Breathless; Love, In Torns

It was a day that left a scar in the sky. A terrible day to die.

Not that there was a day when dying felt good but the sky was too clear and the day was too bright. A perfect day to die wouldn't have such an innocent atmosphere.

Whitney stole a glance at the lively blue sky tainted with white clouds that took the shape of life itself. The sun. It was gold-crisped and warm, holding no sign of grimness. Her eyes trailed behind the cluster of flying birds that made themselves artwork in the skylines. Their flappy wide wings outstretched as the wind tossed them from north to south.

It seemed more like a day to drink coffee and laugh. A day to seat by the river bank and listen to the sweet gurgles of fine pebbles when thrown into the water. A day to spoil oneself with a cupful of fun. A day to admire the alluring radiance of white clouds ...but it was not a day for all of that.

It was the day Stefflon ceased to breathe.

The day everyone close to Stefflon would cry their eyes out while combing through their boxes and rummaging through their wardrobes and alcoves for black clothes as tears clouded their vision and made their eyes sore. The storm greeted all except Whitney.

No, she was always in black. She had, for long, been swallowed by blackness the moment she got the news of her friend's passing away.

Black raven hair, black pants, black shirt, black designer bag, and black shades. She needed the shades to conceal her sore eyes sac. She hated it when people peered into her grimy and sore eyes like they were reading her heart. She hated watching people witness the unending streaks of tears drip down her eyes.

A minute or even an hour passed since she received that call that had left her frozen for a handful of seconds. The call of Stefflon's death. It felt like a sharp pain. A thrust by a blunt object. A sudden hole in her heart. A heart-wrenching emotional wreck. But, she knew the moment she shifted away from the window, she would have to accept it, embrace it and marry it-the fact that her best friend no longer breathes. The pain was an illusion of what she felt.

It could not be true. It cannot be true. It shouldn't be true. Why should it?

She mopped the tears that were pudding down her face without breaking her gaze on the sky. She wondered if Stefflon was somehow one of those birds or perhaps, the wind itself. Some people liked to believe that they'd return to the universe as birds when they die, some believe they would become butterflies, and some, the wind.

Stefflon herself always said she wanted to return as the sky and she always said she wanted Whitney to return as the cloud so their friendship would be forever.

Right there in the heart of the vast blue sky where they'd be free from the tassels of the painful and chaotic world. Whitney hated the cloud, not in a real sense, but she rarely bought the belief of returning as one when she died. To the amazon, a raven was preferable, or even a crow but now, as she peered at the sky, she had a desperation to be the cloud, to be close to Stefflon. Can I just be the cloud already?

Whitney finally broke her gaze from the sky, she ambled over to her office desk and collapsed on the black swivel chair beside it. Beside her desktop was a framed picture she had taken with Stefflon four years ago. She picked the picture and ran a finger through it. Her heart ached and more tears escaped her swollen tears-logged eyes at the thought of never seeing Stefflon again. It was so hard to believe.

They had been best friends since they were only nine and they had even gone to the same high school. They built a bond that withstood even the strongest turbulence between them.

Stefflon was mostly misunderstood; she had a strong personality; others misinterpreted it as being rude. The picture on her desk was from their high school graduation day. They had both shed tears afterward because they feared going to college would be the very end of their friendship; the same bond they spent the rest of their lives building.

Whitney smiled as she remembered it. They had been wrong; college did not break their bond. She peered at the frame and thought about the day they took that picture. There was no way either of them would have believed that seven years down the line, there would be no more Stefflon.

One time, Stefflon had kissed a boy Whitney liked and even went ahead to date him when they were seventeen. Blake who was Whitney's younger sister by two years had misunderstood and called Stefflon a bad friend for that but Whitney knew Stefflon enough to know she was not. She had only wanted to prove to Whitney that the boy was not good enough for her and he wasn't. That was Stefflon's reason for averting the friendship between the not-so-good boy and Whitney.

Stefflon had saved her from heartbreak by getting herself heartbroken. It came off as the height of sacrificial love.

Another one of the times when Stefflon was misunderstood by others was when she leaked one of Whitney's insecurities on the school website in high school. Whitney had been so upset that she had refused to speak to Stefflon for days until one evening, Stefflon came to Whitney's house and explained she had thought that was the only way Whitney would accept her insecurities and see them as weaknesses that had to be addressed and not disregarded.

Blake had the misconception that Stefflon went after the boys Whitney liked out of spite but it truly was not. She had gone after them to prove to Whitney that they weren't good for her. That was how much of a friend Stefflon was to Whitney.

Although she did unreasonable things at times, Whitney always knew Stefflon could never hurt her. She always had good intentions and most people did not see that except Whitney. Perhaps, that mutual understanding was one of the many strings that kept them as best friends for sixteen whole years. Stefflon's cheerful attitude was another one of those reasons but that changed quickly after she got married to Ken Cavalieri.

Whitney hated him.

He had made the last years of Stefflon's life miserable. He had squeezed the Stefflon Whitney knew right from when they were kids into a gloomy Stefflon. A ghost of her true self. Stefflon was never the type to cry but merely a few months after she got married to Ken, there were days she would cry nonstop for hours.

