Young Writers Society

The day was cloudy and gray, appropriate for the mourners at the funeral. Though they were there, the people hardly heard the words that the priest was saying as he repeated the words that he always said at every funeral that he presided over. Those generic words were meant to comfort those who had just lost a loved one, but how can you comfort someone who’s lost someone they love? Matt stared at the coffin with its pretty white roses, hating every minute that passed by. He didn’t want to be sitting here, staring at a mahogany coffin with white roses and baby’s breath, hearing a priest reading from a bible. He wanted to be at home, drinking a beer while trying to beat Padge at the new Call of Duty or whatever game the boys dragged over, while Sky complained about not being able to watch TV but getting into the game despite her words. He wanted to be anywhere in the world but here, away from the prevailing sense of death and mortality that came with every funeral. He didn’t want to be feeling like it was his fault that all this happened or that there was something that he could have done to prevent this, but God was cruel and like to test people in any way that He could.


Reaching into his suit, he took out the note that Sky had left behind, looking at the plain white paper with its creases that he had come to know so well. He didn’t open it, despite knowing every word by heart already, instead just letting himself hold it. This was the last thing that Skylar had ever written him, her very last words and he hated that. How could she have left him all alone? She had left them all to suffer when she had ended her life on that fateful day, forever ruining his life. They were supposed to be together forever and Skylar had given up on that dream because she couldn’t handle life anymore. Now he was expected to handle the crap that life was handing him on a silver platter and expected not to take the easy way out like her. Matt almost crumpled the note in his hand in anger, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He wanted to cherish Sky’s last words, even if they were just a petty explanation of why she did what she did. Unfolding the note, he once more read the words she had written him, picturing her in his head as she wrote the words down.



The note was soaked with tears in some places, smearing the words a little, but every thing's else was the same. The graceful, looping cursive that was her handwriting, the stupid way that she sometimes wrote the t’s on his name, even the faint scent of her perfume was still on the paper. It was all hers, but not. The priest said his last words and closed the bible in his hands, stepping back to allow the pallbearers to begin to lower the coffin. There was an air of expectation as all eyes shifted to him and Matt stood up, holding onto the white rose. He walked to edge of the grave slowly, not really processing anything. He reached out to drop the rose onto the pile of others, bowing his head as memories of Skylar flashed through his head. He felt ready to cry like a little kid, but held his tears back to prevent himself making looking like a fool in front of everybody. Not that anyone would care if he did start to sob, it would have been alright for him to do so, perhaps people would even expected him to, but he still refused to let the tears fall. Matt sat back down and watched as Sky’s family laid roses down on her coffin before making their way back to their seats. When everyone was done paying their respects, the pallbearers lowered the coffin into the ground.





It had only been a week since they had buried her, but already he was back. How could he stay away when she was gone? Bending down, he set the small vase down against the tombstone, straightening it so that it wouldn’t fall. All that he brought for her were the white roses that she loved so much. It had always been white she liked the best, even if she thought that bright pink or red roses were pretty. He could remember complaining about her obsession with white roses when they were walking past a flower shop one day and Sky saying that it was because white could mean a lot of things other than just white. Her words had sparked a somewhat heated conversation, ending with him getting his arm twisted in some back handed move that she always managed to get him on. That’s what he loved and hated about Sky. One way or another, she could get you to admit something just by repeating your words and phrasing things a little differently, making you stumble until you were so confused, you didn’t even know how you got to talking about what you were.
But that was pointless now. He wouldn’t be getting tongue tied anymore because there was no one to tie him up on his own words. Reaching out, Matt touched Sky’s name carved into the stone. If he hadn’t touched those words, he could have convinced himself that this was all a dream and that Sky was sitting at home right now, reading a book or listening to music, waiting for him to come home. But the words made the reality of what happened real. It was proof that all of this really did happen and that he couldn’t keep pretending that it hadn’t. The phrase words set in stone came to mind when he looked at her name, further establishing in his mind that there was no way in heaven or hell that he could go back in time and prevent this from all happening. Not that heaven would give Skylar back. Or that he even believed that there was a heaven because wasn’t the reality here, in the casket six feet underneath him, containing Skylar’s decomposing body? How could he even think that he was going to be with her again in the distant future when he knew there was no future?

