Everything's on fire, but I'm fine. Thanks for asking, thanks for asking

The days after were a blur. I remember a police officer talking to me, but the only bit I really recall was that my mom sat next to me the entire time, holding my hand. I was given time off from school, to be honest, I think they would have been happier if I wasn't there. The teachers and the staff didn't exactly know what to do with me. I can hardly blame them.

My friends did as best they could around me. Michael withdrew from me for a while, it wasn't that he didn't want to help me, it was that he couldn't work out how to say it. It was weird for my overly talkative friend, known for his awkward comments, and this was the time when his words were stuck in his throat.

Lyndsay was the opposite. He was around me all the time, always asking if I needed something or if I wanted to talk. He meant well, but at times it was suffocating. There was one night he had me come round. I mostly just sat there, not really talking much, and he put on some military shooter to fill the silence. He was trying to encourage me to play when suddenly he thought it was a bit weird and inappropriate to be playing something like this after what had happened. Honestly, it probably would have been less awkward if he hadn't tried to be supportive like that.

There was an obvious void in our friend group nobody really wanted to talk about. Kat and Carla felt it the most they had also been best friends with her for years. Both of them thought that whatever Rebecca had been going through at first, it was just a phase, and they would get their friends back.

My first day back at school, and the first thing I saw was the shrine that had been put up for Rebecca. I later found that outside of my circle of friends, the details of her death had not been widely circulated. I just stood there and started crying. Regardless of what she had done, I had still lost a childhood friend.

Kat was the person who found me like that. Any enmity she had held for me over what had happened that night during our date evaporated pretty much instantly. She came over and just held me until I stopped crying.

“I don't even care about what happened on the date. You need me more than someone giving scornful looks from across a hallway.” Kat told me.

In many ways, I still felt like it was more than I deserved. “You're a better friend than I deserve.”

Carla found the two of us at this point. She gave us some space, but I could see she was happy that this was one friendship that was getting mended.

Back at home, my parents emptied our garage and moved my stuff into there as my new bedroom. It was too painful to stay in my room for far too many reasons, the least of which being my room looked into Rebecca's.

Trish's funeral was a solemn affair. I don't live in the largest town, and Trish was being interred in what was seen as our largest graveyard. At first, Rebecca's parents had wanted to bury her there too but Trish's parents felt it was in poor taste to lay her daughter's murderer to rest in the same earth. There was a smaller one on the outskirts of town which ended up as Rebecca's resting place.

I remember sitting near the front Heather sat on one side of me and Kat on the other both of them holding my hands. Heather hadn't found things easy. She was grieving herself, and every so often I caught this look in her eyes that read my best friend is dead because of you. She was right in her own way, and I couldn't blame her for having those thoughts.

The Wake was worse. Trish's friends and family gathered to celebrate her. I saw the same look I sometimes saw in Heather's eyes magnified a hundred times. I had to go outside and get some air. Kat found me bent over and retching.

“I can't face them. Every time any of them look, they just see the person who got their daughter killed.” I told her.

“It wasn't your fault. You aren't to blame for what she did.” Kat said, trying to comfort me.

We went back to her place. I couldn't go home not tonight. Her parents let me stay in her room. Kat thought it would be best if we shared a bed. There was a strange irony that months ago I would have been aroused at the sight of Kat naked, and now I just wanted to sleep. I lay there with her semi-naked beside me, her hugging me. I was in a position at my school many guys would have envied, and my grief was too much for me to even care.

We lay there in silence for some time, and I do not know what possessed her, but Kat slipped her hand into my underwear. She started stroking me. I think in her mind this was her trying to take my mind off it. This should have been erotic, but it was just awkward. I also felt that if I tried to stop her, she might be angry with me in some way. I bit down on my bottom lip softly as she brought me to release. She drifted off not long after that and I joined her uneasily after that.