The Funeral – Band of Horses
Achilles's funeral isn’t the saddest thing I've ever been through. After finding the man I love hanging in the garage. After having to call his mother to tell her that her son was dead. After organizing the funeral. After reading his last words over and over and over again and wondering why I didn't wake up on time, why I didn’t know forgiveness was an ending…the funeral is just something else on my never-ending list of pain. I also have to meet with the executor for his will, as well as his attorney. I believe that’s another item. The funeral is another page in the new book of my life. A life without Achilles. A life where every day is more agonizing than the previous and the ache never ends. It's there when I fall asleep, and it's what wakes me up in the morning. Nothing has meaning, so no, his funeral isn’t the saddest thing I've been through.
The crowd is thin. We didn't announce it officially, too scared of the kind of people it would bring. Fans, enemies, press. The music community has been pouring their hearts out on the internet, and sometimes, I feel like a groupie again, obsessivelyreading articles about the genius he was. I think I'm just trying to keep him alive somehow. As long as there's something new to read about him, he doesn't feel truly gone.
Except he is.
Wren is the one who speaks. His mother refused to come. Poor Sophie won't even get to say goodbye. In a sense, I also feel like he doesn't get to say goodbye to her, and that hurts even more. His father is in jail without bail, waiting to be tried, but the asshole wouldn't have said one honest thing about Achilles. And I…well, I can't even begin to say his name without bursting into tears. I'm in no state for a eulogy.
"Achilles," Wren concludes after a few short minutes of talking. His voice is thick with anguish, and I'm crying in the front row, Kayla holding my hand. "There are so many more things I could say about you. So many more things I wish I could saytoyou. But we'll let you have the much-deserved peace you need. Rest in peace, my dear friend."
God. God.God. This hurts. It hurts so deeply. It's so raw and real that sometimes I wonder if that's the pain Achilles felt inside. If so, I understand why he did what he did to make it stop. Iwishit would stop.
Before his body is lowered into the ground of Stoneview Cemetery, I approach with his favorite violin in its case. The one he used to compose. The one he held in his hands when he wrote his last concerto about us.Mon trésor.
I put it on his coffin, somehow balancing it. And I watch it go down, my tears dropping onto the open ground as I lower my head.
And so, a week before he would’ve turned twenty-three, Achilles Duval is buried.
The love of my life disappears, and so does my soul, forever linked to his. The happy beating of my heart, the giggles he triggered, the love we shared, the safety he created for us despiteeverything, the passion he built with me. They're all there, in this very coffin. Locked away until the end of time.
In a world where Achilles doesn't exist, I'm nothing but an empty shell, waiting until it's my turn to go.
A hand grabs mine. It's Peach's. I turn to her and smile through my tears.
"If he could see me," I croak. "I’m surprised he’s not bursting out of that coffin to tell me off for putting a priceless violin in his grave. He'd probably make fun of me for it. Tell me I've lost my damn mind."
She chuckles sadly. "Probably."
His friends and I all walk away together, and Ella squints at the diamond around my ring finger. She doesn't say anything, but I do.
"I found it," I say, my cheeks burning. "It was in his stuff. In…in his violin case."
"It's an engagement ring," she says, half between shock and confusion.
I spent a lot of time in Achilles’s music room the days after his death. It’s where I still feel the closest to him. When I found the courage to open his case, I saw the box and the note. Inside, there was a ring. A thin gold band, a small pear-shaped diamond with two small round diamonds on each side. It’s elegant, so simple and discreet. Exactly the kind he would’ve chosen for me.
I hit a new low that day. I couldn’t feel any excitement at the fact that he was going to propose, because it was another thing I’d been robbed of. My future with him as his fiancée and one day his wife was disappearing before my eyes, and all I had left was the ring.
"I don’t know that it was for me," I say, doubt suddenly swallowing me. It felt like it was for me when I found it. But it almost feels stupid to say it out loud. If he wanted to marry me, maybe he would’ve stayed. "I just…I wanted to wear it. It feelslike he's with me." My eyes fill with tears yet again. "It's stupid. I'm so stupid. Who knows what it was for. I don't even know why I'm wearing it on this finger?—"
"Honey, it's not stupid," Ella hurries to stop me from spiraling. "You are the love of his life. Of course, it’s for you. There was no one else; there never would’ve been anyone else. This ring belongs to you."
"Was," I murmur as I look at the ring. "Iwasthe love of his life."
Her lips pinch, and she looks away as more tears roll down her face. "I know," she whispers. "I can't get used to it."
I nod silently as Chris takes her in his arms. "Let's get everyone home and warmed up in front of a fire. We all need it."
As they all get in their cars, I discreetly ask Alex if I can speak to her alone. We walk farther away, Xi's eyes on us.
"Alex, you're into grammar and all that, aren't you? You're really good at that stuff."
She chuckles, confused. "Yeah, I guess."
I pull something out of my handbag. The evidence plastic bag that Detective Turner had handed me. I keep the note in there, never touched it, never removed it because I'm too scared of damaging it. All I did was add the second one I found.
I show her the note. "See, Achilles and I had this silly thing we used to say to each other.I'm a dreamer. You should try it sometime."