Getting up, Matt shoved his hands into his pockets. It was time to go. If he stayed here too long, he was likely not to go home at all. He would just stay crouched in front of the tombstone wondering what the hell? And how the hell did I let this happen? Skylar had been naïve to think that he wouldn’t blame himself for this. Or, maybe she knew and had wanted to spare him the guilt, but either way he was feeling it and there was nothing that was going to stop him from that. Turning, Matt glanced at the tombstone one last time before forcing himself back to the car where his friends waited for him. They didn’t try to speak when he made it back to the car, only swallowed and got into their respective seats. Moose and Padge were in the back while Jay was driving, but no one was arguing on whether they should drive or someone else. It was a little depressing. Matt almost wished they were laughing and joking about, making dirty comments about this or that, but instead, everyone was lost in their own misery, wondering how they were supposed to get through life right now.

Pulling his hood up, Matt watched the world whiz by as Jay drove, wondering vaguely how the world could still turn when his world had fallen around him. How was it that the world didn’t stop revolving when his world had? They reached his apartment before Matt had even realized and he jerked a little as he was shaken from his morbid thoughts. He started to push open the door when Jay looked like he was going to say something. Matt looked at him, conscious of a moment that they could share or let pass by them. His friends were worried about him, as they should have been, and they wanted to talk to him about all this. But he didn’t want to let his three best friends see him break down. He didn’t want Jay, Moose, and Padge to see that he was running on empty and would so come to a screeching halt without any hope of starting up again. So instead, he waved that moment goodbye and mumbled something before closing the door and walking inside the house. Even with the door closed, Matt knew that his friends were deciding whether or not they should stay or just go. They were arguing with each other on the value of trying to pull Matt’s feelings from him, or whether or not it would even work.


He heard the car start and knew that they were pulling away before he collapsed onto the couch, drained of energy, despite having done nothing. He was exhausted. All of this thinking about life and death and whether or not he could even go on without Skylar was making him so tired, he didn’t know how he could move. He was wasting away and his misery was getting him nowhere. Holding his face in his hands, Matt sighed. What the hell was he supposed to do now? What could he do now? Sighing in frustration, he leaned back against the couch. Sometimes life was too unfair. He started to close his eyes thinking to get some sleep when he saw the picture frame on top of the TV stand. The picture showed Skylar and him laughing while the boys made ridiculous faces. Matt remembered the day when they had taken that. Sky’s sister had come to visit her and the six of them had spent the day hanging out doing nothing but acting like teenagers again except that they had been old enough to drink alcohol.

It had been the most fun Matt had had in a long time and now, with Skylar dead, there wasn’t going to be anymore of those times. That picture only seemed to highlight of all the things that bore Skylar’s touch somehow, reminding Matt of all those times that this happened or that time when that happened. With each remembered time, Matt grew angrier. How the hell could Sky be so damn selfish? Yeah, life fucking sucked. That was a fact that everyone learned at some point or another. Why the hell had she taken the easy way out when other people had to stick it out and suffer all the crap that was thrown at them? Why the hell had she left him alone to deal with all the sadness and misery and fucking pity that he always got from people? Why did she just go and do this one damn thing and be so fucking melodramatic?

Getting up, Matt kicked over the table, not caring about the mess he was making. He knocked the pictures off the wall, kicking and shoving things to the floor in a fit of rage. Skylar had no fucking right to leave him so damn alone in the world. All of this crap that he was feeling was all her fault. Seeing his keys on the table, Matt grabbed them, intending to yell obscenities at Skylar’s grave, before rushing out the door.




