chapter one. holden
part one
“we are all of us resigned to death. it’s life we aren’t resigned to.” – graham greene
“How do you know Hayley?”
I hardly recognized any of these people. They do not recognize me either. In fact, no one knows who I am until our mutual friend, Hayley’s best friend, introduces me to her immediate family and closer friends. No, they’ve never heard of me, but “Oh you’re Lena’s friend from university. I’m sorry, but I don’t recall Hayley ever mentioning you. Well, thank you for coming anyway…” That’s a telltale sign that says I don’t belong, that maybe the deceased means more to me than she should’ve. In my head, there are plenty of explanations. There’s a). we only knew each other for a brief amount of time along with b). that we already had mutual friends that knew everything and c). just because she didn’t talk about me didn’t meant that I didn’t matter – and letter list continues to z until we repeat again by naming reasons alphabetically.
From the fresh whitewashed walls to the polished wood of the church pews, I know this place is too top-notch and clean. I can see Hayley digging her fingernails into the wall just for the sake of making an ugly scar. Then there’s the reception of faux acceptance. She would’ve hated it. Fake smiles and numerous amounts of people made the room feel as if we were in a congested tunnel. Social pollution collects like pollen on wool, but understandably, this funeral isn’t for her. It’s for the rest of the world to have closer from her departure. It’s for me. For her father in front of me. For her teachers behind me. For the empty seat beside me. If Hayley Tangles really held an iron fist in directing her funeral, her ashes would be composed of not just blood and bones but every single document and photograph of her existence. She would wish to die the same way she spent her birthdays, and perhaps disappear like the way things decay. Slowly, slowly, slowly… until you don’t remember what used to be there and until you don’t remember at all.
I yelled through the phone.
“Happy Birthday Hayley!!”
“Sh!” she hushed in an urgent tone.
“Oh…sorry?”
“I want today to be the most boring, average day of my life.”
I hesitated. Then flirted. “Then how should I celebrate the day an awesome person was born?” Well, the attempt to flirt was charming.
At least, she found it so. She giggled and I imagined her hand over her mouth as her voice returned muffled over the receiver.
“If I’m not awesome, then just appreciate me everyday. I can’t be here forever you know.”
I realize that now.
“How much did you love her?”
I look up to see Finn Matthews to my left, staring at the empty seat next to me. This is – was – her best friend, on of the only companions that could ever understand her twisted mind. Compared to him, I probably wasn’t even ranked second best. Despite his asymmetrical head and slumped composure, he had the aura of a Novel Prize winner. His intelligence exceeded his Quasimodo sweetheart appearance. Finn grew on you the way a gifted flower looks prettier and prettier every day you see it. I remember her saying that he grows into something wonderful whenever he smiles. “The world is brighter when he smiles.”
I glance quickly in his direction. He isn’t smiling and the sky is dark.
He sits down next to me, a block of black and white, disrupting my peripheral view. “Do you think you ever really loved her enough to stop and wonder why she was so destructive?” I look at his ashy hands fidget with themselves. His tone is accusing. I feel like I’m bleeding into the maroon cushioned pews while he continues monotonously. “At times, did you ever think that maybe her insanity wasn’t an act?”
“I – ” can only stutter, finding no words as he looks straight into my eyes. Then it dawns on me. Of course you fool! I realize he isn’t asking me. He’s asking himself. This is Finn Matthews, the best friend, the one who knows or thought he knew everything there was to ever know about Hayley Tangles. At least, she made sure that he knew every breath she took. The guilty weight of knowledge must rest on his shoulders – and even if I love her, there is that chance that I don’t matter.
“She asked me once if I thought she was insane.”
“…”
His black suit is a shade darker than mine, as if he was mourning harder than I was. The neatly pressed and ironed cloth looked sharp and slick compared to the wrinkled, oversized shoulders that covered my body. Without looking at me once, Finn continued to speak, almost ignoring my presence. This was a church, and I have become the confessional.
“I told her that I thought she was okay. Should I have told her that she needed help? I didn’t want her to get help because becoming normal is exactly what dilutes us. Hayley is the most concentrated special in a soul I’ve ever met.”
“I know. Me too.”
He laughs. “She was crazy, that bitch. Mentally disturbed. That’s what I told my girlfriend every time Hayley came to me with one of her stories.” In that bizarre relationship of mutual acceptance, Finn and Cassie seemed to share the one thing Hayley envied. They had the only type of beauty she was too scared to destroy.
