You remember her eyes clearly—pale blue and bright crystal. A frozen frame of one moment of adolescent bliss. A moment quickly lived, but stuck, blinking over and over like a rotating projection slide of a single image. Like the photo wheel of your mind can only grasp a solitary fragment of your history, looking down at her dead body lying in abject peace in a heavily cushioned coffin. You told her not to do that shit, that she'd only end up here, told her time and again.
But what use is that now? What can you tell a corpse? What is there that could possibly be left? It takes all you have not to break down, hands white-knuckled clasping the edge of her black wooden box, oblivious of everyone around you. An old friend reaches a cold hand out to your shoulder, an old friend who Lindsey spent more time with than you these last few years, time spent in vacant lots, the back seats of dirty cars, the occasional run-in at the Methadone clinic. Several months back she even sold him a few pills and then sucked his cock while he passed out, unawares. A funny story before she died. Now it sits cold and pathetic in your belly, a churning thing interrupting the one solid repeating image of her happy face, 11 years ago.
Last Christmas you found out he has hepatitis C. Inside, he's a good man. But good or no, he's an intolerable junkie, and years of dealing with this shit have taught you no one can help anybody else but themselves. Which is exactly what you told yourself about Lindsey, cold and hard and looking ever forward. Now all you can do is stare at her all too-familiar face and wonder if she had it too, the big C. Most likely. Was it a contributing factor to her eventual suicide? Because no amount of convincing could change your mind about that — whether she intended to or not, every little shoot-up is asking for it. Overdose. Suicide. What the fuck's the difference?
Throughout the viewing and the funeral tomorrow, you are stoic. When this is mentioned, you admit you emote alone. The wails that tore through your body at the string of obituary messages left on your machine ('It's Lindsey... she died on some guy's couch...I'm so sorry') were shocking, epic. You’ve never cried like that before. Not to mention how you bawled your eyes out on the train home, writing Lindsey the letter you now clutch, sweaty. Little bits of your life, emotions and apologies, conveyed too late. Every intention is to drop it into her grasps, lay it beside her in her final resting place, but you hesitate out of pain, fear of the finality of this otherwise simple act.
Looking at Lindsey now, at the empty remnants of her body that once housed a growing soul, you try to remember as much of the good moments even harder. What you want least is to remember her like this—not just dead, but at the end of her life. All the face piercings you can't even believe she’s being buried with, marring what you always considered a beautiful face plain; her roots, which even in death defy a bad bleach job, highlighted by gel that crops her hair up like a high-school skater.
You want to touch her but you're scared. Although hardly your first funeral, you don't think you've ever touched a cadaver before. Boldly you move to hand her your love letter, to give this girl who took your virginity the last piece of your heart. The folded notebook paper falls to the side. When you move to rest them in the crook of her arm, the back of your hand skims the underside of her breast. It isn't as weird as you thought it would be, and this makes you feel even worse. It will only be buried by other such memorabilia anyway, including an NA keychain the pastor will mention in his service tomorrow: more evidence to the futility of the whole tired exercise.
The image of her is stagnant, and becoming incomplete. Her hair is its natural blonde, and chopped short underneath to emulate Kurt Cobain. Shaggy, clean, and puffy. Despite her early grunge aesthetic, Lindsey kept clean, smelt like floral shampoo, shaved her legs every few days. Your mind reels, relentless. If-onlys spill continuous. There was a summer day she came over, bragging her pockets were lined with pastel packets of yellow heroin. It was after the official break-up, but before things were so bad you couldn’t even see her. Chasing your brother with the hose, you joked about soaking her down, ruining her stash. One big if only. And minuscule compared to the larger if only: if only you could stop someone you love from destroying themselves by wishing it.
Less than two years ago your father told you he saw her, Lindsey. “She was just walking down the median, right here, on Long Lake.” He shook his head. You had her number. You were home. “She looked like she was back in the old days — big pants, greasy hair. She looked bad.” If only you had called her. Like it would have mattered. As though one phone call could have changed this eventual end.
You tell yourself there's nothing you could have done, that the chips will fall. But then there is the reality of her wake. Here you have to admit you are, you were, a coward. The last time you saw her, she looked good. She was clean, had light in her eyes. She was going to college, she cut her hair in a preppy way you didn't trust, but she was lucid with reasonable goals. The long hard hug she gave you was honest. Later, you knew she was using again. You thought of reaching out to her, just to see how she was, because there are only so few people anybody can connect with, and all else aside, you two shared that.
But you were a coward. Stubborn. Clinging helplessly to a single lost image in time. If only. What you could have done. Empty phrases for an empty shell, like her family, like that part of you that will always find her in everyday life.
At the funeral tomorrow the pastor will say that Lindsey emulated Jesus in everything she did. This comment will strike you funny. The most hideous irony. A cavalcade of memories, things she did that were in no way inspired by Jesus, will emerge. Poor Lindsey, poor fucking Lindsey. You see her, clearly, bright white teeth through her wide smile. You've never been so happy in your life, with this girl, the first girl you've ever loved, the first person you will ever truly, honestly, inside and out, love. Her corpse doesn't move, doesn't even recognize your presence. If only. And all you can think is what a goddamn shame.
