Jack Kelly was used to funerals. The somber, mournful occasions were just a part of his life by now. For as long as he could remember, death had been a part of his life and had taken away so many people he cared about over the years. Though the young man’s choice color was blue, much of his clothing was black in mourning of the losses he had felt over the years.

The first death came early on his life. His mother had died in a car accident when he was only a couple months old, leaving him without a guiding female presence for the early part of his life. He didn’t remember her at all. The only reason he knew her name or what she looked like was because of his father. That tie disappeared when he was eight, and his father passed due to an accident on the job.

He got used to taking care of himself and others after he became an orphan. As he traveled between foster homes and group homes, death still seemed to surround him as illnesses and accidents happened to the people who came in and out of his life. His first foster mom was the first casualty, but she certainly wasn’t the last. In his almost eighteen years of life, he could no longer count the number of funerals he could remember on his fingers. Everywhere he went, death seemed to follow him. But, although he felt like the curse, he tried his hardest to protect his friends, who became more like his family than most of the foster families he had lived with.

That was why he was certain that this funeral hurt the most.

The ceremony was a blur for him. He couldn’t even remember what he said in his eulogy, though he had a pretty good idea from what was written on the script in his pocket. Everything in his mind was a bleak scene distorted by tears. Jack wasn’t normally one to cry. When he was with his real father, he had basically been taught that crying was for weaklings, but the plastic bag full of tear-stained and snot-filled tissues in his new foster mother’s bag told him that he had cried quite a lot. But, he didn’t care about looking weak. Everyone else was crying, so why not him? The only thing he remembered clearly from the event itself was watching his best friend’s coffin sink six feet under while he and the other mourners tossed dirt into the hole.

It felt wrong. He felt wrong.

When the ceremony ended and people started to depart from the cemetery, Jack’s feet stayed rooted to the ground. A large percentage of the other kids attending the funeral chose to stay as well. Most of the adults there had hardly known the young man lying in the coffin, and were only there to offer their sympathy. There weren’t many parents there either, because the dead boy had no parents and neither did most of his friends. Most of them knew each other through group homes and foster homes through the years. Jack and two other boys, Davey and Les, were the only people lucky enough to have at least one adult taking care of them at this point. The only adult that remained at the graveside was Medda, surrounded by a large group of boys.

Medda Larkin was Jack’s fifth foster mother. After years of getting to know him through school and volunteer events, she had chosen to go through the process of becoming a foster parent and had taken him in on his seventeenth birthday. She was the only person he had ever truly considered his mother, since he hadn’t known his own for long enough. She even planned on adopting him if it were at all possible. She had never had children of her own, but Jack was as close to her as her own flesh and blood. Medda had given him a good life in the few years she had been able to house him. Following years of poverty living with his father and instability while traveling in and out of foster homes, Medda offered a foundation for Jack to rebuild his life and whatever he needed to do that.

By the time the majority of the adults left, it was just Jack, Medda, and a group of ten or twelve young men who stood around the freshly dug grave. For the first time that Jack could remember with them, the entire group of rowdy teens was silent. The boys, and Medda, just stared at the grave, trying to come up with the right words to reveal their true feelings. Finally, a younger boy with freckles scattered all over his face spoke up. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

“Neither can I, Romeo, neither can I,” was all that Jack could manage to say, his voice weak and shaky.

“Why do all the good people die?” the youngest boy, a nine-year-old named Les, asked. His eyes darted around at all the other boys around him. Les and his older brother, Davey, hadn’t even known them for very long, but the two of them still felt like part of the family.

“‘Cause the world’s too awful for good people to live in,” a curly-haired blond commented, reaching in his pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. “So, it’s betta for them to go where it’s betta, rather than stay in this awful place.” After selecting a cigarette, he retrieved a lighter from his pocket and flicked it on.

“Race, please don’t. He wouldn’t want you to,” Davey pleaded.

“Sorry, Dave, but it ain’t gonna happen. It’s my only way of copin’ with the world nowadays.” With that, Race took a drag on his cigarette and looked down at the partially buried coffin. “I’m sorry to you too. You deserved better than this.”

Silence overtook the group of boys once again until another boy, one with glasses, made a comment. “Should we say somethin’ to remember him by?”

“Whaddya mean, Specs? Give him another speech about our memories with him? We already gave all ours,” a redhead named Albert stated.

Specs just shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s just gotta be something we can say about him. We all knew him for years, so there has to be something more we can say.”

