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“Slipping Through My Fingers” was playing.
It wasn’t the original version, no; it was Meryl Streep’s version from ‘Mamma Mia’. Josh had picked it to be the song playing before the official Eulogy at the funeral service.
Hannah and Beth had loved ‘Mamma Mia’; Hannah would even take the time and cope with the annoyance of putting on her hearing aids when the movie shifted to a sadder tone, when the scene changes to a mother and her daughter singing about wasted time. Every time they’d watched the movie together, they all sang along. They would even rewind the movie sometimes if they were really feeling the song that day. It was absolutely corny, but it was for them and just them, and no amount of judgment could change that.
This version would also be playing in the Washington Manor from time to time, but only if all three of the siblings were there. It just wasn’t the same when one of them was gone. It was their song.
Josh hadn’t heard the song in months. He’d picked it out for the funeral but he hadn’t heard even the beginning chords since the last time all three of the siblings had watched ‘Mamma Mia’. That was a month and a half before the night at the cabin.
He was surprised he even made it to the service. He hadn’t actually gotten out of bed in the few months following the incident, save for going to the bathroom and the occasional trip to the kitchen when it felt like his stomach was actually eating itself. Even if Josh wanted to die, it wasn’t a pleasant feeling while he still decided to breathe and suffer for a bit longer. His goal was to make it to the funeral, and he could at least manage that.
Plus, if he hadn’t gone, none of the primely related Washington family members would’ve been in attendance. Melinda and Bob were both in America for work, and while they had paid for the funeral, they hadn’t even tried to be there. Josh owed it to his sisters. Getting ready filled his stomach with tar, making him slow and uneasy. He hadn’t worn the suit he was wearing now since his Nonna had died a few months prior, and it held memories of all three siblings holding each other; the last piece of clothing to be done so in. It made him sick that he had to go to a funeral without the task of comforting his sisters, because they would be the ones in the caskets.
Or at least they would have been if the situation was any different. But his sisters hadn’t been found, even after months of searching and over ten different search teams being called; no one was located, alive or dead. Josh himself had gone with them every time, not stopping until he physically couldn’t search anymore, and even then he kept going. He had even gone without a team a few times, but he still wasn’t successful. They were gone, and no one could do anything about it.
So “Slipping Through My Fingers” was playing as the funeral conductor got ready to make a speech about God and how the sisters were in Heaven fondling with him or something. It was bullshit. It was a beautiful service, but the Washingtons didn’t even technically believe in God. His parents hadn’t actually checked or made any effort for this service; They just did it out of a detached sort of respect.
They were hurting. Of course this loss pained them. They had lost their youngest children, their most successful children; the children that didn’t cause them trouble like Josh did.
But they still didn’t make the effort to come to the damn funeral, so Josh wouldn’t give them the benefit of the doubt. They had sent flowers, and they were set out right next to the twin caskets, but Josh moved them to a table somewhere in the dining areas. If they couldn’t be there, their phony placeholders couldn’t be either. It was petty, but it was fair.
While Josh had been moving them, he decided to greet some guests walking in. He may not have wanted to do so, but to his knowledge no one else was doing it, so he could take up the role to distract himself. He already put his parting gifts in the twin caskets, and he’d decided to wait until the service was over to place the notes as well. They were in his hands as he waited by the door, acting as things to fidget with as his mind raced.
Only a few people that were associated with the death actually bothered to show up and exhibit repentance. Of course, Chris and Sam showed up, because they honestly didn’t do anything to his sisters that night, no matter what the ugly part of Josh’s brain told him. He welcomed them both in with hugs, leading the embrace with Chris and letting Sam do the work for hers. That’s what he’d always done before; no reason to switch it up now. Even if he wasn’t himself, everyone else was, and he wouldn’t disrupt them to make way for himself and his pity party of pain. The two of them proceeded to the main hall the funeral was taking place in, parting with words of condolence.
More surprisingly, and very infuriatingly, Mike and Emily showed up, but Josh had stopped them before they could enter.
“You can’t be here.”
The look on Mike’s face was like it was his sisters that had died. But that didn’t deter Josh at all from refusing him entrance.
They had a long history of butting heads, Mike and Josh. Most of it was to do with Hannah's infatuation with the class president, but some of it stemmed from their similar yet extremely different personalities. Both of them valued control, but where Mike liked playing the leader, Josh preferred authority over different situations and the people in them. This, unsurprisingly, caused problems, and the two were hardly seen getting along without another person to buffer them.
“You don’t deserve to be here and fucking cry about them. You, of all fucking people, shouldn’t be allowed here. Leave, Micheal.” He hadn’t said a word to Emily, because while the two did show up together, she looked at Mike with utter disdain, like it was draining for her to be around him.
But when she looked at Josh, her face didn’t lighten up any. They never got along either, and even though Emily and Mike were on the rockiest of relationships, both of them still preferred each other over this raw and vile version of Josh.
“Hey. We knew your sisters too. We’re just here to pay them some respect. You’re being childish.”
Josh, as cliche as it sounds, saw red. But before he could do anything that would only happen in a movie, Sam was behind him, and then in between them, and then he was inside the building while Sam was talking to the two unwarranted guests. Chris had apparently been with Sam, so he put his hand on Josh’s elbow to get his attention.
Chris looked fucking miserable. It was evident that he had gotten probably four hours of sleep in the total four months between the Cabin and this service. He had helped with every search for his sisters on the mountain, even being there for the first few independent voyages, though he had to stop after a month of daily searching with no results due to getting hypothermia after a particularly rough exploration off course from the Ranger Path.
