Illicit Affairs by Holly Dixon
Forty-One
A few weeks later…
The cemetery was litteredwith brown frosted leaves, the many glittering fragments shining brilliantly in the wintry light. Today there was no wind, no rain, nor cloud, just sub-zero temperatures. Even the stems of the leaves lay white and sharp. The path meandering throughout the well-kept grass glistened in the early morning sun like white quartz, the concrete dusted in shimmering ice crystals.
All that beauty over everything dead.
Clouds of white rose into the air from Nate’s lips as he gathered with a crowd of people around a grave and stared down at the casket being lowered into the earth. His expression was stoic, feeling nothing inside apart from the gaping void in his chest, while others visibly showed their raw pain. The two Archer girls, Heather and Suzannah, embraced one another in silent screams of anguish and there wasn’t a single dry face—not even from Mr. Archer as he stood before the mourners to give his goodbye speech.
“As many of you know, the woman being buried here today wasn’t just my co-worker,” Tom spoke loud and clear despite the obvious quiver to his voice. “In every sense, she was what a father wanted in a daughter. She was someone that brought joy into every one of our lives and will forever remain in our hearts.” With cheeks glistening with tears, he tossed a single rose on top of the coffin before his two girls followed suit by dropping their own in as well.
As Little Archer’s trembling hand covered her sobs, Nate’s jaw twitched as he tried to remain composed. He wanted to stay strong and be a supportive rock today, but it was hard not to think of the lively and tenacious woman lying at rest in that black box. It wasn’t sadness that plagued him as much as it was the vengeful anger at the innocent woman being taken far too soon.
She didn’t deserve this.
His nostrils flared with emotion just as icy fingers laced through his own, pulling him back from the brink of an outburst and reaffirming that he had to keep it together today.
“You don’t have to say anything if you feel you can’t,” he whispered down to the best friend in mourning, however, the woman was already strutting awkwardly towards the side of the grave upon two crutches, defiant as ever and mustering strength from God only knew where.
“Samantha Eastley was more than just my friend,” Ava announced with a splitting voice as she sniffed back the tears that ran down her face like two waterfalls and gathered in the seam of her pale, cracked lips. “Most people believe that they are given one soul mate in life, one person they are destined to meet that will complete and guide them. She was it for me. Samantha completed me in ways that transcends words, she was my north star. In every sense of the meaning, Sam was my soul sister.” She looked up at Nate with red bleary eyes, taking strength from his encouraging nod that helped her to push the words out of her trembling lips that twitched into a melancholic smile. “If Sam were here today, she would have wanted me to say something wholly inappropriate right now,” she scoffed, her throat feeling tight as though splinters of her heart were forever lodged there. “But I wasn’t the funny one in our relationship. She was the one always making people laugh, whether that be with some rude Scottish turn of phrase, some crude innuendo or anecdote, she always brought joy to everyone’s day.
“I believe that when good people pass, they leave in us a part of their goodness, and in that way, forever live on in us. Even today, a day of pain and sadness, of frustration and anger, we can all feel it and want to reach out for that goodness, and to have the memory of our Sam keep our broken souls burning bright.” Her words brought on sad smiles from the small crowd as she turned her attention down to the grave. “So, I’m sorry, Sammy, but I can’t do you justice by making some wise-crack comment today. All I can say is that I will forever be grateful for everything you have done for me and you’ll be sorely missed.” She tossed a single pink peony flower, her friend’s favourite, into the grave and wept. “Goodbye, my lass, I will always love you.”
Long after the funeral had ended and the crowd had dispersed, Ava remained in place, alone by her friend’s grave, peering down at the letters etched into the white stone.
She had spent days in denial over the unspeakable events that had transpired. It sickened Ava that she was the one who got to live, that even Charlotte Forbes got to see the sunrise every morning, albeit through bars, while Sam rotted in the ground.
All that pain and suffering plagued Ava every single night with the same reoccurring nightmare of her best friend dying in her arms only to wake up and realise she was living this hell. The dream itself was a memory, vividly crafted down to the minutest of details to torture Ava, and it always started and ended the same way as it did in real life.
I can hear the wail of sirens echo far into the distance, painfully aware of the gun being pointed to my forehead and knowing that any hope for my soul was just that little bit too late and out of reach. My eyes are scrunched up so tightly that the twinkling of stars blinks across the black canvas of my vision.
The bang of gunfire cracks the air in front of me and penetrates my ears, rattling my skull as my breath hitches in my throat before a mass of weight suddenly tumbles down in front of me. Confusion twists my stomach as I nervously open my eyes and look down at my best friend curled up in a ball.
Why is Sammy on my lap?
When I peer up at Charlotte, the lack of certainty increases as I see the alarm on her face, the gun she is holding still pointed straight at me. I don’t feel fear, nor do I even flinch as the woman’s finger aimlessly begins curling back on the trigger only for it to click repeatedly against an empty cylinder. All I feel is confusion and I’m not sure if that has anything to do with the amount of blood leaking through the hole in my leg.
“S-Sam?” I falter, dread turning my bones to winter and my blood to ice as I carefully peel my friend’s arms away from her body. “Sammy?!” A flash of red covers her chest, blood seeping from the bullet hole and spreading like wildfire over her shirt.
“H-hurts…” she croaks, her chest trembling every time she inhales as though her body was rejecting oxygen.
“Why did you do that? You shouldn’t have done that! Why?!” I yap with panic thrashing my insides as I compress the wound to reduce the blood loss, but as I look up, I see Charlotte picking up Peter’s gun and aiming it at us again. All I want to do is open my mouth and scream vengeance from my lungs until this woman shatters into a million pieces and leaves us alone. However, before I can, the thunder of several feet running towards us grows louder until the law enforcement rounds the corner of pallets and barks at Charlotte to lower her weapon.
“Ye ken…yer ma…best pal, ae?” Sam struggles, stealing my attention as I hold her close in my arms like a mother swaddling their child, but there is so much blood, warm and watery as it slips between my fingers like the grains of sand in an hourglass.
“Last warning, drop it now!”
Gunfire opens, a series of short, sharp bursts that brings Charlotte to her knees before her face meets the ground.
“Do you think…the NHS will give me a free…boob job…for this?” The words splutter from Sam’s lips, wheezes of air struggling to pass through her lips that are turning an alarming shade of blue.
“Only you would crack jokes at a time like this, you cunt!” I blurt out through nervous laughter that causes clear domes of emotion to well up on the surface of my eyes.
“Scottish cunt,” she corrects me, however, suddenly begins convulsing in my arms as blood splutters from her lips.
“Sam?!” I shriek, quickly turning her onto her side to stop her choking, but as I do, liquid life is pouring also from the exit hole in her back and her eyes are beginning to flutter as though her consciousness was slipping. “Why are you just standing there? I need a medic now!” I scream at the officers through my tears before pulling my best friend closer to my body as if that will somehow protect her. “Don’t you bloody dare leave me! Come on, Sam, hang in there, just a little longer!” And she does, my determined wee lass opens her eyes and looks up at me even if the blood continued to splutter from her cold lips. “You can’t leave me, I need you. We’re soul sisters for life, remember?”
The worst feeling in the world is feeling helpless, to feel all hope drain from your body, that sinking feeling in your stomach as your brain logically decides the odds are not in your favour.
Despair was all I felt as Sam opened her eyes for the last time, her trembling lips stained like two rose petals sat upon a frozen blue lake. It was then that my best friend uttered one word with her last breath. One word that would forever be etched into my soul and haunt me until my dying day.
“Always.”