The drive only took five minutes to get to the cemetery when it should have taken fifteen, but Matt didn’t care. He got out of the car, leaving the door open and started to storm his way towards Skylar’s grave. The closer he got, the more his anger exploded, until he was sure that he was going to look like a crazy person railing a tombstone. But when he was close enough to the grave, he saw that someone was already there. It was a young woman crouching down and arranging flowers on Skylar’s grave. There was something awfully familiar about the way that she moved, the way that she set the flowers just so, and even the way that she brushed her hair back behind her ears. Matt felt his heart stop in his chest. He knew her, but from where he didn’t know. His body moved without him realizing it, until he was close enough to see that the woman had a rose with a nautical star in the center and barbed wire around her wrist like a permanent bracelet.

“Sky?”

The word came out strangled, as his body was too afraid of being wrong, of putting too much hope into that one word. But when the woman stood up and turned, Matt saw that familiar smile, those familiar moss green eyes that had been the thing that had held him that first time that they had met. He rushed to her, feeling that this wasn’t real, feeling like he was high on some anti-depressant pills. But that warmth from Sky’s hand on his cheek was real wasn’t it? How could a dream be this real? How could he still smell her smell, touch her skin and not know if his mind was making this up?

“I knew you would come. It was only a matter of time.”

Oh god, even her voice sounded the same.

Matt swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He closed his mouth, only to open it again before his stunned brain managed to string together letters into words. “How is this real? You’re dead. I know you are! I was there when they buried you!”

Skylar leaned back against her tombstone, looking up at the sky. “What is reality? How do we know what is real and what is not?” She looked at Matt and smiled at him faintly, brushing back her hair in that familiar way. “I don’t know how to explain to you the how’s or why’s about anything. Do you really need to know them? I’m here, aren’t I? Isn’t that enough you, Matt?”

He pulled her against him suddenly, hugging her tightly. She was right of course. What did it matter if he were dreaming? Skylar was here so why couldn’t he just enjoy it and let that be it? Sky coughed and hit him, protesting her lack of air and Matt laughed. He felt like he was walking a thin line into insanity and only Skylar could keep him from drowning in that void of grief and misery. He knew that if he did fall in, there would be no way to pull him out. He would be stuck in that hellhole of his mind forever.

“Matt? Do you remember when we first met?”

He looked at Skylar with a soft smile on his face and nodded. Of course he remembered that day. He had gone back to his mum’s flat to visit everyone because he knew that they were all going to be there. In all the festivities, they had somehow run out of milk and bread, something that everyone desperately needed, and Matt had offered to go to the market and get some. He had been on his way to get the milk when a girl had passed him. He had thought that she had been rather cute, with eyes that were so green that he had been sure that they were contacts. No one can have eyes that green, he had been thinking as he had been reaching for the door to the milk section. That was when he had crashed into the cute girl with the really green eyes. Matt had started to apologize when she had started to at the same time and they had laughed, thought it was a bit awkward. They talked for a couple of minutes when suddenly, the girl had blurted out, “Holy crap, you’re Matt Tuck!”

Her face had gone red in a second and she slapped a hand to her mouth in shock before mumbling something about how embarrassing that was and that she was sorry, but he had only laughed. Usually only teenage girls recognized him in that frantic way and here was a twenty-something, clearly intelligent young woman acting like a fifteen year old. In the end, he had somehow ended up with her number and that had been the start of the two of them.

“I thought you were cute, but a part of me was wondering what your motives were for being with me.” He turned to look at Sky, his slight smile growing. “After all, you reacted like a kid when you recognized me.”

“Shut up!” Skylar demanded as she reached out and punched Matt in the shoulder. “I didn’t mean to blurt it out. It just happened.”

Pulling her against him, Matt hugged Skylar to him. “I missed you, Skylar.”

Skylar put her arms around Matt in return, letting herself be hugged. “I know you did, Matt.”





