Here lies Beatrice Reed

I never thought I’d bury my sister on the same day as her birthday. It was the beginning of winter. The light present in the sky but the sun in itself was missing. Snow hadn’t begun to fall but the cold hugged every stone and person.

The piano reached me before the people did. I could see the sorrow on everyone’s faces the moment I entered the field. I could smell the yellow flowers and the tears wept by strangers—familiar and unfamiliar. And yet, my own emotions felt numb.

She was always the brightest in a room. Loud and glowing. A smile on her face. Barging into my room when she felt like annoying me. Sharing facts everyone knew and pretending to have discovered them herself. Always carrying around that snow globe Dad gifted her in second grade like it was her good luck charm.

I recalled that night when she called me to the rooftop to watch the stars. Claimed they looked closer that way. She used her dumb torch to light the sky though it only lit a few centimeters above her face. She had asked me then, whether I was scared of death. Being brave as ever, I had told her the death feared me. But now I wonder, whether she had asked me that because she feared death.

Her name was Beatrice.

My sister. My best friend. My other half.

A living angel on earth they used to say. Not so living anymore, was she?

You see, Angels don’t die. Angels don’t take their own lives. Angels—they don’t die. They never do.

Our mother was the last who spoke. Only half her speech understood and the rest dissolved in sobs. Everyone was still weeping when they called to share a few words and perhaps a few memories.

I made my way to the center and stared at the crowd. I suppose they expected me to be strong like I’ve always pretended to be. And I suppose I will. Just once more. One more time before I ever break.

“She might be gone,” my voice came out hoarse and rough. I looked at my hands and then drew them back to the crowd. “But she lives within all of us,” I said—the words bitter like poison. They burned my throat when they poured out. A pure lie, because in truth she had died in my heart before dying in my arms. She told me everything except what really mattered. So, had I ever known her? Or did I just know the version of her she wanted me to see?

Memories don’t tend to storm in. They take their time. And just like that, mine leaked in.

Flooded my thoughts.

Drowning me.

Suffocating me.

Now, all the memories I have of her seem like a lie. An act. A pretend play to hide her fractured self from me, maybe even from herself. Was she already cracking underneath while we laughed?

We should’ve noticed—no, I should’ve noticed. I should’ve known. But how do you see the storm’s arrival when the sky is blue even seconds before it?

No—I’m at fault. I didn’t try to notice the wind changing. I brushed off her every signal. I plugged my ears and ignored her when she needed me to listen to her most. But what use is it to realize all this now? I wasn’t there for her when she needed me, and now I can never be.

Now, I just felt like a stranger. A stranger who once thought he knew the girl he watched grow. Now I was just a foreigner just as everyone else who had no idea she’d die like this.

I think I collapsed. I’m not sure. I think I heard someone cry out. Might’ve been me. Or mom. Or someone else entirely. I can’t tell. They say siblings eventually grow apart but we grew closer until she stopped growing entirely.

I felt a few hands pull me from the ground. My head pulsed. It throbbed, but the tears didn’t streak my cheeks. Didn’t hit the grass. I wanted to cry—I really did—but it was like my body had forgotten how. Like it all had settled deep in my bones and all I could do was stand there, half-held by someone I couldn’t recognize, being a burden once more and let everything crush me from the inside.

Things went quick from there, as if the time could not wait no more. I stood there, staring blankly at space. The coffin was lowered six feet underground. Each second that passed by my sister was being taken away from me. I wanted them to stop. Wanted to look at her one last time. I think I clawed at the people lowering her until I was pulled back. They left me on the ground, collapsed. I didn’t try to get up. I couldn’t have even if I tried.

Everyone started leaving but I stayed. I stayed until it was just a few of us.

I wanted to stay longer. And longer. Maybe stay with her until my end.

But the truth was, I lied. I lied to Beatrice that night under the stars. I did fear death. I feared it with all my life.

In the end, it all comes back to me doesn’t it?

It was because of me that Beatrice died.

Because of me that she suffered.

I should’ve been there for her.

I should’ve listened to her.

I don’t know how long I stayed there. It had turned dark. I think I was expecting something. Maybe her voice. Maybe her hand on my shoulder.

But nothing came. Just the stillness. The silence that seem to have accompanied me.

The stillness didn’t echo. It stayed. The stillness that felt like forever. Maybe it was forever.

I killed the angel everyone loved.

Her name was Beatrice.

An angel.

My sister.

A person who saved everyone but wasn’t saved by anyone.

My angel.

My sister.

She took my reason to live when she decided to die.