sign {h.s.}

kapitel tjugonio

"DRINK UP, BUTTERCUP," Jace cheers, his voice equal part glum and hopeful, as he holds his Mai Tai up to mine. Our glasses clink shakily before I send it back in a single gulp. Another drink, another round. Personally, I've lost count. After the funeral, we'd all relocated to Matt's favorite Chinese restaurant, owned by a woman named Mey. She had taken it upon herself to speak at the funeral. There, I learned that Matt had learned Mandarin in order to teach her English.

The alcohol burns down my throat, but I welcome it. I welcome anything that can distract me from the consistent cracking along my heart. The thing with pain is that you grow used to it. Certainly this is no outlier. There will be a point in which the pain doesn't debilitate me anymore, and somehow that knowledge hurts the most.

A Scorpion bowl is in front of me, shared between Jace, Caleb, Connor, Nina, and I. All of my father's friend group, and their kids, had joined for the somber occasion. Jace and Nina are the son and daughter of my father's friend Patrick. We'd grown up alongside them. In some ways, they felt like a fifth and sixth sibling.

With the shot barely down my throat, I lean down and blindly wrap my lips around my straw, eagerly gulping down the burning alcohol in front of me. Jace's arm is wrapped loosely around the back of my seat as he sits beside me, Connor on the other side. Nina and Caleb sit opposite us.

Mey had shut down the restaurant today, opening only to those who had attended Matt's services. In true Matt fashion, everyone is belligerently drunk. For as long as I knew Matt, that being twenty-two years time, I'd hardly ever seen him without a paired alcohol drink. Once, when I was younger, I'd drawn him in a family picture and included the extension in the drink. It made my parents laugh tirelessly, though my teacher was rather nonplussed. More than anything, I remember that Matt knew how to have a good time.

Matt was the only one never to marry out of my father's group of friends. They all remained close after graduating high school and all the subsequent chapters of life. Close to the point that I refer to them as my uncles, their wives as my aunts, and their children as my cousins. Matt, having never married or have children, never matured in the same way as the rest of them. That is to say, he was like a second father to me. All of my father's best friends are. Though, the only difference being, he maintained a sense of childishness about him that made me look at him like a best friend, also.

"How's school, C?" Jace asks, attempting to make smalltalk as Caleb flags down Mey for another round of Mai Tais for us all.

I shrug my shoulders, not entirely in the talking mood yet. I'd only just started drinking. Not yet at the point of intoxication in which I was friendly; still locked in the sense of doom and despair I felt as a result of losing Matt. "Fine," I brush off his attempts at conversation. Words don't come easily anymore. Words were always Matt's strong point. Sensing my hesitation, he naturally moves on to Connor.

Out of the four of us, Connor has been the strongest. Since I'd returned home, I'd been a mess. Everything had the potential to make me cry. I've been disconnected and distant. I can tell everyone in my family is worried about me. Matt and I were the closest out of the four of us. His death, the first "real death" I've experienced, has hit me in a different way than the rest of my siblings.

But I must remember to count my blessings.

Connor has not made me go through it alone. Since I returned home, Connor has been there for me every step of the way. He was the one to pick me up at the bus station in Boston and drive me back home. He was the one to sit next to me during the funeral and hold my hand when I started crying. He was the one who took the care to email my advisor at school, from my account, to notify them of the death and that I would be out for the "foreseeable future" due to a death in the family. He was the one who had texted Lola to inform her that I would be at home for a couple of days, without indulging her with the details. At only eighteen, he has a world of knowledge and a never ending pit of strength. I envy it. "Do you want me to take you home?" Connor offers cautiously, keeping his voice quiet as to not attract any unwanted attention.