𝕋𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕓𝕝𝕖𝕕

Part 44: The Funeral

Normally the teens would be trying to move on with their lives. They would have all their separate problems or little thing they would do on separate times. At the end of the day they would always come back to each other. Today is different. They're with each other the whole day. All their little problems are set aside. Today is not about them. It's about someone bigger than them. Today is the day of the funeral. None of them have ever been more scared, confused, traumatized, or sad in their lives. They don't know what to do or how to feel. Everyone is telling them something different as if they're all one person. They all grieving differently and they don't appreciate it when there's a thousand different people in their ear telling them how to feel. They won't to feel how they want to feel. It's confusing them when one person is telling them to cry and be sad, and another person us telling to be happy that he's in a better place now. They put the funeral together way they wanted it and how they know Andrew would want it. They have the traditional funeral set up but it's not going to be that long. After instead of a reception they're having a memorial. Candles in cups and pictures of Andrew will be plastered everywhere. At the end once he's buried anyone who has words to say to him will be able to go to his gravestone and talk to him. They can leave gifts to if they want. They don't want to make it seem like he's gone forever because he's not and Andrew would never want to be gone forever. He barely could stand when people would slightly ignore him when he was alive. He would definitely want to be remembered and treated like he was while he was here. That's what they teens wanted to portray. They wanted to portray Andrew as Andrew and not just some kid who died in a tragedy. He's not a just a memory. He's much more than that.

Everyone gets ready. Of course they're wearing black but they're doing something different. On the information they posted about the funeral they told everyone to wear black with a pop of color. They have to oblige to these rules too. Andrew loves the color green, do they all temporarily dyed a part and f their hair green. Andrew HATED the color black. It was to dark for him. Roni altered everyone's outfit to have less black. She's wearing a dress with no shoulders and it's form fitting with a belt tied around the waist. Instead of keeping the belt black she made it green. Mariah sent in her and Malaya's dress. They match. They're both kind of poof at the bottom with the tool fabric at the bottom. Instead of keeping that part black Roni adds in some green highlights with the same fabric. She does the same to everyone outfits. She adds a touch of green to everything. She cries for hours while she's doing it. The tears fall as she sews. She embroidered the outline of green Dinosaurs in everyone's clothes. She knows how much Andrew loved dinosaurs. Finally she gets to Andrew's suit. She wants to make his whole outfit by hand. The funeral home asked them what outfit did they want to bury him in and since it was such a special case they let Roni make it. She cries silent tears as she stitches. When she's finished it's almost like she stitched her tears into it. A price of her to him. She takes the special notes the everyone wrote to him and stitches it in to the inside of the suit jacket. The eight notes all neatly lined up. She knows every word by heart. She puts the outfit on the hanger and zips it up in the bag that you would get from dry cleaning. She's going to let everyone see before she sends it to the funeral home. She spent her week getting ready for it by helped get others get ready. It's the only way for her to take her mind off of it.

Alex spends his week getting ready by keeping his head in the game. Luke has been helping with that. When they're not planning they're working out. Hours and hours have been spent in the gym. They use the football field. That's their work place. Luke stands on one end and Alex stands at the other. They take turns passing the ball. They've gotten so good at it that Luke will throw the ball and he and Alex will switch while the ball is still in the air and he'll catch it on the other side. Luke only stops when he's needed at home with Malaya and Mariah. Lily has given Luke time off from the restaurant. She wants him to get everything together before he works again. She realizes that he never really had a choose if he wanted to work or bit so she decides to give him the choice once he's ready. Since he has the time off Luke doesn't have to stop in the middle of working out. Both Alex and Luke have the same mentality. They've been showing it the whole week and pretty much their whole lives. If they pretend like nothing ever happened then there's nothing to be sad about.