Mental Ward (Jalex)

Chapter Twenty Two

  One week. One whole week it's been since Jack Barakat died. No matter how many times those words left my lips they still seemed unreal, how could they be real. Today was the day of Jack's funeral. I was being allowed to attend, only a set of nurses and Doctor Ashby were being sent with me. I knew this day was going to be hell, but I was ready.

  In my hand I held a sheet a of paper were I'd written and rewritten what I was going to say during the funeral. I'd asked if I could sing a song Jack and I had written together and by some chance I was allowed to, so in the trunk of this car was my guitar. I didn't know how this was going to go, I didn't even know who was going to be there, all I knew was Jack would want me to speak.

   In my life I always tried to avoid funerals, at my grandfathers when I was six I stayed outside the church and when he was being burried I made Tom, my brother, or Tommy as I then called him, wait in the car with me, and during Tom's funeral I tried my hardest to stay the whole time, but I found myself repeatly going to the bathroom to cry, and when he was being buried I stood in the back of the crowd and simply wished that I was somewhere else, but now during Jack's I knew I wouldn't leave and I wouldn't stay in the back, I needed to be here.

   The drive was painstaking slow, and it gave me too much time to think. I thought of when I'd first met Jack how easily I grew to trust the skunk haired boy, I thought of the butterflies that grew in my stomach as we grew to know each other, I thought of how I'd snuck him onto the roof and there we kissed for the first time, I thought of when I gave him a blowjob, teenage hormones make you do some strange things, and I also thought of our first 'I love you', and I still loved him, even though he was dead. It took a while for a me to realize what love was, I always assumed it to be like the movies, I assumed so much of it, but now I know what it is. Love is beautiful, love is kind, love is willing to do anything for the other person, love is knowing they have flaws but you overlook it because in your eyes they are perfect, love is believing them when all signs show you shouldn't, and love is something that you feel even when the person is being prepared to be buried.

   We arrived at the Church and I took a breath in when I recognized it as the same one where Tom's was held. I walked in and I took my seat near the front. The casket was closed but I knew it'd be open soon. Soon people began to trickle in, at first there were people who I assumed to be Jack's extended family, then a group a children came in all ranging from the ages of two to seventeen, and I realized this was who was in Jack's most recent group home. I went up to the person who I assumed to be the caretaker and greeted them.

   "Did Jack live in your group home?" I asked.

   "Yes, did you know him?" She replied.

   "Um, yes I was his boyfriend."

   "Alex, is that you?" She asked.

   "Yep," I said, with a smile.

   "I want you to know that he did love you," She said.

    I gave her a weak smile, and I walked back to my seat and waited for the service to start. When I looked back, I saw the church was nearly full and there in the back row sat Zack, Rian, Kellin, and Vic. It gave me a sense of comfort to know they were here, and I needed that.

  Soon the priest arrived at he began to speak, and it seemed as though he had gotten a sheet of paper that said the most commonly used speech's at funerals and copied it. As he spoke I thought of how much Jack would hate this, how he'd hate the idea of not being unique, how he'd hate the music playing, and how dumb the whole thing seemed. God I missed that boy. Each person that went up to speak seemed to be making up all they said, and I knew none of them knew Jack as I did. The only speech that mattered to me was the one of his caretaker.