Believe me, I never meant to intrude. I hope you weren't insulted.

During the service, all I could think of was how your friends saw me. Were their noses curling with disgust? Were they pulling at their neighbor's coat, so they could both point and glare at me? Were they whispering in each other's ear, speculating why I had wandered into this sacred ritual?

Instead of thinking of you, I sat there observing your family, watching them and scrutinizing them. I thought about the broad-shouldered usher with a buzz cut and a stony jaw. I worried he might come up and drag me out of the pew so he could escort me to the back, to where I belonged.

Of course, they didn't. I'm not important to them, and I was a fool for thinking otherwise. All eyes were on you, and nothing existed beyond the view of your solemn casket. Did you think me self-centered? I deserve that. I was selfish for assuming I was even a blip on their radar, just as I was selfish for maintaining my seat so close to your cold, silent body. It was my fault for not correcting the usher, and it was my fault for sitting amongst those whom you loved. That seat should have gone to another. What I should have done was just made my peace back when I first saw your obituary.

It was just this morning, when everything seemed like an ordinary Friday. The autumn showers left my apartment damn near freezing, and I was prodded awake as my cat nuzzled further and further into the pit of my stomach. I plucked myself from the sheets, leaving my furry companion, Ophelia, half covered in blankets. My feet slid their way into slippers and shuffled through my shoe box sized room and into the kitchen. I began making coffee from my week old grinds when I heard Lia's bulky body thump against the concrete carpet of my bedroom floor. The little scavenger made her way over, wrapping her body around my legs, begging for the waffles I was warming up in my toaster.

Uninterested in adding to her continued weight gain, I left her there to purr and nudge while I busied myself with the thick coffee that smelled slightly like burnt rubber. I poured it into my cracked Blakeman & Associates mug before Lia jumped up onto the kitchen counter, which also serves as my dining room table. From there she watched me, her eyes wide as her long fluffy tail whipped back and forth across the laminate.

"Don't spread your fur where I eat." I waved my hand at her, my fingertips almost brushing her nose. A low growl curled from her throat, and she leapt from the countertop and landed with another thud before scurrying off. With a sigh, I filled up her bowl with proper cat food and topped off her water. Then I sat down and took a sip of my tar black coffee.

I checked the time on my food encrusted microwave; it was only 6:13, and I didn't have to be at work until 8:00. Not that my bosses would have minded me coming in a little early. However, you were always right on time every morning, stepping into the elevator with a crisp stride at around 7:45, and I didn't want to miss our daily greetings to one another. So, instead of preparing for the day, I grabbed my laptop from the shelf and placed it onto the countertop next to my mug of thick sludge that I wasn't sure qualified as acceptable coffee. I then pulled up Facebook, allowing my news feed to load as I plucked my waffles out of the toaster and poured some water into my coffee to thin it out. Finally, I settled in to scan the posts that littered my feed, expecting nothing out of the ordinary to catch my interest.

However, after scrolling past memes, baby photos, political nonsense, and gibberish about celebrities I've never heard of, I found your face smiling up at me. I scrolled through with such mindless attentiveness that your grim message almost became another pixelated blur to my bleary eyes. But, your smile, your smile was so hard to miss and I couldn't believe what luck I had in finding your sweet face grinning at me so early in the morning.

Apparently you knew an old classmate of mine from high school. I couldn't even tell you what class we took together or if we even had a class together. I was certain I was only friends with this person because I friended everyone remotely connected to me back when I first joined Facebook and only a rare few ignored my request. But, in that moment, I felt nothing but gratitude towards my past self because this small connection between you and me meant I got to see your face on my news feed.

The post featured several pictures of you. In one you were hugging a dog that might have been a retriever of some sort. I wondered if it was your dog and what its name might be. I thought about how Ophelia might get along with a big dog like that, and the image in my head brought a smile to my face.

In another image, you were with some friends at a party. You had a tipsy blush to your cheeks as you draped your arms around two guys. One was our mutual acquaintance, while the other was a stout man with a wide grin and curly auburn hair. I wondered if your friends would like me. I figured if they were with you, they must be good people.

