In her senior year of high school, Natalie Hope reunites with her friends, Adam and Barbara, at the funeral of the fourth member of their once-close gang, Jake. They remember the made-up superhero game they played as kids called "the Astronites," wh...
When Natalie Hope heard that the great Jake Washington was being replaced as quarterback for the Brightman High School Bulls football team, she didn't think much of it. It was still summertime, and everybody in her class was anxious to roll into school with senior status. But in September, when Natalie found out that Jake wouldn't be returning to school at all, her gut clenched. Jake was the best judoka, wrestler, and quarterback in the state. He was being offered full-ride scholarships to colleges across the country. What could have gone wrong?
In October, when Natalie heard rumors that Jake had fallen very ill, Natalie called Jake's mother, Susan. Natalie hadn't spoken to Susan in nearly eight years.
"Something's wrong with Jake's lungs and heart," Susan tried to explain to the best of her motherly ability. "The doctors d-don't know what's wrong. T-they won't let us see him because he c-could be c-contagious. Oh, Natalie! I'm s-sorry!"
By November, Jake had gone into a coma. Everybody at Brightman was praying for him. His girlfriend, Auburn Fields, set up a charity in Jake's name. Natalie donated as much money as she could. Maybe if we hit the charity's donation goal, Jake will recover, she kept telling herself.
But a few weeks later, after the charity had already surpassed its initial goal of twenty-five thousand dollars, Principal Eldridge called a school assembly for the senior class. He announced Jake's passing on the sixteenth of December. Natalie had never heard so many students' cries echo off the auditorium walls.
With the grieving Washington family's permission, the school granted excused absences for students to attend Jake's funeral that Friday. Natalie had never gone to a funeral for anyone she personally knew — and for a childhood friend, no less. Now, on the one day that she was obliged to go, she felt queasy. Her eyes welled up with tears.
Natalie tore herself from bed and dressed herself in one of her mother's old black dresses. Her extra-golden hair seemed too bright for her somber dress, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had been told as a child never to be ashamed of her hair.
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Natalie joined her mother and Aunt Missy in the dining room. This morning, Aunt Missy had her radiant, light-brown hair arranged into a ponytail while she prepared French toast. Natalie's mother, Beth, sat next to the Christmas tree, watching television in the living room. The Hope family had just started to decorate their tree with the usual thirty-year-old ornaments that were as cracked and fragile as their narrow house's walls and floorboards.
"You want breakfast?" Aunt Missy offered, flipping the toast in the pan.
"Not really," Natalie winced. "I feel like if I eat anything, I'll throw up."
"Drink plenty of water," Aunt Missy recommended. "Are you sure you're fine to go?"
Aunt Missy was a pharmacist. Any time Natalie complained of a headache, stomachache, muscle cramp, or anything wrong with her body, Aunt Missy knew right away what she needed to take, in what dosage, and how frequently.
