𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐃 ── vinnie hacker

03. who are you.

funerals, we all have to attend one sometime in our lives.

its nice to see friends and family you haven't seen for years, but not for a good reason.

jess's mother didn't want to see her daughter get buried. the open casket disturbed melanie, she could see where the coroner sew her neck shut. and where some psycho cut her open.

the guy who killed her knew what he was doing, he knew where it needed to be done. 

the mothers sobs disrupted melanie's thinking, jess was being lowered 6 feet under. melanie said her final goodbyes to her best friend with no tears.

jess isn't truly dead, she's still remembered. 

mel didn't want to see her best friend get buried so instead of having her attention on the men putting dirt over her casket, she looked around.

something about the tombstones far away caught her eye, but, there he was, the guy from the cafeteria.

the same guy that followed jess out to the vending machine.

he was standing far from the rest of them and wore distressed jeans along with a stained blue zip up hoodie.

melanie poked at alex's shoulder and he looked back, "who's that guy standing there?" she pointed to where she saw the man, but he was gone.

"melanie, don't talk." he completely ignored her.

she thought to herself, who was that man and why was she the only person seeing him?

after the funeral was a school hosted a candlelit tribute in honor of jess. melanie chose to go only because she wanted to be respectful.

melanie, alex and sebastian sat in the bleachers farthest to the speaker.

"why are there so many people?" sebastian pointed out the people that looked their age sitting in the bleachers on the complete opposite side of them.

they sat where the guest schools that played against them in sports sat.

the microphone feedback filled the gymnasium and everyone's attention was on the principal.

"i'd like to start this off with news. it was an act of safety in response of recent events."

nobody had an idea of what the man was saying.

yet, he continued, "on the left of me are the former students of the gatsby academy, a school we had played against in many recreational sport events. on the right of me are the students of johnson highschool,"

he took a deep breath before continuing, "i will be stepping down as principal and the board has decided that a merge would take place. in attempt to make our school safer. our actions are only to keep our students safe."

"that's the stupidest shit i've heard." alex groaned. he put his hands over his face to cover the fact that he was about to cry. all the effort he had put in lacrosse meant nothing now, especially now that one of the top 5 schools for lacrosse in the state are now merged with his own school. college scouts won't care for him now.

"blame the dude that killed jess." sebastian scoffed.

immediately after sebastian said that, melanie looked around the room to see if that guy went to gatsby.

instead, her eyes rested on a girl staring directly at her. she had dark hair and her features were hard to ignore. next to her was a dirty blonde guy looking down at his phone.

she looked away not wanting to stare any longer.