Beautiful Song

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve.

"It was time for a change. It was time for me to stop being ignorant. I hated the past but I was trying to become a better man. I was trying to be better. I am still trying to be better. That night I want to take back and for that I am so sorry."

Reece looked at the parents. They all were at at the table. Reece was across from the one seat Parker had. He would see that seat as a meotphor for the past. They will never get rid of this seat just like they will never get rid of the memories with Parker.

Parker was loved. He was loved. He loved. He was all around lovely. Everyone knew that. Reece knew. The parents thought otherwise....

"I'm sorry." He repeated while they had blank expressions.

They were going through a lost. It was months after it and Reece is now telling them about it. A couple of months of Reece being bottled up with it and he is finally forteeling about that night and how their son died because of him. Because of not just Phil. But because of him as well.

Reece walked home that night. He didn't have his bike. He has been running to places so he can get his mind off of everything. He has found some clearence but after this visit he has second thoughts. He was so stupid. He was so stupid to think he was able to have a future with Kathy. He was so stupid for thinking he could make things right again after fucking up. He and Phil weren't friends. He caged himself from George. And now nothing seems right.

Phil looks out from the car, "this is his place. Or I mean was his place."

Keith does a smile that is so soft he wants to hug Phil again and cry even more but they are burning daylight and they are sure Lucy is finding it all boring and very just not getting what is going on. She wouldn't understand. She wouldn't understand what is happening with Reece because Keith himself doesn't know. Phil barely knows.

He knows because his stomach is in knots. The lump in his throat is back and he feels like he is about to puke even now his stomache is full. He wonders just not long ago reece was where he was. Confrnting the greifing parents who didn't accpet his apology. How could they acccept Phil's apology when he wass the driver. He drove to that place. He was the reason why Reece was going to get out of the car comfront someone and instead of him being shot-

"The people you need to comfort in an appropriate time is maybe just yourself. Give it a rest if you screwed up. I had to for so long and so after that I couldn't really get over what happened. I started to plan. I started to want justice."

Keith stayed in the car as the last minute of the track played. He pulled back his lip in anger and remember the time Reece did look like he was hurting. Not the time before his speech, not the time running from church, but this one last time he was basically screaming out for Keith to help him.

Reece walked into the house and slammed his backpack onto the ground next to the entry way couch. He made his way to the stairs and then his father called out to him.

"Where have you been?"

Reece's eyes were blood shot . By this point Keith didn't know why. There could be many reasons. He was high. He was drunk. Or he was crying. The last never really crept into his mind.

"I was at a friends house giving an apolgy. Sorry I didn't tell you, father," he says with a bit of sarcasticness in his voice.

Reece ran up the stairs quickly and a door was slammed from his room's direction. Keith was standing there confused from his son's actions but now he understands what just happened.

Reece locked the door of his room. He looked at his music equipment. Another hobby out of many he had. He looked at the recording system and then at the wall which had his rascal flatts poster on it. He laid on th bed and pulled out his CD player. Not many people have these anymore but you could say Reece is still old fashioned.

The song plays is in his ears. Why, by Rascall Flatts.

The song he was listening to when he go up. Got a piece of paper and drew a heart with Kathy in it. He drew from that to Parker's name then to Phil. Then to George. All the way down to Blake (the guy he was basically begging to help him but never understood him in that way. Then to Parker's parents he only saw a few minutes ago. From the parents to his own.

His plan was in motion and as he looked at his CD burner then at his recorder he hufed out a sigh. "Am I insane?" he murmured to himself.

He got his studio microphone and made sure it wasn't to loud. His walls were basically sound proof by now that Lucy and Keith never really listened to what was going on. For months it was either him playing music and laughing with Phil. Rocking out with Parker during tutor sessions. Having teen rage after that night. Or recording a song.

This time it wasn't a song he was recording either.

"I wanted to kill myself. I decided on it for so long. For long enough that I wasn't even here. Don't you remember that, Dad. I picked you to hear this CD because you know me more than I know myself sometimes."

Keith did remember it. Reece got in trouble for showing his markings to another student who got offended. Keith thought Reece's mother wasn't handling his sickness right so he took him in. And Lucy since that was the main source of Reece's happiness.

"This time was different. I wasn't the only one hurting. Everyone around me was hurting because of me. I hurt my sister. I hurt you. I hurt Phil. I hurt Blake. I hurt George and it was all of a snowball effect reflecting from the purpose of going to that party. Somewhere I heard Kathy was going to be there. I hurt her too and because of my confusion I want to unhurt her. I want her to see my pain and I want to see her pain. So we can finally connect again. For this last person, Dad. Phil knows where Parker is. His is the only unmarked one. Along there. There is a girl who goes to a grave to his every single night at the same time but for a different reason. Because she is always grieving."

Phil gets our of the house and he is smiling. Smiling?

He gets to the Range Rover and opens the door.

"How did it go? Did you find answers you were looking for?" Keith asks and all Phil does is nod. He was in there for what seemed to be an hour.

Phil looks at Keith and he knows exactly what he just listened to. "I understand Reece almost as much as you do Keith. It's like we have the same brain because we shared so much in common. Maybe that's what drove us apart. But because of Parker again he made me realize. It's time to let go."

Keith plays the song Reece leaves on this track and the car is full with silence again.

He wanted to reconnect with all these people and share his side of the story because he wasn't the only one greiving. Reece understood everyone around him just like what Parker did. Parker was the only person he couldn't reconnect with and apoglieze to those he hurt because he was dead. Never be able to walk on the earth ever again. Hug those who needed it, be there for them.

"Parker wasn't the only one" Reece murmured softly in the recorder and then pushed stop. He looked at his watch and then at the paper.

"Oh Why? That's what I keep asking. Was there anything I could have said or done. Oh I had no clue you were maskin' a trouble soul. God only knows what went wrong. And why youleave the stage in a middle of a song."

They got to the cemetery at seven o'clock.