Pavane for a Lost Boy (Or Rather, How to Survive Loss after Rejection)

Chapter Eighty-Six

Ryan Vincent Peavey
2003-2018
Loving Son and Brother.
"Forever in Our Hearts"

"At least he's finally at peace," was the first thing that left Oliver's mouth. "Ryan had a lot of demons in life regarding Jillian, Theo, and Artem. "He wasn't a bad guy, just a little displaced with romance.

Two weeks later, Oliver and I paid our respects at his grave at Kingdom Memorial Park. Of course, the two of us attended the funeral out of respect for the Peavey family, Mr. Peavey thanking us for coming. "I know that my son gave you two a lot of grief and all that, but he would've loved for you two to pay your respects," he had told me after laying his casket in the ground. "I hope you both find forgiveness with everything that happened. I wouldn't blame you if you decided not to, but at least this whole ordeal was now over."

And now, Oliver and I were at the cemetery as we laid a bouquet of roses by his grave marker.

"This is so  surreal," I said out loud. "Who would've thought that a quarterback had his issues with romance in the past?"

"Well, I just hope that no one else would have to go through the same ordeal we went through," Oliver intoned, his stare hardened at the memory of being kidnapped. "I wouldn't even wish this on my late sister if she was alive. She may have joined Mom and Dad on hating me for being transgender, but I'm not that petty. Teenage love can be very toxic if one's not careful."

I nodded, motioning him to follow him to Artem's grave with a bouquet of flowers on hand to lay down at the marker. "I wonder if Artem had any idea that this was set to happen when he first met Ryan last summer," I mused, setting the bouquet on the cold ground. "I mean, his encounter was the start of the eventual turmoil that I soon got caught up in."

"I can't really say for sure since my cousin originally thought that Ryan was a great guy while Jillian was the villainess," my boyfriend replied. "Hell, I didn't even know the whole story since I was away with my transition process."

"I hardly had a clue myself before I came here. But the moment that I met him when Holly introduced me to him was when he would be too much trouble. I originally planned to stay away from him even before all this went down, especially after meeting Jillian at the party."

He hummed as we soon made our way to the final grave of the young woman who was originally a blonde-haired femme-fatale. Jillian Elise Kendricks, her grave marker read followed by her birth and death dates. Loving daughter. Beautiful woman. Forever Loved. We dropped a bouquet of tulips on her grave. "Speaking of which, I kind of feel sorry for Jillian as she got caught into this whole delay," I commented. "She may have looked as if she was a young woman scorned by the jock and didn't want anyone else to have him. I kind of guessed why she felt that way. She still held onto the hope of wanting Ryan back into her life. Who would've thought that she was betrayed by him and her godbrother."

Oliver snorted. "I bet Theo's rotting in hell for his crimes," he said lowly, eyes narrowed in silts. "I'm kind of glad that we're not attending his grave since his family had him cremated. "No doubt that everyone at school would've defaced his headstone and all that since nobody missed him."

"That's for sure, given that he was too lost in his hatred for life all because Ryan scorned him," I commented. We looked around, taking in the cold and cloudy late Saturday morning. "Well, at least everything is now at peace and everyone can move on."

Oliver smiled thinly, wrapping me in his arms. "Don't you have to be at Fairlake Arms soon?" he asked.

I nodded. "The Tuckers said that the people there have been asking for me," I replied. "I might as well pay one more visit there since you and I will be at Berman-Dawes Academy in January. And in a way, Dr. Nguyen said that I owed myself one last visit to the place where I grew up to get some closure."