CHAPTER TEN | THE BEGINNING OF THE END

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TW: FUNERALS, GRIEF, DRUG USE. PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES BABIES <3

 PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION AND TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES BABIES <3

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CHAPTER TEN
THE BEGINNING OF THE END

three weeks later

"WHEN TOMORROW STARTS WITHOUT ME, AND I'M NOT THERE TO SEE," Reverend Williams spoke gently, hand on the cherry oak casket, "if the sun should rise and find your eyes all filled with tears for me."

Ellie slouched down in her seat, letting the horrid smell of marijuana burn her nose. She didn't cry; she was too far gone for this damn funeral. Steve held on, hands intertwined and giving her a reassuring squeeze. She couldn't tell him.

Ellie couldn't, wouldn't admit that the last three weeks have been less than bearable. Everyone was having a hard time, everyone was struggling, but Ellie felt like she was the only one drowning.

Everyone else moved on; wasting no time, the Harrington's alerted University of Pennsylvania and got Robbie wiped off their radar completely. There was so much business to death: money, insurance, taxes, all the things that seemed so mundane and minuscule in the fact that he was really gone. With each phone call, they were wiping Robbie away, phone call by phone call.

"Robbie is preceded in death by his twin brother, Michael," the crowd flinched, Mrs. Harrington emitting a sniffle for the first time all week, "his grandfather: Robert Harrington, great-grandparents: Michael Harrington, Lisa Harrington, Louise Allan, & Henry Allan."

The rest of the funeral became background noise, and the eerie silence was filled with a chime.

A chime she hadn't heard since she was a child, at the house of her grandparents with their old treasures and antiques alike.

The chime of a grandfather clock.

She turned, looking at Steve to see if he'd heard it, too. He didn't.

She was too high for this.

The funeral seemed to still as the chime boomed again, this time, her head whipped in the direction of the sound.

At the back of the crowd, standing in the back pew, there he was.

Robbie.

"This is the beginning of the end, Ellie."




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