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Schlomo Metzenbaum held the phone in his incredibly shaky hands, while he sat down on his bed, and let out a loud sob. He'd just received a call. A call from Carmen's parents. The call where they told him that Carmen Diaz was no longer alive. His girlfriend, dead. Stone cold dead. He continued to cry, dropping the phone. He swore he could have cried for an eternity. But at some point, he had to stop. And he just felt empty. Carmen, the only girl who made him feel special, was gone. And she was gone gone. Forever. The thought of that made him want to cry more, but he just couldn't. He couldn't believe what had just been said. He just couldn't believe she was actually gone. Dead. He repeated those words to himself. Carmen is dead, and there's nothing you can do about it. Why can't you just accept it? he told himself. But he knew it would be impossible to accept. And he just wanted to die, so he could be with her again.
Goodman King and Grace Lamb had heard from Schlomo of what had happened, and they felt really bad for him. Neither of them had particularly liked Carmen, but they understood that this was sad, and Schlomo was particularly upset. They knew how much she'd meant to him. And they were both really concerned for him. Especially when they found him standing on the roof of the music building. Thankfully, they convinced him to get down. "Schlomo. Just because Carmen's no longer with us, that doesn't mean you have to go too." Goody said, after he and Lambchops had managed to scream enough to get him to come down. "Yeah. We love you. And we'll try our best by you. We might not be as good as she was, but we're gonna try. And trust me, we're gonna try real fucking hard." Lambchops added. Schlomo wiped the tears from his eyes. "Thanks, you guys. I just... I miss her, you know?" he said. "We know." Goody said. And the three bandmates hugged, and Schlomo cried for what had already felt like the hundredth time that week. And it was only Tuesday.
The news of Carmen's death had spread like wildfire around the school. Everyone was in mourning. And at this point, the teachers were too. They were all at varying degrees of mourning, though. Mr Sheinkopf had never really spoken to Carmen, and he really only knew of her because of his student Schlomo. He decided just to let the other teachers mourn as they pleased, but not particularly participate. Miss Sherman didn't really partake in the mourning either. To her, Carmen was no more than one of the many incredibly average students in one of her many English classes. She does remember that Carmen was quite loud about her ambitions to become famous, which tended to frustrate her a bit, but she blamed the performing arts teachers more for that than she blamed Carmen. Those teachers were useless, as far as Miss Sherman was concerned. Particularly a certain dance teacher by the name of Greta Bell.
Ms Bell and Miss Sherman had never got along, and most likely never will. They were always in constant argument over whether performance or academics was more important, and neither of them were willing to let up on their fronts. They were both too stubborn. But, all arguing between them seemed to cease when it came out that Carmen had died. This is not to say that they had started miraculously getting along over night, oh no, they just stopped interacting with one another. Which really, someone should've thought of that ages ago. The performing arts teachers' shared office was no longer filled with Ms Bell's slightly shrill voice going on and on about "Why can't Esther just accept that she's wrong?!", while Mr Myers sipped his tea and listened intently. The office was now almost dead silent, every day. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The only sounds in the room were the occasional flipping of a page in a book or the light clicking of Ms Bell's purple pen. Every day, she would sit, clicking that pen almost anxiously, thinking about how she knew something wasn't right with Carmen before she'd left the school for LA. Carmen had always been slack when it came to dance, but in the year leading up to her leaving, Ms Bell had noticed she was being even more slack than normal. Showing up late to the last dress rehearsal for the Junior Festival. Being distracted in class. Not dancing as well as she normally would. Being irritable. Missing class more. It was weird, and Ms Bell knew it was weird, but she didn't ever ask Carmen about it. She assumed it was private, and Carmen wouldn't want to talk. But now, looking back, Ms Bell felt so guilty for not asking Carmen about it then. Before there became almost no way of contacting her. Before Carmen left to LA and came back dead. And the guilt was slowly chewing away at her inside.