Stefflon did not leave a single detail out every time she told Whitney of Ken's ill-treatment towards her. He put his own family before Stefflon and let them maltreat her. Some nights he would stay away from home and Stefflon always feared he was cheating. Although it was evident in her emotional well-being in some way, Stefflon was never able to get proof of it.

Of course, the sly bastard is sleek in his infidelity. Good enough to sweep every crumb of evidence under the rug.

He had even once wanted a divorce from her. Stefflon had not wanted to go through with the divorce, she loved him too much. Way too much for her good. She had only managed to convince him to remain married to her. And for God knows why he did.

Whitney hated that he agreed to remain married to Stefflon despite the abuse. He should have left her. He should have insisted and maybe, Stefflon would have found a little more happiness in the few years before her death. Maybe even love.

She despised the notion that despite everything he had done wrong, she still had to plan Stefflon's funeral with him. She could not avoid giving her last respect to her friend simply because she was married to such a despicable man no matter how much she hated him.

She would endure his gruesome presence till they successfully plan the funeral and after that, she would never have to see him again.

Not when Stefflon lay in the morgue breathless. Never.

There were things worse than standing in front of a coffin shop trying to pick the perfect coffin for Stefflon.

One of those things was having been married to her. Being a widower because of her.

Maybe it was all wrong at the beginning or maybe it went wrong along the line but it was of no use trying to remember and recount how wrong their marriage had been. He couldn't readily get his head wrapped round it but he sure knew that they at some point, stepped out of line-he couldn't deny the fact that they had long fallen out; of love, of patience and perhaps, of everything a husband and a wife should share. Who was he to tell it to? His parents? It was a bad idea altogether. Her friend? She hated him more than the devil. A start dilemma was what he felt.

How messy it got. Stefflon was dead. And, living people were not allowed to speak negatively about the dead. Who the hell made that bullshit up?

It did not matter if they were your lifelong enemies disguised as a husband or wife or their agelong friends. It might have as well been a killer or anything, the moment a person died, their wrongs were automatically wiped away. They become churchgoers who would call blameless saints-without blemish.

It was incredibly funny, truly it was, how many people were crowned saints because they died. It was even funnier that the ones who lived ended up being frowned at if they dared to speak ill of the dead. Being alive made them unworthy to comment unruly of the dead, who are purportedly unblemished and blameless.

Aren't humans weirdly sentimental with even the lowliest things?

Ken circled his finger with the gold wedding ring on it noting the mark it left on his finger. Three years was enough to leave a ring imprint on it. Three years was enough to scar his heart. It was the gold wedding ring he had exchanged with Stefflon the day they said their vows to each other at the altar. Vows that meant nothing. It left a circular scar on his finger.

He heaved a sigh before staring straight into the glass door of the coffin shop. The half-faded reflection of himself struggled for a better view of the white and gold coffin inside the shop. He would never have thought that a day would come when he would be the one buying a coffin for her. For most of their marriage, he had thought he would be the one ending up in one.

The morning he received news from the hospital that Stefflon had died, there was a numbness that iced his heart, leaving him starstruck and lead-heavy. It was not a relief, neither was it a grief. Maybe, a perfect blend of both. No word can picture it holistically.

She had been sick for a very short time, but at some point, she seemed to be getting better. And then one morning, he could never forget. He was able to catch some sleep for the first time since her illness but it was short-lived. It faded away at the expense of a vibration from his phone.

It happened at exactly 3: 13 am. That was when the call came in. The hospital told him she had gone into a coma, minutes earlier and if he would like for her organs to be donated because it was very unlikely, she would make it. He had refused. Stefflon would not have loved the idea of being dissected and giving someone else a chance at life. No. She was too selfish for that. The innocent doctor would never have dared if she knew her as her husband did. It was a fat no-no!

He wasn't fast nor too slow. He just needed to be sure he wasn't hallucinating. He got to the hospital around 4:00 am. He bumped into the sweating doctors in sky-blue scrubs trying to revive her. The moment he stepped into her room; she gave up. Even at that moment, she still chose to be selfish, leaving him with the guilt of everything that had gone wrong in their marriage.

He entered the coffin shop and surprisingly, it did not smell like formalin or death like he always thought coffin shops did. It smelt like an air conditioner and scented candles. The exact type Stefflon used to burn whenever she was taking a shower or helping herself to a glass of red wine and filling the house with 'Queen of the night aria' that she recorded on a phonograph. Wasn't she a woman who wanted to have a taste of life to the fullest?

She would wear her lingerie and sit on one of the one-seater couches in the living room with her blonde hair tied into a neat ponytail.

A glass of wine in one of her hands and her phone in the other. He couldn't consign to oblivion, how she had always took pleasure in getting the best out of life!

Ken walked to the white coffin that had competed with his reflection. He placed a hand on the cross carved with gold on it. Stefflon loved gold, even more than she loved anything else-including him. At least her colour preference was one of the few things he knew about her.