Jay looked his phone for the tenth time that night, flipping it open and checking to see if he received any messages or any calls. The screen glowed for a brief 15 seconds before darkening again, blank as the last time that he had checked.

Padge growled in anger as Jay set the phone on the table and leaned back into the chair, feeling pissed. “What the hell are you expecting from that phone? Is God going to call you or something?”

Jay gave Padge a sheepish look and snatched the phone off the table, as if he were unsure if Padge would take it from him and break it.

“Sorry. I just have a bad feeling about Matt.” He frowned slightly at the table, trying to wade through his feelings. “We shouldn’t have left him alone.”

“What did you want us to do, Jay?” Padge asked. He shrugged, lifting the hem of his shirt and picking at a threat that was coming off. “If he doesn’t want to talk, then he doesn’t want to talk. It’s not like we can force the words out of him.”

Jay nodded in agreement but looked wistfully at his phone, waiting for the moment that it would ring and it would be Matt on the other line, calling him up to talk. “I know, but, you know. I’m worried.”

“We are too, but there’s really nothing that we can do.” Moose said slowly.

He looked up from spinning the second beer bottle on the table and letting it fall to the ground. There was regret in all of
their voices as they talked and they hated that. Three weeks ago, they were all screwing about like five year olds, trying to get in trouble just so that they could be yelled at, and now they were sitting around, depressed. This wasn’t how they had planned to spend the one summer that they weren’t touring or recording. Those plans had been thrown out the window a long time ago.

“I just feel like someone should have said something.” Jay let out weakly.

“Like what, James?” Padge demanded, once again angry. He scoffed at his friend and felt a weird mixture of fury and helplessness, knowing that there was nothing that he could do. If Matt refused to let them in, then they would stand outside his door, waiting for that moment when he wanted to talk, but they all knew that if he was pushed into talking, it would shut Matt up faster than anything. He had to be one to start the conversation or else Matt never talked about anything at all. “Telling him I feel like shit about Sky too won’t make a fucking difference no matter what we all feel. She was his fucking girlfriend and we were her friends. How would you feel if your girlfriend killed herself?”

There was a long silence after what Padge said. It was all true, wasn’t it? Skylar had been Matt’s girlfriend; it was different from than just being friends. There had been a whole another level to their relationship that Jay, Moose and Padge only felt with their respective loved ones.

“Maybe you should call him.” Jay and Padge looked at Moose and he shrugged. “It’s not like I think he’s going to kill himselfcause I don’t think that he would do thatbut, I don’t know. I have this feeling that something’s wrong, but I can’t say what or why.” He exhaled forcefully and reached up to scratch his head nervously.

Jay looked Moose for a moment without speaking. The two stared at the other, feeling some kind of telepathy for whatever what their friend was feeling before he reached forward and picked up the phone. He scrolled through his speed dial before pushing the talk button and sticking the phone to his ear. The number rang and rang, without a single answer and Jay gave his friends a worried look.

“He’s not answering.”

Moose fidgeted in place and Padge looked at him with a mixed expression. “Maybe he’s sleeping.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” Jay shook his head against and reached for his coat on the chair. He started to put it on then looked at Moose and Padge. “I’m going to go and see him, just to see if he’s okay. If you guys want to come then let’s go now. Or you can stay here and do whatever you want. Either way it’s fine with me.”

Moose stood and looked at Padge before all three of them started to walk out the door. The car ride to Matt’s house was the tensest ride any of the boys had ever experienced. They were all feeling a sense of fear that pervaded the car like the scent of smoke from a cigarette, instilling them with the feeling of dread, their minds already coming up with the worst case scenario. Why wasn’t Matt answering the phone when he knew that everyone was worried about him? Was he purposely doing this to make everyone panic? Was this a warning so that everyone would leave him alone? When Jay had reached the apartment, Moose had wordlessly made his way out the car and up the stairs to the door, only to come back seconds later.

