I went to Raven's funeral yesterday and laid a bouquet of bright red roses upon his coffin just before they lowered it into the ground. I imagined Raven lying in the wooden box laughing at the words 'Six feet under.' He always did have a ghoulish sense of humor.

I stare down at the photograph that I found lingering inside of my Social Studies book. In the picture, I am sitting on Raven's lap laughing as he wears a pair of white framed heart shaped sunglasses. There's a silly grin on his face and a shiney pink birthday hat sits, in cone shape, on his head.

I remember the day the photo was taken. It was Raven's seventeenth birthday and as a joke, I gave him the heart shaped sunglasses. He had worn them both jokingly and proudly as he opened the rest of his gifts.

Brauny, Raven's best friend, had gotten him a blow-up doll also as a gag gift. The doll had black hair and Brauny even dresses the doll to look like me. Brauny said it was so Raven never missed me.

"I remember those silly glasses," someone whispers from the seat behind me. I turn to see Brauny's dark eyes and mess of spikey blonde hair. He smiles at me slightly with a sad grin. "Did you know that Rave's mom actually showed up to the funeral?"

"No," I reply. "I thought she'd be too busy with her new family." Raven's mother divorced his father when Rave was just three years old. She wanted nothing to do with Raven or his father and remarried to another lawyer at her firm. Supposedly Raven had been trying to contact his mom, but she would never return his calls or letters.

"Nope," Brauny says. "The bitch had the nerve to show up and even brought her damn prized family with her."

"Why?" I ask. "After all those years of ignoring him. She should be the one six feet under, not Raven."

"Agreed," Brauny says. "Well, Rave's dad is cleaning out Raven's locker today at lunch. I was going to go give him some comfort. Do you wanna come too?"

"Should I?" I ask. "He's dead because of me. His dad should hate me."

"He doesn't hate you," Brauny states. "It was an accident Donna. He knows that. He wanted to talk to you at the funeral, but he couldn't find you. He wanted to make sure you knew this wasn't really your fault. Did you take off from the funeral early?"

"I had to," I answer. "I couldn't handle it. If I would have just given Rave the five minutes to talk he'd still be here." I quickly wipe away a small tear just as the bell releasing us for lunch rings.

Brauny puts his hand on my shoulder as I collect my books. "Please come with me," he says. "You can't tear yourself up about this."

::***::

The custodian cuts the lock from Raven's locker. Raven's father holds a cold stare as the principal opens the locker door. A pair of sunglasses fall from the locker. Raven's father picks them up and stares at them for a moment.

Raven's father looks at me, back to the sunglasses, then back to me again. "Maybe you should have these," he says, then hands me the glasses. I take them into my hands and look them over. The frames are white and the lenses are heart-shaped.

The principal helps Raven's father put Raven's belongings into a brown paper bag. He has the custodian take Raven's text books back to the library. Most of Raven's belongings are pencils, school papers, and pens. As the locker becomes emptier, Brauny pulls out a zip-up hoodie.

The hoodie is black with a random band logo on the front written in bright green lettering. Brauny hands the hoodie to Rave's dad, who hands it to me.

Raven used to let me wear the hoodie on days it rained. He would tell me that he didn't want me getting sick. He couldn't kiss me if I were sick.

I put the hoodie on and zip it up. It has been storming out all day. the drops falling from the sky like tears.

::***::

I can't stop replaying the accident in my head when I close my eyes. Images of Raven's bruised body won't leave my mind. Hot tears roll down my cheeks again, like they have every night since the accident.

I sit up and pull the blanket off of me. Sleep is just not going to happen tonight. A small rustling noise startles me from underneath my bed. My hand snaps to my lamp and light suddenly burns my eyes. I quickly close my eyes until they get used to the light.

I reopen my eyes then look under my bed. I feel the need to scream when I see about a dozen or more pairs of heart-shaped sunglasses. They all have white frames just like the ones I had given Raven.

I close my eyes for a minute, hoping that this is all some bad nightmare that will disappear. When I open my eyes again, the sunglasses are all still there.