One of the shop attendees walked toward him, she was blonde with blue eyes just like Stefflon. Her name tag had 'Mirabel. A' on it which almost sounded like Stefflon-at least a bit of likeness. But away from her identity tag, her resemblance to Stefflon was stunning-the diamond-shaped face, the sleek sashaying steps, the soothing pitch and the hour-glass shape.

It shouldn't be her. It can't be her. He begged his stars; his eyelids knitted tightly.

She greeted him with a wide grin that splayed her even set of snow-white teeth. He loved how outstanding they looked on her ox-blooded gums. For a short moment, he thought she also sounded like Stefflon.

Stefflon. His nightmare.

He heard someone pull the door of the coffin shop open and he wondered if whoever had walked in had also lost a wife or maybe a husband. They would look sad because either they cared about their partner or they were able to pretend to have cared about them. He looked at Stefflon.

"What color of coffin would you like to be buried in?"

Mirabel's pool-blue eyes dilated. "Excuse me?" she quickly lowered her glance to the floor. "I am sorry, I have never thought of such a thing before." She was grippingly confused.

Ken scoffed. It amused him how most people reacted to death or being in a coffin as if it was even possible to escape death. "I will take this one. She loved white...and gold."

"I think she'd prefer the blue over there." The voice came from behind him and it was very familiar. Who the hell is it?

He spun around and the sight of her left an instant bitterness in his tongue and a sharp pinch in her heart.

"Whitney?"

It was her. Stefflon's best friend and his tormentor. The scent of her strong feminine perfume overpowered the smell of the coffin shop's scent. Her blackness and outwardness reflected the darkness of her heart. And her equally dark eyes that held a little glimmer of light covered by black shades. He had to bump into her at a coffin shop on a day like this. He could swear the universe was against him. It didn't find it fair at all.

"Ken," Whitney replied, tilting her head towards Mirabel, the shopkeeper who was still around. "We will let you know when we've decided."

We? He did not like the sound of that one bit. Not that very minute. Not that day. And perhaps, not anytime soon.

Mirabel nodded and started away, leaving only Ken and Whitney at the spot. "What are you doing here, Whitney and what do you mean by we?" He knew exactly what she meant, every part of him was protesting what she meant. He had to be sure that she meant what he suspected she meant.

"What do you think?" She removed her shades with one hand, folded them, and hung it on the neck of her plain black body-fitted gown. Her eyes were red, fairly swollen in a way no one but him would notice. She had been crying and there was no glimmer of light in her eyes at that moment-not even a ray.

"I am not thinking, Whitney ." He tried to ignore the sadness that lingered in her eyes. Her face couldn't conceal it either. "I do not wish to bicker with you today so you can go ahead to do whatever you want while I pick a coffin for my dead wife."

He wheeled away from her and pretended to be checking other coffins on the same row as the white and gold one. He liked the white-gold coffin. He'd have gone straight up if Whitney hadn't shown up.

"Your late wife?" Whitney let out a sarcastic laugh. "I can see that you look every bit of the grieving widower. Don't you?"

Her words stung his heart. His numbness had somehow vanished, leaving him to feel every bit of the vileness Whitney poured and was yet to pour on him. She had the power to do that with her vile tongue. She had always been that way. But he wasn't ready for her nagging-physically and emotionally.

"Do not start, Whitney," he said over his shoulder. "Not today. Please."

"Then do not pretend you do not know I am here to pick a coffin for my friend," she bloated, in a tone that seemed like she was trying to scare him.

She was unbelievable. Ken wheeled around and turned to her. "Stefflon cannot be buried in two coffins, Whitney. We both know that."

"She can't." Finally, something they could both agree on. "That is why I am here to get one for her myself."

He took his words back. A cow would have to pass through the eyes of a needle before he and Whitney could agree on the same thing.

"I believe you understand why you cannot be the person to pick Stefflon's coffin. I mean it's glaring enough not to be ignored."

Whitney neared him very firmly. The heel of her boots hammered against the floor as a warning to him. She raised one of her perfectly shaped brows. "Husbandman? Why can't I?"

It was not surprising that she would try to spite him at the slightest opportunity she could get. What was surprising was that she would despite her friend's death. "Because I am her husband."

"Was her husband," Whitney corrected with a raise of her voice. "Do you even care that she is dead?" Her eyes swelled with tears. "You annoying piece of shit. You must be relieved now, aren't you?"

"I am not..." He swallowed. It was no use trying to explain anything to her, not like it would change her hatred for him. It never worked. And for goodness's sake, he could not bring himself to understand her strong dislike for him. He gazed at her, her mascara had run down her face with the tears, and it smeared her brown skin. It made him feel bad. "We can choose the casket together. I think Stefflon would prefer that."

He handed her a kerchief from the pocket of his blue jean. She scowled at it and then took out one from her purse. "Don't think you and I will be friends because of this. I am only here because of Stefflon. Not you. It can never be you."

Ken gave her a soft inclining nod and returned his kerchief to his pocket. "Being friends with you is the last thing on my mind right now." Whitney was the direct opposite of Stefflon, fierce, bold, forgiving, and very non-easygoing.

"Good." She patted beneath her eyes and wore her shades. "Let's get one quickly and go our separate ways."