I turn around in my front-row pew and sneak a look across to the standing-room-only section at the back, thinking of all the times in history you could find big groups of girls gathered. Witch hunts, denouncements, concerts. I see Sarah and Ally and half of Marley’s obscured head, but I don’t see Chloe. I try to take everyone back in time, put them in tartan pinafores and hats with ribbons but my trick doesn’t work today.
Suddenly the priest is calling my name.
There’s a rustle and a murmur because everyone expects Claire and Milla to speak at the memorial service but no one expects me, and there’s also my new haircut and I’m already sick of everyone making a big deal out of it.
The walk to the lectern is long and I hope I only feel twitchy instead of visibly twitching.
I don’t look up as I pull the microphone down towards me.
My voice starts croaky when I wanted it to be pure and strong.
‘Yin was my best friend for a long time, even though our friendship changed in the last few years,’ I begin, reading from paper that’s already wearing thin on the folds.
I look over at Chunjuan and she’s a mess of tears and snot and puffy eyes and she might be breaking Stephen’s hand she’s squeezing it that hard, but at least she’s not wailing like an animal and she’s also looking me straight in the eye, nodding. She trusts me, she trusts me, she wants me to do this.
I take that look and I turn it into a reason to do this properly, to not turn away from the task, to do something real for a change.
‘Everyone knows that Yin was incredibly smart and a whiz at the clarinet, but the thing that stuck our friendship together was how silly and funny and imaginative she was. She was a good mix of adventurous and sensible and she would rarely turn one of my ideas down.’
I see Claire look at Milla and smile and it makes me think that maybe I did still know Yin, that she hadn’t gone and gotten a personality swap any time in the last four years.
‘She was a loyal friend, and when you told her a secret you knew that she wouldn’t tell anyone, even when it was a juicy one that would have messed with several people and got everyone talking.’
This gets a gentle laugh but I don’t look up because I can’t stand the thought of how many people are watching me right now.
‘She was a much nicer person than me, because she always saw something good and beautiful and worthwhile in everyone. And she was a better person than most of us here because she had goals and was already working towards her future. If she got obsessed with something, you couldn’t stop her from living and breathing it and she would talk about it until you needed her to stop.’
This is where it gets hard. I gulp down everything and try to stay strong. I imagine I’m drawing calm from my friends. I don’t want to break down in front of this many people.
‘This is why I know she would have gone on to do amazing things with her life. And this is why she is the wrong person for this to have happened to. This is why it’s so unfair.’
I can’t even speak of the anger I hold deep down for the man who did this. I know that you’re supposed to be forgiving in churches.
I lift my head and look out over the bobbing heads and see that everyone is with me. Some girls are crying, some look in shock. Some are practically climbing into their friends’ laps and burrowing into shoulders.
Claire nods at me from the front pew. We talked properly for the first time since Yin’s disappearance, in the empty church before the buses arrived. I wanted to make sure that she and Milla were okay with me being the one to speak.
‘I won’t ever get over this. I won’t ever forget Yin.’
My voice wobbles and I sound truthful. I sound like I’m telling everything and I am telling almost all I can. I feel naked enough with my lack of hair and all the truth. But there’s more that I hold back for myself and Yin only, the bits of us that no one else will ever touch or hear about. And I have to do that to survive, I have to keep the precious parts of our friendship for me, for us.
I breathe in deeply, look up at the high ceilings and there, among the rafters and stained-glass windows, I find something new.
It was Yin who found other people to hang out with first in Year Seven.
She was in a form room with Claire and Milla, I was in another. Yin tried to get me to join up and make a group of four with them, but they were all into music and I wasn’t. There was a terrifying lag of a week when I had no friends at all, and then I hit it off with Ally and the rest is history, history with a bad ending.
Maybe I was a bit cold to her for a while, but it was because I could tell she wanted to move away from me and towards other people, and I was immature and didn’t know how to cope.
Something lifts off me, something releases.
I still feel sorrow for her, but now, I’m also sorry for myself. For everything I’ve lost.
There’s a few more things typed on my crumpled bit of paper, but I’m done.
Part of me was hoping I would sense Yin’s presence here, that there would be light and colour and whispers somewhere out there, but there’s cold emptiness and that’s okay. All I want to do is go home and lay out the entire contents of