Finally, there was one last photo where you wore a sweaty t-shirt with a logo of a squirrel holding a lacrosse stick on the front, your smile wide and exhilarated. I noticed your hair was shorter than I remembered, and your chin a bit shaggier, and I wondered how old the picture was and why something outdated was being shared.

I then read the blurb above your pictures, finding my old classmate had nothing but lovely things to say about you. He apparently knew you through an inner-city kid's lacrosse league that you were both coaches in. He admired your grace with kids and lovingly laughed at your collection of Pez dispensers that you sometimes shared with your youthful athletes. He then attributed your skill with children to the fact that you were part of a large family. It was an interesting view into your life, and I felt grateful to have more conversation points to bring up next time our paths crossed. However, I still had more to read, and in the space of a single paragraph, my brightening mood disappeared.

A drunk driver had sped down a dark alley with no lights on as you were striding along a crosswalk. You had been working late, and they predicted fatigue had dampened your reflexes. Our mutual acquaintance shared some harsh words for your killer and went off for a bit about how he was looking forward to the driver's day in court. Until then, he would have to make it through your funeral, which was held today at 2:00pm in your family's church.

I dropped my coffee, and the Eggo slipped from my lips before falling to the floor. Lia rushed over to finish the remains, dodging the now cold coffee that splattered the stained linoleum. For a while I just sat there, my hands resting in my lap and my head bowed over the screen, my eyes scanning over the post, but never reading a word. I felt a trickle of tears gliding down my cheek as I blinked the bleariness away, desperate to keep your picture clear in my mind.

The sharp trill of my cell phone's alarm broke me from my haze, and I turned to find 7:00 on my microwave. Though my head remained stuck in a fog, my hands worked without instruction. I closed up my laptop, wiped up my spilt coffee, and discarded the dirty waffles. I then took a breath and looked out the window that sat just above the rickety bookshelf that masqueraded as a pantry. Outside, the grey sky hid the morning sun, and the bay looked like a dark sheet of glass.

And so there I sat in the fourth pew.

My boss thought I was at the doctor's and I skipped out on my lunch date with Michelle. Everyone at the funeral thought I was a friend, or a loved one. I wore the closest thing I had to proper funeral attire — a frilly grey blouse and an old pair of black slacks I bought for interviews. My eyes were puffy with tears and my lips shook just as they should when someone dear dies. I blended right in, and everyone believed me. The wispy red head beside me even handed me some tissues. I panicked, wondering who she was to you. A girlfriend, a cousin, a college friend, a coworker? But she didn't say a word, never asking who I was or why I was there. She only flashed a fragile smile before returning her glassy eyes to your casket and her attention to the somber priest who spoke half-hearted words of encouragement and redemption. But, like everyone else in the church, he knew you better than I. Your loss so painful that even a man that preached the saving graces of heaven still brimmed with tears.

Only you and the saints knew I was a fake. Only you knew that I'm just a girl you saw in the elevator once in a while. And I know you were the only one that knew. I even checked. I took the time to look around to see if there was comfort in a familiar face. But I didn't see the stodgy, plump man from floor six or the livid green suit he always had on. I didn't see the chatty woman from floor three, whose quick and relentless phone conversations gave us more information than we ever needed to know. And no where did I find the curly haired old woman that looked like a grandmother. Many of the attendants passed as a mediocre clone, but the tight-lipped woman of some floor above my own hadn't appeared in her grey floral print jacket and matching dress.

And so I was the only one there. The only one who's stood there in the elevator with you, exchanging simple greetings and passing pleasantries. Perhaps there were others you saw on the elevator routinely, others who would miss the warmth of that smile. But part of me wanted to be special, to feel like I deserved a spot in pew four, to believe that I was equal to the wilting redhead beside me. But I wasn't special to you, was I?

It doesn't matter. There's no reason I should have been.

But you were special to me, and I guess that's why I was there.

Sincerely your fool,

Bailey Kincaid