She has a habit of letting her short legs swing over anything that allows her legs to move freely as if they were swimming. “Don’t tell her I said this because she’s my best friend, but you know I have to be honest. As cute as they are together, they never seem to be together when the reality knocks on their door. Nobody likes a hidden relationship, even if its the first honest one in our circle. That’s enough dirt on such a snowy love.”
We turn at the exact moment, looking straight into each other. He holds my eyes for a long time and we understand perfectly everything that wasn’t said. He loves her. I love her. We all love her so much that the plastic figure in the casket can only be a copy of the true relic.
She had told him she loved him and at some point, “Everyone said I was too good for her,” he explains. He shrugs casually and leans into the pew as if it had to eat him up and become his coffin. Silently, he rested his head, never asking me another question when I wanted to ask him everything. There was so much more to Hayley that I didn’t understand, that I didn’t see – and the one that mattered the most seemed to accept the fact hat she was gone. Finn sat in the silence vacuum, sucked into another dimension of his mind where he could see her again. His face is straight-laced with longing and sorrow, like the salt crusted along a martini glass. It’s sweet that he truly cares for her. It’s cruel that he has to sit next to a stranger in order to grieve properly.
Here I am, a boy that only knew her for the last two months of her life, but the overwhelming burden I feel amounts to the way Finn does. It’s only right that I can mourn for her with the one who knew her the best.
She could really turn your world inside out, that Hayley. Upside down, black and white, in just short amounts of time, she made sure you saw the world through a kaleidoscope instead of the looking glass.
I watch the black and white mannequins move across the room. Greetings, consolidating and smiling tightly, they glide aground the marble floor like ballerinas in a music box. Everyone moves with slow purpose as if talking was the glue on a band-aid that sealed the wound so it could heal. I forget how long this funeral is supposed to last but I figure I can stay until the end. After all, this is the last time I would ever be with her, even if it is figuratively.
Someone stands behind us, a girl in a soft black, and clears her throat. Oh. Cassie, Finn’s condescending and slightly stuck up girlfriend, so I hear. She’s the complete opposite of Finn and thus logically a counterpart to his soul. Well, if you believe that soul mates exist, then they are the worlds most perfect match. They are just school-mates pulled together by the idea that the rest of the world doesn’t exist. Even in this wake, Cassie holds the impression that no one can be as heartbroken as she is – that perhaps she knew something we all don’t. My lips crack at the idea that Cassie’s death is the only way to make her the greater tragedy.
Only Hayley would say something like that – only she would have found death upon death more amusing. Oh God, I miss her.
“Hello Holden,” she greets stiffly, “Hayley would have loved knowing that you came.”
Do you mean that she didn’t expect me to show up? I force a smile on my face and nodded in acknowledgment. “She would have wanted me to, wouldn’t she?”
“Well,” Cassie begins in her 4.00 GPA tone, “you hardly knew – ” She stops with a cough, choking on her own words. I see Finn nudging her in the ribcage and she quietly calms down, looking away from me. Actions do speak louder than words, and I could finally see how Hayley saw them. As long as Finn had the patience, and Cassie had the loyalty, they could be forever together.
The metaphor hit me as Finn stood up and avoided Cassie’s searching hand. Her desperation for comfort in the presence of her dead friend seemed contrived. Not right now, his eyes seemed to say as Cassie tried to hide the pain of her rejection. Kaleidoscope. Hayley’s view of the world was like looking through the lens of a kaleidoscope. Shattering, splicing and changing the world until beauty was not in the simple but in the breaking of the normal. She would have found Finn’s rejection tragically … wonderful. Am I right?
“If you’ll excuse me,” I mumble, “I need to look for Lena.” I didn’t wait for Cassie or Finn to reply but I heard their voices behind me. They made no attempt to cover up their conversation.
“How does he know Hayley?” Finn asks.
Cassie spoke loudly, using a persuasive tone in her voice even though it wasn’t important. “Remember Lena’s friends from university? Holden is the one that asked Hayley out even before they met. We visited them before in May… before Hayley left. You know.”
“Oh. Him”
Yes. I asked her out even before I knew her.
I hear Lena speaking, “So we have this homecoming dance every week and I need to get a pair of heels,” to her computer. While she remains absorbed in her conversation with her friends, I sneak behind her and listen to her conversation.
“Oh, so Lena are you going to have a date?”
The voice was soft and light, almost way I imagined a fairy’s to be.
Before Lena could answer, I yell in her ear for a her friend to hear. “Want to go to the dance with me!” It was more of a statement than a question, but just like that, I met Hayley Tangles. Yes, I asked her out even before I saw her face, but when I did put an image to that voice, I think I liked her even more. She may have been mildly disappointed with mine though.
