Strong (Sequel to Something Great)

Chapter 15: Forever Young

Chapter 15: Forever Young

‘Life is a short trip, the music's for the sad man…’ – Forever Young, One Direction

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Oliver's official trial was to be next year for second degree murder, attempted rape and kidnap. Now that the hearing was over, all we had to face was the funeral. At first, Evelyn, Harry, Liam and Niall had been reluctant going to the funeral but after seeing Kathy a complete mess they agreed to go for moral support. Despite what Kathy had said about Connor and his father’s rocky relationship the whole funeral was organised by his father. We’d thought Connor had no one left but we were surprised at how many people were at the funeral.

There came a great shock to us when Amanda trailed into the church escorted by a guard.

“What is she doing here?” Harry asked scornfully. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to go and strangle her.

“She’s Connor’s half-sister,” a voice from behind us said. We turned and faced the man standing behind us. He was a spitting image of Connor, the same shaped eyes and the same face structure, but his light brown hair was greying and there were wrinkles by his eyes, this man could only be Connor’s father. “You must be Kathy,” he said, formally addressing Kathy.

“Hello Mr Belrose,” she said.

“You are much prettier in real life than photos,” he complimented.

“Um thank you?” Kathy said, almost questionably. I took her hand.

“I guess my son just wasn’t good enough to keep a girl like you,” Mr Belrose sighed, looking at mine and Kathy’s intertwined hands. “Could I speak to you privately?”

Kathy nodded and followed him to the corner. 

“You don’t think he’ll do anything to her would he?” I asked.

“He looks okay,” Evelyn said. “Let’s go and sit down.”

We found seats somewhere around the middle. Kathy found us shortly afterwards. "What did he want?” I asked.

“You guys won’t believe this, but he found a letter that Connor had written me. He guessed that he wrote it when he was in jail but he never gave it to me.”

~“First of all, I want to thank you for coming. I'm sure Connor would be very happy if he knew."

"Even though Connor and I have had some... misunderstandings I still wanted to come and say... goodbye. He was after all a big part of my life."

Declan Belrose nodded. "Secondly, I was cleaning out Connor's things and I found this. He gestured to a box and on top was labelled with my name. It was all these photos and I'm guessing memoirs of you two. I also put the photos he'd framed in the box, I thought you should have it. You don't have to take it, but..."

“No, no, um thank you,” Kathy said.

“You're welcome to keep it here until after the funeral if you wish. And allow me to say one more thing, I know my son did some terrible things to you – and I apologise on his behalf – and I can’t say we were ever in good terms but I do think he loved you truly. There were a lot of framed photos of you two all around his apartment and he seemed to keep everything he had left of you.”

Kathy faltered. “I… I had no idea…”

“I don’t blame you. He hated me most of his life but you were the one who got him to come speak to me.”