The boy had on a suit that looked vaguely familiar, but Josh didn’t have the desire to study his best friend any longer before ripping his arm away and walking to an empty hallway of the building, opposite of where Mike and Emily were now entering to situate themselves in their unrightful seats at the twin's ceremony. Chris, of course, followed behind the boy.
“Dude.” Even his voice sounded strained. The nasty part of Josh’s brain said he deserved to feel like that, but every other part of Josh was screaming to help and comfort him. He’d always comforted Chris, every single time his emotions got too much for him. It was just his job; everyone’s caretaker, especially his best friend's. It was hard sometimes, but it was right, and for the most part he didn't mind being there for the boy.
But he didn’t even turn to Chris as he stood in the hallway, his hands balled into fists around the notes that would go into the empty caskets of his sisters. Everyone had been tasked, when sent the invitation, to bring an item and a note for the twin’s caskets, a tradition in the Washington family that was traced back to before their name was even around. They had done it with Josh’s Nonna, Josh placing the necklace she had given him to protect him from bullies, all those years before everyone was too afraid to bother the boy, with the note reciting as much of the speech she gave as he could remember. It was surprising that Melinda and Bob had included that detail in the invitations, yet they couldn't have even bothered to find a service that wasn’t a white Catholic Church, but Josh was, again, not giving them credit they didn't deserve.
Chris had known this without it being on the invitation; he had also been at Josh's Nonna’s funeral. When the kids were younger, Nonna had taken a great liking to the nerdy boy, giving him a necklace similar to Josh’s. The boys had giggled and compared their pendants, Josh whining that Chris got the nicer one, but Nonna had explained the meaning of them, and the boys had cherished the nearly matching necklaces for years. Chris had also given his necklace to Josh's resting Nonna for eternal afterlife protection and a similar note detailing the importance and aid the necklace gave to him.
This time the boy brought two things: a pink tiger lily pendant for Hannah, and a matching purple one for Beth. This was an ancient throwback to when he had gone to a massive garden with the Washington family up in British Columbia. Hannah and Beth had both been gawking at the lilies, a purple one and a pink one respectively, and Beth had reached out to pick them one each. Bob had seen the girl reaching out and grabbed her arm, slapping her hand and scolding her profusely. Beth had been crying so Hannah also started crying, and while the rest of the family was distracted with the wailing twins Chris had sneakily picked a pink tiger lily and a purple tiger lily, hiding them behind his back and only taking them out when the group was finally in the car. The twins had smiled so bright and hugged the boy so tight that he was blushing the entire ride home. Even if the pendants didn't serve as much protection as Nonna's necklace, they were still nice and thought after sentiments.
“Josh.”
“No Chris.” Josh could barely talk, holding in any tear or hiccup. He couldn't break now. Not ever, if anyone could see it happen. “They don’t-. They don’t deserve to be here. They don’t deserve this after what they did to them.”
“They didn’t know this was going to happen.”
Josh got so mad at the words he’d heard so many times that he whipped around, facing Chris with such a ferocity that the boy had jumped back; something he swore to never do again in reaction to Josh’s outbursts, even if the promise was only initiated by himself and told to Josh later.
And Josh had seen this. Josh had felt the jump in his heart. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Chris had cut him off to say, “No. We should- we should get back in there. I hear the guy talking.” And he turned to walk away, waiting for Josh to do anything.
But the boy just stood there. He looked at his wilting friend and in his mind he was berating himself for hurting the closest person he had left. The only other person that could so closely feel the loss of the Washington twins like Josh could.
Sure, Sam had known and grown very close to the twins as well. Maybe a little too close to Hannah for Josh’s overprotective brother mind, but nonetheless, she was very emotionally attached to the twins. But Chris had been there for so much longer, had heard and felt so many different things for the twins from both boys that Josh knew that he felt it just as bad as he did.
Josh knew that Chris had a crush on Beth once, but it was a long time ago, and back then they were just kids, so he didn't take it personally like he did for Sam and Hannah. Maybe it was because she stood up for him once in fourth grade to a bully two grades above her, or maybe it was because she would always take and hold his hand when she greeted him at the door. But one time when Chris was around someone said that the Washington genes must be strong, because both of the twins looked nearly identical to Josh, even with the year or so between them, and the boy had felt so guilty about potentially finding his best friend attractive that he shut down every single childishly-romantic feeling for Beth very promptly. Josh knew all of this because Chris had confessed it all one night in Junior year while the both of them were high as kites. Josh had laughed so hard he had to change his pants, and Chris had been so red they had to go downstairs to get ice to treat the boy's face from third degree burns. Josh had jokingly asked if Chris still had a crush on him, and he had to stop the boy from calling his mom to pick him up for the night. Chris' resting note to Beth had the same confession.
But as Josh looked at his best friend, with his shoulders slumped and his head down, listening for any mumble or hiccup, he knew couldn't do anything. He couldn't move, couldn't speak, and definitely couldn't cry. He can't save this now. No matter how many memories were shared between them, this would create such a large rift in their relationship that it would always be felt, no matter how many band aids they put on it. They'd never be the same.
So Chris walked away. Not from the funeral, of course: that's selfish, and he cares deeply about these girls. Even if they aren't there physically, this was a ceremony to celebrate their life and their journey through death, so he'd stay and pay his respects and mourn in his own way.
But he walked away from the broken boy, and Josh could tell that it hurt him so fundamentally to walk away like this; walk away from him. But neither of them could really do anything that would count anymore.
Life was against Josh. It always had been, and it always would be, and no matter how much either one of them wanted to go back to each other and fix as much as they could together, it wouldn't happen. The past can't be changed, and when the person who's most affected by it doesn't try to improve, when they’re too prideful to ask and get help, there's nothing else that anyone can do, even with bundles of love and care put into the attempt.
“Slipping Through My Fingers” ended, and so did Chris and Josh.