Mr Myers also felt incredibly guilty. He knew that one of his students was selling drugs, and that Carmen was buying them, and using them. But he promised them he wouldn't tell a soul. Not even Ms Bell, when she asked him if he noticed that Carmen had been acting weird. He just shook his head and lied through his teeth. He really wished he had told her, especially now, as he watched her sit mere inches away from him, clicking that damn pen and looking absolutely devastated. He could tell she felt guilty for not intervening, and that in itself made him feel guilty. And the fact that he hadn't stopped Carmen from using those God-damned drugs made him feel like he had killed her. And there may or may not have been one day where if you looked into the window of the office, you would have seen Ms Bell and Mr Myers, both with tears running down their cheeks.
All the kids in Dance were so upset. Jack and Mabel had been some of Carmen's best friends, and while Mabel wasn't in Dance anymore, she still chose to mourn with Jack. Iris did too. They choreographed a dance together which they titled "In Loving Memory of Carmen Diaz", and they all sat together at Carmen's funeral. Mabel cried her poor little heart out. Carmen had been such a good friend of hers. She even set her up with her current girlfriend, Ashlee, after Mabel had that slight train wreck of a relationship with Joe Vegas. Carmen was a real source of inspiration for Mabel, and now she was gone. Jack and Iris sat together, holding hands and trying not to cry. Carmen had been Jack's best friend in Dance for a while. They would mess around together, and she made Dance fun for him, especially when they had Introductory Ballet class every single morning. And he never let Carmen go, even after he met and fell in love with Iris. Iris was his serious, Carmen was his silly. And he swore to never forget her for that. And Iris remembered her very first ballet class at PA, with Carmen waltzing in late and messing about with Jack in the back of the class like it was nothing, and she remembered thinking "This girl seems to not give a shit about anything.". She wished she could have been as carefree as Carmen had presented herself as. She wished to have even a smidge of Carmen's confidence and freedom. Iris just felt like she was trapped in a never-ending cycle of "Rehearse more so you don't mess up" thoughts, and she'd always secretly admired Carmen for being everything she was not.
And Joe Vegas, boy was he sad. He was sad enough when the girl he'd loved (or perved on, depending on how you looked at it) left the school, but now she was permanently gone. And he didn't even get to say his goodbyes! He was hysterical. He came to drama class and sat in the seat Carmen used to sit at, and dramatically "sobbed" until everyone ignored him and he got bored. He then pulled a pen out of his pocket, and he wrote "Yo Carmen, I miss ya baby! Rest in power my queen!" on the corner of the desk, kissing his fingers, and placing the slobbered-on fingers on the desk. And he went to Carmen's funeral and, when everyone wasn't looking, he knelt down beside the coffin and cried. "Oh, Carmen, baby girl... I never got to say my goodbyes! You shouldn't have gone! I didn't know that a little grass could kill you! Or maybe it was more than just the weed. Carmeeeeeeeeeeeen!!!!!!! I miss youuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!!!" he wailed. And wailed and wailed and wailed. Like a wolf howling at the moon.
***
"The lyrics to our senior song were written by a very talented student. Carmen Diaz. Unfortunately, Carmen is no longer with us. She died, a month ago today, of a drug overdose." Schlomo spoke, holding back tears as he gave his speech at his graduation. The graduation he'd once expected Carmen to be there for. He stared out to the audience, and he saw his fellow students, all in graduation robes, some sobbing, some barely managing to keep themselves from crying. And he saw the teachers. Mr Myers and Ms Bell were both wearing black, as they had been for a while, and both of them looked distraught. Ms Bell was wearing a red hair tie, though, as if to pay respects to Carmen. Carmen's favourite colour had been red. Schlomo himself was wearing red socks. Mabel was wearing a red scrunchie. Jack was wearing red sneakers. Joe was wearing a red bow tie.
And the kids all sang their senior song, to pay respects to Carmen for one last time. And Schlomo imagined Carmen smiling down at him from heaven, and blowing him a kiss.