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There's a funny feeling that comes with grief, this cold lingering feeling that haunts every part of her room. Makes her really feel the world like her skin has been peeled away, raw and aware. She can see the water spots in the ceiling of her room, feel the way her carpet is so old it's uncomfortable to touch. She can almost smell the scent of rot and decay of the wood everything is built of. It's overwhelming, she kind of wants to cry about it. The pen in her hand is thrown to the floor as her face falls into her hands.
Being a poet isn't her deal, that was more his. She liked facts, things that did rather than could. It's why, she thinks, writing a eulogy is so hard. Why she can't seem to put a pen to paper? Just spout words everyone usually does, how she has thoughts and prayers for his family. How she misses him, misses her best friend. Issac has tried, god he's tried to help her move forward but. He's grieving too, and she can't blame him for his failures.
She wished there was a note. Some kind of reason for why. She wished her name was in it, an “I'm sorry, Norah.” would have done wonders. Given her not closure, but acknowledgement. That she mattered in his life. She wasn't some speck in the universe that William didn't think about beyond being a lapdog at his side. That Norah Fleetwood truly mattered to her best friend, to her best friend who killed himself and left her without a reason.
It's selfish. She's so selfish. Wanting some kind of answer for his problems because then she can hate herself better. But she's run out of logical explanations. Fallen short on facts and is left with the inevitable truth that there is no cause. She hates that.
School has been no better since he's been gone, she's been thrown so many balled up pieces of paper calling her a creepy bitch she's sure she can fill a book with them. Norah looks at them sometimes. Stares like maybe they're right. She is a little weird, kinda creepy. Norah has a staring problem, likes to burn holes in the back of peoples head with her eyes and wonder if they could ever really fathom death. Understand what being scared to die really feels like.
If they knew, if the girls who snicker at her behind her back knew their hearts could just give in at any moment, maybe they'd be as weird as her. Maybe.
“Norah, sweetheart? How're doin’?”
Her dad’s voice makes her jump, and she looks over at him. Glasses askew and hair in her face. She's never going to be a doctor like this, not when she can't even explain the many medical terminology that would describe what William did to himself without feeling ill. She doesn't think about it. Tries hard to not think about it.
“I'm.. alright. I don't know what to write, Dad.”
There's a hand on her shoulder now, and she wants to pull away from it. Fall farther into her grief and pretend the love she gets isn't real. Because maybe it'll add up to how he felt. Maybe if she shoves enough people away she'll get it, and find her facts again. Have something to hold in her chest that makes sense again.
Her dad speaks in that soft, careful way parents do to babies. Which she isn't, she's no baby. But she takes it anyway with gritted teeth and an expression of despair she can't not let show.
“Norah. You don't have to write anything if you don't want to, it's okay to cry.”
She has to write something. He doesn't get losing his best friend, her dad’s best friend didn't off himself.
“I just. He loved writing, I wanna do that for him. I want to so bad.”
Norah needs to figure out the words for her grief and fast, before eventually she has to put her best friend in the ground. The funeral is closed casket, and she knows why people do that. It's when the body is too gory to look at, mangled to a point there's no recognizing the boy who held her hand and she trusted to blindly lead her somewhere safe.
Norah needs to say something if she can't see him. She needs closure because the asshole didn't give it to her. William can write stupid poetry but can't give her a fucking note. He's selfish. He's the fucking selfish one for doing this to her. Letting her scramble for answers.
“Is Mrs. Wisp sure it's gonna be a closed casket?”
The question is heavy, loaded like a gun. She's never held a gun before, but it feels like it'd be a comfort right about now. The weight, the way it's something she controls. The trigger being something she has to pull for it to do something. Norah would never do what Will did, god no. She's a coward. Dying is much scarier than living.
Her father clears his throat, and just nods. It's hard for them to talk to her now. And it's cold, so terribly cold. He pats her shoulder again.
“Dinner is in an hour, I'll see you then, okay Norah? Get some rest sweetheart. We love you.”
Her door shuts, and she is alone. Abandoned. The mess of her room that surrounds her, envelopes her like she is a bug in its cocoon of sorrow and despair almost suffocating. Her hands find her laptop, the cursor on a blank page blinking at her like some horrific morse code she doesn't bother to decipher. She wants to burst free, she wants. Wants in a way that is so horrifically much that it's drowning her.
The laptop is thrown to the floor with a thud, and she stands. Falling into her unmade bed as her palms dig into her eyes. Ugly sobs crawling their way forward from the back of her throat. Her best friend is dead, and she's too busy loathing herself to do anything good about it. She should be doing something good about it.
DING!
Norah lifts herself up from her bed, glancing at her discarded laptop on the floor. She doesn't have any ringtone or notification sound, she had turned it off. It made her anxious, the idea people knew she was receiving information.
The screen is alight with a website she doesn't quite recognize, a forum of some kind. It's harshly colored, poorly put together. Like whoever made it had no interest in its design.
Norah slides off the bed, scooting close to the laptop as she picks it up and looks at the foreign website. PRIMEFAILURES.COM. It's a ton of angry, ranting forum posts. About heroes, ones she's only heard of from big cities and things on the tv.
She scrolls a bit further. There's one that catches her eye, a username of numbers and nonsense. It's a mother. Her daughter had been caught in some sort of monster attack, and the trauma had caused her to… to-
Norah slams the laptop screen closed, chest heaving. She couldn't read that, not anymore. Norah knew too much human anatomy, and couldn't stomach graphic thoughts longer. Couldn't think about it too hard or she'd be sick. Incredibly sick.
But the woman is right. Why had no one been there? Why had no one been there for her? Or William? Why had everyone simply waved their hand and let everything fall back like it had never happened in the first place? People died. Her best friend died and didn't have to.
She opens the laptop again, and finds the post button. Norah finds her words, finds her thoughts falling onto the page. Finds her rage and hate spilling out like bile in her throat. Then suddenly it's posted, lighting up the forum.
And Norah feels seen, in a terrible no good way. She feels understood in the absolute worst way.