They Called My Death a Tantrum, So I Stayed Dead novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Memorial

The church was full by ten-thirty, and people were standing along the back wall.

There was a casket this time, closed, with my photo on an easel beside it.

I stood next to the photo.

Nobody could see me, and I had stopped minding.

Cadence stood at the lectern in the same plain black dress.

She had a stack of index cards in her hand.

"I'm not going to talk long," she said. "Ewan wasn't a man who liked it when people talked about him. So I'm going to ask you to do it. If you have something he did for you, come up and say it. Anything. Take as long as you need."

She looked at the front pew.

Alden and Lorna sat there alone, with a wide gap of empty wood on either side of them.

"The family will listen," Cadence said.

It was her plan, and I could see all of it.

She meant for them to sit through every single thing they had never asked about.

The freight coworker went first.

Then the landlady.

Then a man I had driven to the airport at four in the morning, three years ago, because his car wouldn't start.

A teenage girl said I had fixed her bike chain outside the library and then given her my own lock.

The line grew along the aisle.

My mother sat very straight, and her lips moved a little, and I realized she was counting them.

At a quarter past eleven, the side door opened.

Pierce came in alone.

He wore a black suit that hung on him, and his face was the color of paper.

The band on his wrist was a deep, solid red.

Four.

Nobody turned to make room.

He walked up the center aisle with fifty people watching, took the microphone out of the hands of a woman who was halfway through a sentence, and said, "I'd like to speak about my brother."

← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend