The Funeral - Band of Horses

Chapter Twenty Three: Heartbreak At A Funeral

It's been a week into my expulsion so far and I think I'm losing my mind.

My sleep schedule is morally fucked because I'm used to waking up early in the morning for school and now it's like I can't break the habit. I'm up at 7, I go about my boring and uneventful day and then I'm down to bed by 10. It's getting exhausting. I need something to do.

I've taken up drawing again. I haven't really sat down and drawn a serious picture in ages so that felt nice and familiar to me. There's a program I use on my computer called SAI and that's how I do usually do most of my artwork. God, the last time I even opened this program was sometime last summer. Art block isn't an exact science and it varies from person to person. It just so happens that all it took for it to go away was one of my closest friends to get pissed off at me.

As I held the pen in my hand, the movement felt so familiar and natural to me that it was like a second nature. The tablet I used was kind of old, yes, but damn I loved this tablet almost as much as I loved my camera. Sam even said one time that if my house was burning with him inside it, I'd save my tech first.

He wasn't entirely wrong.

So I drew for a few hours in my room, occasionally getting up to use the bathroom or grab a snack. It was when I sat down with a bowl of cereal when I heard the front door open downstairs.

"Hello?!" I called out.

"It's just me!" Josh called back. "Are you in your room?"

He appeared in the doorway of my room a minute later. His eyes looked exhausted-wait. I took a better look at him and realized that he'd been crying.

"Why are your eyes puffy and red?" I asked him. "Have you been crying?"

He didn't say anything, at least not at first. "I....um-" he cleared his throat. "There's something I need to tell you. Something that couldn't be said over the phone."

Oh god. That tone alone made the hair on my arms and neck rise. Whatever it was he wanted to tell me, it couldn't have been good. So I put on a brace face and braced myself.

"Dad was having complications this morning. The doctors said there was nothing more they could do and it was just a matter of time-"

"Don't," I shook my head. I didn't want to hear the words. "Don't say it."

Josh's lips trembled. "Dad passed away an hour ago, bud."

I made a fist. The nails of my fingers drove into my skin so hard that I could feel warm blood start to drip out of the indentations. "How did he go?"

My brother took a deep breath. "Peacefully. He went in his sleep, thankfully. I don't think I'd be able to handle him suffering. But he-he just went to sleep and didn't wake up."

My fingers relaxed as I nodded. "That's good. I mean...it's not good that he passed away but it's good that he went peacefully. Was he in any pain?"

"I don't know. All I know is that he went to sleep and the machines started beeping. Maybe he was or maybe he wasn't. We'll probably never know."

There were tears streaming down his cheeks whereas mine were completely dry. What was wrong with me? He was my dad and he he just died and I'm not even shedding a tear for him. I couldn't cry for him. Even though we kind of made amends not long ago, I still couldn't fully accept his apology that he gave me at the hospital. As cruel as this sounds, I only forgave him because I knew that him apologizing was probably his dying wish. But some part of me deep down accepted it anyway. He was my dad.

In a weird way, I truly did love him.

What a messed up world I lived in.

"Nana and grandfather are coming out the weekend for the funeral. They'll stay here with you," Josh told me. "I didn't want you being here alone so when they heard you were by yourself, Nana insisted on staying with you."

I nodded. "That's fine. Nana's cooking is amazing anyway. I can say goodbye to frozen dinners for a while."

His phone goes off in his pocket. As he takes it out, he sighs heavily.

"Everyone's calling me, asking me how I am and if I'm okay. Expect some visitors in the next few days."

"Will they bring food?"

"Our dad dies and you're thinking about food?"

"I thought that's what people did when they visit the family of the deceased? Bring food and whatnot. Like casseroles. Not that I like casseroles. They're gross."

Josh suddenly reached over and pulled me into his arms. It felt weird for a moment but I eventually relaxed in his embrace once he began speaking.

"I can't even imagine how you're feeling right now," he whispered.

"I don't really feel anything to be honest," I whispered back. "Is that wrong?"

"No. It's normal to feel numb. I felt numb too when I first heard the news. The emotions came after."

He gave me a kiss on the top of my head before getting up off my bed and leaving my room. The front door closed downstairs and just like that, he was gone. I understood why he left so abruptly; he needed time and space. He had a lot on his mind and it was only going to get worse over the next few days with planning the funeral. I'd help but this was something I know that Josh needed to do on his own.

Maybe I should tell Nora. She'd want to know that my dad died, regardless of the fact they only met once or twice. If she cared at all, she would answer my text.

That little "..." appeared below my message meaning she was typing in a message. My heart leapt into my throat. For the first time in weeks, she was responding to me. All it took was for my dad to die (I know that sounded terrible but it's true).

Sorry to hear

I stared at her text. Was she fucking kidding me right now? After weeks of not responding, that's all she says? My blood boiling, I typed faster than I ever typed before.

Nice to know you still care about my well-being and all. What happened to all the other messages I sent you? You left me on READ so I know you saw them, Nora. I'm not stupid. Talk to me

She didn't reply anymore after that. This caused me to scream and throw my phone against the wall where it shattered everywhere. Most teenagers would be devastated to have their phone taken away or broken but not me. I could lose a thousand phones but none of them compares to the feeling of losing quite possibly Nora.

My phone was broken so I went online and onto the site that Nora uploads her fanfiction. Her username was NoraLovegood so finding here was a breeze. She had seven stories posted, all of them well over 10 million views each, so I clicked on the most popular one and left a comment.

Guest:

Nora. Please message me on skype. Broke my phone so there's no point in texting or calling. We need to talk

I must've read the comment a hundred times before finally hitting "Send". Hopefully she'll see the comment and realize it's me.

About two hours after I collapsed into my bed and cried myself to sleep, Josh returned with Anja and Jesse. Anya quietly came into my room and rubbed my back as I slept (I'm a light sleeper so I heard everything they were doing and saying).

"Auntie?" Jesse pat me on the butt. "Wake up."

Anya shushed him. "Aunt Lane is sleeping, baby . She's had a long day. Let's cover her up with her blanket."

A thin sheet draped over my shoulders, causing me to stir a little but not completely wake up. I then felt Jesse cuddle into my back and play with my hair.

Josh cleared his throat. "She was sleeping. That's why she never answered her phone."

"No her phone is over there. Broken, it seems." Anya stroked my hair as she spoke to my brother. "I'm so sorry about your dad, handsome. This must be so hard on the both of you."

"Yeah well," Josh sighed as he sat down on the edge of my bed. "It was bound to happen. Old man had it coming. Plus he knew what would happen if he continued what he was doing."

I could only assume he meant dad's drinking habits but I didn't say anything in case Jesse picked up on that. And I was supposed to be asleep after all.

"I hope she's okay though. You just left her here after you told her?"

A snort almost escaped my nose. Anya was savage without even having to be savage.

"I-what was I supposed to do? I had to go back to the hospital and sign papers for the release of our father's body-"

"You could've took her with you, Joshua. She's vulnerable right now. She might act tough but she's hiding a much deeper pain inside."

Wow. Anya knew more about me than I knew about myself. Yeah, I hide my feelings 98% of the time. She wasn't wrong about that. But what I didn't know was that I was hiding a deeper pain inside like she had said. I mean.....I just lost Nora. Then I lost my dad. There was a lot going on right now.....so maybe I just needed to talk to someone?

Channeling my inner Oscar winner, I yawned and stretched. "Anya? Josh? What are you doing in my room?"

"And me!" Jesse giggled, cuddling into my side.

"And you!" I booped my nephew's nose. "But seriously. What's with the party in my room?"

Anya half smiled. "Sorry. We didn't mean to wake you up. How are you feeling?"

I sat up in bed, shrugging. "Fine. Just felt tired earlier so I went for a nap."

Josh pointed to the shattered cell phone on the floor. "Before or after you murdered your phone?"

I winced. "After. Nora wasn't....replying. So I got mad and threw it against the wall. It broke."

"I can see that." Josh picked up the pieces in his hands with a sigh. "What's going on with you and Nora anyway? You haven't spoken barely a word of her since you came back from Florida."

My jaw clenched so hard that I thought for sure my teeth were going to crack under the pressure. "You haven't seen the news, have you?"

Anya shook her head. "What news?"

I went over to my desk and turned on my laptop. YouTube was already open in one of the tabs so I typed "Harry Potter resort New Years kiss". The video was the first one to come up so I clicked on it. After my brother and Anya watched it, their jaws were on the ground and their eyes were the size of baseballs.

"Oh. Wow...." My brother rubbed the back of his neck. "And she hasn't talked to you at all about this?"

"Other than treat me like I'm the one who recorded the video and posted it? No." I slammed my laptop shut in anger. "I don't know what to do! With dad's funeral coming up, I'm too stressed to even think about her and think about how I can make things right."

Anya took my hand in hers. "Give yourself a break, Laney. Just take the next couple of days to yourself. Don't worry about Nora or the funeral. Your brother and I will handle everything, okay? You take this time for yourself."

Jesse waddled over and crawled up onto my lap. "Aunt Lane? You okay?"

He nuzzled into me, which melted my heart right then and there. "I will be, kiddo. I'm just tired that's all."

He looked up at me with wide brown eyes. "Nap!"

We all laughed at his innocent suggestion. It wasn't long before Josh scooped his son up into his arms and got to his feet.

"We'll leave you be for a while. You gonna be okay?" Josh asked, patting me on the back.

"Yup."

"Seriously Laney-"

"I'll be fine! I guess I'll stay here and Facebook Sam to let him know what happened. He'll want to come to the funeral too." I sat back on my bed with a huff. "This really sucks. He couldn't die at a more appropriate time?"

"Laney!" Anya snapped. Her voice felt like a whip against my skin. "That's your father you're disrespecting. We don't speak ill of the dead in his family. Apologize."

To who? I wanted to say but both her glare and my brother's made me feel guilty for my sudden outburst. "Sorry dad," I grumbled at the air. "I didn't mean to disrespect you like that."

This seemed to be a good enough apology for Anya as she rose from my bed to scoop Jesse into her arms. "He can hear you, you know. And see you too. So don't be so hard on him."

As she stepped out into the hallway, Josh looked over his shoulder to offer me a small smile. "We'll be back later, okay? I'll make us dinner downstairs just like old times."

I grunted, a half assed response considering I loved the old times. Before dad became a hardcore drink. Before Josh left for college and got married and had a kid. Before life in general got tough. My first reaction whenever anything got tough was to run and that's exactly what I felt like doing right now.

Since my phone was completely wasted, I opened Skype and messaged Sam about the news. He replied almost instantly, saying he'll be at the funeral along with his parents. He also asked if I've been talking to Nora but I signed out to avoid unnecessary feelings.

I shut down my laptop after that. There was too much on my mind to even continue the drawing I had been working on. Nora. My dad's funeral. I don't normally feel overwhelmed but I somehow felt consumed with guilt and stress among other emotions that I couldn't quite process. Long story short, it was too much for me.

With a sigh, I collapsed onto my bed. Since I had nothing else better to do, I went for another nap until my brother came home later that evening. I silently prayed to the big man above that things would get better.

But knowing my luck, things could only get worse from here.

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I hate funerals. I've never actually been to one before but I've watched enough tv and movies to know that they were boring and everyone cried excessively. The crying part was very true for the most part. Boring? Yeah. I wasn't going to say it out loud but that part was true too.

The priest was finishing up when he asked if anyone had any last words to say before they lowered the casket into the ground. Josh then stood up and gave a speech that almost put me in tears. Good thing I don't cry.

When they lowered the casket, the crowd began to get up from ther seats to leave. I stayed only because Josh was standing by the grave while looking down at it so I didn't want to just leave him there by himself. Anya had already left because Jesse was starting to get fussy.

"I know things don't exactly feel like they're going your way lately," Josh suddenly spoke, "and I'm so sorry if you're hurting."

I looked up at him. "I'm not hurting. I'm just....mad."

His back was turned to me but I saw him nod. "I'm mad too. And I'm not even sure why. I guess all these years of watching him drink himself to death and now he's literally drank himself to death...."

Josh shrugged, taking the seat beside me with a heavy sigh. The wind had picked up as we both sat in silence while everyone around us walked towards their cars. It only took a split second of a bushy blonde head bouncing through the crowd to get me onto my feet.

"I think I just saw Nora!" I exclaimed in excitement. "But she probably won't talk to me...."

Josh nudged me with his foot. "You'll never know if you don't try."

