I stared down at the stone with my permanant emotionless face. I couldn't tell if my heart was beating way passed the speed limit, or if it was completely gone. Either way, I didn't like it, and it didn't feel right. I guess it was just something I would have to get used to. Nothing would ever feel right anymore. Everything I knew died just a few days ago.

Maddie and I were close. I mean, we always told people that we were best friends, but everyone knew or thought they knew what we really were. I kissed her once, but nothing really went from there. I loved her. She loved me. We were best friends...

She was a rebel. She always sat in the back of the classroom with her dark hood up and painted her fingernals with sharpie markers. If she wasn't so tiny and busty, people would have assumed she was a guy. Her voice was also very feminine. She was a saprano, there's no getting around that.

Everyday we would go home after school and pretend to do our homework. Once the sun went down and our parents went to bed, I would sneak out in my red SUV and pick her up, and we would drive around until I could barely see straight. We would crash parties and go fall asleep in Convinient stores. We would blast our favorite screamo bands and try to scream along with them. We failed. No one would ever be as good as Cradle of Filth. But hell, we could try. And try we did. Cats hissed at us whenever we started like that. It was a riot.

Maddie was one of those punks who didn't know what limits were. She would always yell at me to go faster and faster when I drove. Then I would tell her to drive her own car, and then she could go however fast she damn well wanted. That was a good laugh as well. Maddie went to driver's education a few times, but she always walked out the third class and never went back. That was Mad for ya. She could never sit through something that boring. She always needed a good laugh. I think she just couldn't go that long without having me around. She was so dependant that way.

I think my favorite thing about her was when she laughed. She had these really deep dimples that only came out when she laughed. And I mean really laughed. She had to get one hell of a hardy 'ha' out in order for those dimples to show, but I managed to make them appear at least five times a day. No one else saw Maddie laugh like I did. I was the only one 'special' enough, she'd told me. And by special, she always told me she meant special ed. We both knew what she really meant. I was the only who could make her laugh. I was the only one she trusted with its beautiful sound. I always felt really empowered by that fact, but now it just made me sick that no one else had heard it, and I couldn't describe it to anyone so that I could share in that memory...

I glared at the stone now. The horrible stone that was meant to tell us who laid beneath the ground didn't tell us a damn thing. It told us her name and birthdate and deathdate, but it didn't tell us who she was...

Angel Madeline Taylor

July 5, 1990 - April 19, 2007

Daughter, Sister, Friend

It didn't even mention that she went by Maddie... The picture didn't even look like her. Sure, there was her nose and chin and her gorgous blonde hair, but her eyes... They didn't hold the life Maddie had in them. Her eyes were a deep green. She often caught me staring into them while we were driving, then she would yell, "Sean, if we die, I'm throwing you into hell first."

I crumpled the newspaper I held in my hand. She beat me there... No, she didn't beat me. She went to heaven. She had to have. She never did anything that would damn her to hell. She was too perfect.

The newspaper had told her 'life' story in just two short paragraphs. That pissed me off. There was always something more to say about her. How could one sum up all that was Maddie in just two paragraphs?! I couldn't even do it in one whole book! It said, basically, that she was a 'loner' in high school. She had plently of friends, I was just the only one she'd ever hung out with. The article also said that she was planning to attend a prestigious college. Well, if she had been then she kept me in the dark about it. In fact, I do believe her plan was to 'get away from this hell and work at WalMart'. That place was heaven to her.

We would run through the aisles until we found the patio furniture. Then we would start jumping on the cusions and fall asleep on the couches. They were pretty comfortable, I have to admit. We would also go find the fish and make little fish faces at them. She would tap the glass with rhythms she heard on the radio that day. We could have sworn that we saw one fish head banging to it. We would also run over to the grills and pretend to have 'The American Dream'. You know, a nice suburban home with a huge pool, a grill, and five or six rowdy kids running around. Ok, that was just Maddie. She only had one sister who was ten years older than her and never around. She always wanted a huge family to make up for that.

"I want my kids to be close," she'd told me. "Like, almost incest close. And I want them to all be called Maddie. Well, except for the guys. They'll be Sean."

"Seans and Maddies?" I'd questioned her.

"Yeah! Then I would never forget their names! With as many kids as I want, forgetting would be aweful easy."

When I asked her about the pain of having all those kids, she just replied, "The pain means I'm alive..."

She was smart like that. It just pissed me off that she'd died in such a stupid act!

We crashed a party like we usually did. She ran up and started party-boying almost every person she could find. I believe she'd done it in record time, too. We always timed how long it took her to go through the entire party, party-boying everyone. I think she did it in twenty minutes. However, in those twenty minutes, she'd had so many sips of peoples drinks that she couldn't walk straight.

"Mads, come on, let's bail. This isn't a good idea," I'd told her.

"Oh, quite being such a buzz-kill!" she'd answered. God, how fitting her words were... I grabbed my keys out of my pocket and dangled them infront of her face.

"Come on, I'm going to drive you home before you puke. You're not gonna feel so great tomorrow."

"I feel fine!"

It went like that for a half hour before the screaming started...

"YOU ALWAYS WANNA CONTROL ME!" I think she yelled. Her words were kinda slurred.

"Maddie, come on. Let me take you home and we can talk about this later. Please!" She basically just yelled 'fuck you' before some muscle head pushed me into the parking lot and told me to leave her alone and beat it. So I did.

"I'll talk to you later, Maddie," I'd told her before I left. Then I got in my SUV and drove home. That was the biggest mistake of my entire life.

She'd gotten a ride with someone else there. However, that someone else was even more drunk than she was, so she offered to drive. Not only was she completely intoxicated, but she didn't have her liscence, and she'd never completed driver's ed. It was so stupid! The party was near the water and... she drove off the pier. She killed herself and the fucking idiot who let her drive. I didn't even care who he was, I just wanted Maddie back.

When I got the news, it was 11 am the next day. I was on her Emergency Contact card, so the police showed up at my house. At first, I thought I was being arrested for being at the party. Now I wish that had been the reason they were there. I had to have them repeat what happened to me three times before I knew I'd heard them right. I'd grabbed the policeman's collar and almost punched him before I fell over crying... They told me that she was alseep when the car imploded from the pressure, so she didn't feel a thing. In her book, she was already dead...

I took in a deep breath as I stared down at her headstone. I read over the non-descriptive words one last time before I placed a bouquet of a dozen roses at the base of it.

I blame myself for what happened. I should have made her get in the car. I should have never even taken her to that party! With all the could haves and what ifs that I'd played in my head ever since that day, I found it easier just to cry and admit how much I was going to miss her.

With one final look at her final resting place, I whispered her favorite poem:

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep,

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond's gift of snow.

I am the sunlight on riped grain,

I am the autum's gentle rain,

When you awaken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush.

Of quiet birds in circled flight,

I am the soft stars that shine at night,

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there.

But I cried anyway. I couldn't even bring myself to say goodbye. To me, she would never be gone, just misplaced... And that single disturbing thought is what would keep me alive until I die and be placed beside her. I made a mental note to add that to my will...

Once I finished crying, I looked at her grave once more and whispered, "I love you, Maddie."

---

A/N - the dates of birth and death are very significant. My uncle was born and died on those days. His death date is the exact same. I miss him very much

Also, the poem is not mine. It was the poem my aunt picked out to put on my uncle's rememberance cards. I DID NOT WRITE IT