As he was getting into the car, he shook his head and slammed the door shut. “He’s not here and the house is a mess. All the pictures are broken. I checked the garage and the car’s gone, so I’m guessing he went back to the cemetery.”

Jay wordlessly pulled out of the driveway and onto the road. He sped a little, taking the turns a little too sharply, making Padge and Moose jostle around inside of the car, but neither of them complained. They accepted it because their fear had been taken up a notch. Matt hadn’t been home where he was supposed to be. Where was he and why wasn’t he at home where they had left him? Why was he even driving? Jay tightened his grip on the steering wheel, unable to tell his friends that he had known somehow that Matt wouldn’t have been home. He didn’t want to tell them that he had a feeling Matt would be at the cemetery in some sort of trouble and that the feeling only got worse the closer that they got to there. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something had happened and that Matt wasn’t answering because he couldn’t. As they turned onto the last road, Jay almost wanted to stop the car. He didn’t want to see the tombstones and all the flowers, he didn’t want to see the wind blow through the willow trees in the gray light of the sky nor did he want to remember Sky’s funeral.

As they rounded the corners, the boys had their worst fears confirmed. In front of them was a smashed car, the front end of the car wrapped around a bent tree in a gross imitation of a hug. The car looked like a little kid had taken his hand to the back of the car and smashed it into the tree, just to see what it looked like. Jay hit the brakes hard, and threw open the door, running to the driver’s side of Matt‘s car. He swore out loud when he saw Matt draped over the steering wheel, the imploded airbag not doing more than giving the blood a more vivid appearance. Slapping at a hand to his mouth, Jay repressed the urge to vomit and screamed at Moose and Padge to call an ambulance. He had to swallow harder before he reached into the wrecked car to check if Matt had a pulse, but found none and swore again. In the background, Jay could hear Padge’s panicked voice trying to calmly tell the emergency operator that they needed an ambulance. When he hung up, he joined Moose and Jay in trying to revive Matt. Even as they heard the wail of the ambulance, they knew that it was too late.





Yet another gray day with a light sprinkling of falling rain and a quiet breeze that rustled the leaves of the trees, giving the day a hazy dream like appearance to it. There were the same white roses, the same mahogany coffin, and the same people crying and hugging each other in black. It was the same tux that he was in sitting next to the same people feeling the same feelings over again. It was even the same priest who spoke his words with a little more sympathy than usual. Jay could see the sympathy in his eyes and knew that the man must be thinking that these people were cursed or something. Hadn’t he been presiding over their funeral for their friend and daughter? Now the young man was dead too? Who was next, the baby that they had together? Frowning a little faintly, the priest closed the Bible in his hands and bowed his head for a moment of silence before stepping back to allow the mourners to pay their last respects.

Jay stood up and carried yet another white rose to the coffin and set it down. A ghost of a smile made its way across his face as he looked down at the coffin, glad at least Matt’s final resting place was next to Sky’s. At least in death they could be together forever, although he would rather that they were still alive and happy. Sighing, he looked up, hearing the mournful call of a mourning dove and thought it was appropriate. He dropped the rose on Matt’s coffin and went back to his seat as Padge stood up to do the same. When Padge finally sat down, Moose stood up, numbly moving to the coffin, barely feeling the rose in his hand. It was hard to believe that he wasn’t even going to see his best friend or his best friend’s girlfriend anymore. It was hard to believe that he was going to be telling his kids, remember Uncle Matt and Aunt Sky? Remember how we used to be a band and had a good four years of a dream come true before it all went to hell? Remember how they would always be saying, “I remember when Matt did this or said that”, or “Remember that time that Sky did this?”