That was all the motivation I needed. I took off across the graveyard to follow her which in all honesty was easy. She wasn't exactly the hardest to find in a crowd. I could spot her from a mile away.

"Nora!" I called out. "Nora wait!"

She paused but didn't turn to face me. "I only came to pay my respects. I didn't come here to talk to you."

Her words felt like a literal knife to my stomach. "Come on, Nora. How many times do I have to say I'm sorry before it finally goes through your thick head?"

That probably came out a little harsher than I intended because she whipped around with an angry look in her eyes. "You can say it as many times as you want. It doesn't mean anything."

"Doesn't-what? Nora, once again, you're acting like I'm the one who filmed the fucking video and uploaded it! Why are you being so damn stubborn?! Just knock it off and quit being such an ass!"

This finally brought her to tears. I tried to reach out and hug her but she raced off towards the parking lot where her dad was parked. She got into the car and pulled away, her dad offering a sad smile as he passed me on the side of the road.

I don't remember much after that. I went home angry, that much I knew, and when the red hot anger faded from my eyes the model that Nora and I had been working on was in pieces on the floor. All of our hard work gone in seconds. I'd done that. Me.

I Skyped Sam the moment I came to my senses. He answered immediately, letting me cry and yell and bitch about whatever came to mind. Occasionally he'd talk but he mostly listened which was somewhat rare for him.

"So what are you going to do about the project?" His voice sounded crackly due to the bad connection. "If you think Nora's mad at you now just wait until she finds out you trashed the model."

"I didn't trash the model. I just....temporarily displaced it," my voice faltered. "Shit, Sam. I messed up. Bad."

"You got that right. So unless you both had a plan B in case one of you screwed up, then I'd get a jump on it as soon as possible because the project is due Monday."

"I'm expelled, remember? I can't enter school grounds."

".....your brother never told you?"

I looked up at Sam through the camera. "Told me what?"

Sam's image blurred for a second before he spoke. "Lannon was at the funeral. I overheard him saying that your dad talked to him before he died and somehow managed to get you unexpelled-I know that's not a word. But yeah."

I sat there, stunned. "My dad got me back in school? Why? How?"

"Don't look at me. Your dad was the greatest lawyer in the state of California. He plays a good game when it comes to getting his way."

Sam had a point there. If anyone could convince Mr. Lannon to let me back into school, it's my dad. "Wow. I had no idea he did that for me before he died."

"Yeah well," Sam opened up a bag of chips and began to munch on them, "I'm sure Josh was going to tell you eventually. Now you just need to get a backup project to cover your ass."

Backup project? Seemed easier said than done. "Like what? I can't sculpt. Nora did the sculpting. I just drew up the plans and blueprint."

The crunching of his chips was loud in the microphone. "Play to your strengths, young Padawan. What are you really good at and know you can do effortlessly and flawlessly?"

What was I good at? I could draw but that was boring. Anyone can draw. Then there's filming-

"I've got it!" I yelled loudly, causing Sam to yelp and fall back off his computer chair. "I know what I'm going to do!"

Sam reappeared back into view. "That's great but you owe me a bag of salt and vinegar chips, Rubia."

I blew him a kiss. "I owe you much more than that. See you Monday, dude."

Logging out of Skype, I immediately opened up my video editing program with a memory card in the chip slot. The files I was looking for were all there and ready for me to use.

"Alright," I cracked my fingers and neck with a deep breath. "Let's make some magic."
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Hi there! Sorry it took so long to update. I've had writers block for the longest time so I actually had to force myself to finish this chapter so I'm sorry if it's awful.

ALSO there are only two chapters left until this book is finished! Can you believe it? This story started out as a little side project of mine and now it's become my first real finished book. I know it's not the most famous story on Wattpad nor does it have a crap ton of views but I'm proud of it. I had an idea for a story so I wrote it and here it is. I'm beyond proud of both myself and this story. We've both come a long way and the journey was amazing. But it's not over yet!

BIG NEWS! I'm actually editing earlier chapters so that they're manuscript ready and I plan on uploading them to a site I discovered called Swoon Reads. I found out about this site through a favorite author of mine who recently got published through there so this is really exciting stuff. More updates on that when they happen.

Like this chapter? Drop a comment letting me know as well as leave a vote! As always it's much appreciated ❤️