in her finger prints. Her words. Her kisses.
Mary was grateful for the dress Marlene had picked out. It was perfect to die in. It was perfect for walking down a cliff, to the edge of her life.
Mary knew Marlene would miss her. That a small group of friends would come to her funeral. Maybe she would get lucky and be buried next to Lily.
All of it made sense, now. The closure, so delicate it could be dropped but never held. The idea of all that was and once was. The boubt of gratitude that had poured out of Mary. The one tear, streaming down her face. The streak of black it left. She had gone through the entire day not shedding a single tear, but it was for herself when she finally did.
The laugh she let out carried through the air the entire time Mary was falling, but there was only one word on her mind. One answer, one solution, one magnificent piece of sense in her life. One word that had changed the course of Mary’s life, and changed her death, now, too.
One word, that meant something permanent. One word that was a promise, almost never kept. One word that she thought of, as her body felt the impact of the rocks below. One word she thought of, as her vision closed and the cold water was replaced by a feeling of peace and relief, like Lily had said it would.
Always.