The world seemed to freeze when Moose dropped the rose on Matt’s coffin and made his way back to his seat. He didn’t want to see the coffin lowered because it would only confirm the fact that they were both gone. Bowing his head, Moose heard the priest say the final words before he would nod to the families and they would all disperse towards their self respected puddles of misery. As the priest spoke his last words, a figure in black stepped from the crowd, carrying a white rose in her hand. Moose watched with interest as she stopped at the edge of the grave and held the rose to her lips for a moment, whispering something under her breath before setting the rose down on the coffin. Nobody seemed to see her except him, and Moose discreetly hit Padge on the leg, trying to get his attention. Padge looked up at him, raising his eyebrows in question before Moose pointed towards the coffin. Padge frowned in confusion before he got Jay’s attention, asking him in a hushed whisper who it was. Jay shrugged, also confused by the stranger’s appearance. They shared at look of question, trying to decide if she was some fan who wanted to come visit her idol.

Then she turned around and the boys were shocked. Sky smiled at them softly, raising her hand to wave before she started to walk away. Moose, Padge and Jay followed her as she walked away from the funeral towards the willow tree by the graves. All three of them frowned in confusion as Sky continued on until she reached another figure in black. He looked up and the boys were shocked further to see that it was Matt who was leaning against the tree waiting for Sky. They turned to face them, smiling almost apologetically and waving before turning back around and walking away. The drooping branches of the willow tree rustled around them in the breeze, obscuring them for a moment before both figures were suddenly gone. The priest bowed his head, closing the bible, and the pallbearers stepped forward, talking the ropes and began to lower the coffin into the ground. The mourners started to get up and began to migrate to various cars on their way home or to the memorial at Matt’s mum’s flat, but the boys stayed in their seats for a while longer. They stared at the willow for a long time before looking at the coffin. Then one by one, they stood and started towards their own cars, agreeing to see the other at Matt’s mum’s.

Moose stayed in place for a moment longer, watching the men dumping the dirt into Matt’s grave and wondered if he really did see what he thought he did. Had Skylar and Matt been there, for real or in spirit, or had he conjured them up for his own sake? Had he really seen Sky set a rose on Matt’s coffin before she vanished into the wind? What did it matter? If this was his last memory of them both wasn’t it better than nothing? Deciding that he really did see them, Moose turned towards his family and started towards them. Looking up at the sky, Moose couldn’t get the image of Sky whispering into the rose out of his head. There was something about it that made him feel moved, like it was something that had been bothering him and now it was finally fixed.

It took Moose a moment to realize that the words that Sky had mumbled into the rose before she set it down, if she was really even there, were I never said goodbye. Smiling softly, Moose climbed into the driver’s seat and glanced at the graves again. Igniting the engine, he paused, looking at the final resting places of his friends. Skylar would have liked where they had buried her and Matt would have liked that they were together. That comforted him a little and he reversed the car and turned, making his way out of the cemetery. He could almost see Skylar and Matt standing side by side alongside their graves, happy once more.

Taking one last glance at their plots, Moose said,
“I hope you’ve finally gone to a place where you belong.”

I find this very good.
I liked the description and vocabulary and how everything was structured into place.
Bullet For My Valentine is a good band and you made a good choice on writing about one of their songs.
I find this very remarkable and worth reading.

Hello there.

I don't have any nitpicks for you so I'm just going to jump right to the get-go.

I loved this piece. It was interesting because, even though they both died, they still loved each other, and Matt forgave her for not saying good bye and being selfish as he put it. I don't think that i could have written anything near as emotionally wrecking as this. And even though they both died, Skylar played a key role, seeing as they both moved on. i think she was the key to him moving and vice versa.
This was sweet, and totally loveable.

I've got to say. I've dealt with alot of death recently, and sorrowful things, but this just blows my mind. It's great, and peaceful to think that people do move on like this. I hope they do anyways.

Overall, a truly wonderful piece. You tugged alot of emotions out of this: anger, jealousy, happiness, sorrow, pain, depression, and finally peace. To be a writer is to know how to write like THIS.
Let me know when you post more.

your new fan
--Ash

Thanks for the reviews. They made me smile and know that someone likes my work. I appreciate the kind words.