“Here lies the best guy Ise ever known,” announced another boy, Elmer, as soon as Specs finished speaking. His words shut everyone up. “The adults who spoke about him all got his name wrong, because he never liked his real name, so they should probably change the tombstone.” Then, he froze. “He’s gonna have a tombstone. He shouldn’t have no tombstone…” That was when he started to cry again. Thankfully, Medda was immediately at his side with a tissue, which he used to wipe his eyes.

His friend Finch, who was standing by Elmer’s side, finished off the statement for the others. “May he rest in peace. We all know he deserves it.”

“May he rest in peace,” a few boys echoed.

After a while of silence, the crowd started to disperse. With final goodbyes to the boy lying underground, almost everyone was gone. Only Jack and Medda remained at the graveside. When the two of them were alone, Jack knelt by the hole with a frown. “I shoulda been there,” he mused with a frown on his face.

“You didn’t know, Jack. There was no way of knowing,” Medda replied sympathetically, as she rested her hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, but I knew his days were numbered. I knew the day he got sick that nothin’ would ever be the same,” Jack declared, his eyes trained on the six foot pit in front of him. “I shoulda visited more.”

“Jack,” she started, “you visited every day you could. But you had a job, homework, other responsibilities. He understood that. He’d forgive you.”

“He ain’t gonna be able to forgive me now, though.” Jack closed his eyes, trying to figure out the right words to say, but none left his lips.

“He’s someplace better, Jack, where he doesn’t have any pain. He’s forgiving you from heaven. Please don’t blame yourself.” Medda sighed and knelt down beside him. As her hand gently rested on her shoulder, she said, “Sometimes bad things happen to good people.”

Jack sighed as well, running a hand through his dark hair. “Ain’t that the truth,” he mumbled.

Medda wrapped her arm around Jack’s shoulders. “Come on, Jack,” she started, “it’s going to be okay. He wouldn’t want you to be hurting like this. He would want you to move on, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.”

With a frown, she tried to continue, “He’ll always be with you, in your heart. He’ll be watching out for you from heaven, making sure you’re okay.” She didn’t get a response to that comment, so she just continued to speak. “I know you probably want to stay, but tomorrow’s a big day. You need to get home and finish packing up. You only move into your freshman dorm once,” she pointed out.

At least this time, she earned a small laugh from the young man. “I guess you’re right.” With another sigh, he shrugged off her arm and stood up. He glanced away from the grave briefly, trying to calm himself down and prepare himself to leave.

That was when he spotted a girl across the cemetery. She was slowly strolling among the tombstones, taking her time. Maybe she was trying to get her thoughts in order before she reached her destination. With one hand she brushed some of her light brown curls from her face, and with the other, she clutched a single red flower. The mystery girl was relatively far away, but from his place, Jack could see that the girl was beautiful.

He tore his eyes away from the girl’s lovely face and turned back to the fresh grave. Medda was waiting patiently beside him, so he decided to make things short. Before they walked away, he whispered, “I’ll miss you, Crutchie.”

*****

Katherine Pulitzer felt like the rose in her hand was stabbing her in the palms, even though the stem was devoid of thorns.

She didn’t know why she came to the cemetery every month to do this. It was an idea she heard in school one week, to come to the cemetery and lay a flower at the grave of a random stranger to help beautify the place for another few days. The graves she chose were usually the ones that were run down and forgotten. Nobody was thinking of those people anymore, so she chose to remember them.

It was a strange pastime and she knew it. She didn’t tell anybody that she did it unless she trusted them, in order to keep people from judging her. That was also why she only did it once a month. It allowed her to do the kind, respectful thing before she moved on to do whatever else she needed to do for the rest of the month. Usually, she roped a couple of her trusted friends into coming with her, ones that were just as kind, like Bill, Darcy, and Hannah. Today, her friends of choice had to work, though, so she was left alone. Maybe that was what was bothering her, being alone in this place. Even though it was a nicer cemetery, she still felt out of place, like she didn’t belong here. She hadn’t had a family member die that she knew. Her grandparents were still alive or they had died before she was born. Katherine couldn’t remember any funerals at all. Maybe that was it. Being in a cemetery for her was like being in someone else’s house when they weren’t home: she had no reason to be there, so she should leave.

She tried her best to shake this feeling off and move on. As she walked, her eyes scanned the tombstones, searching for ones that were looking unloved. She found one that she had laid a flower at last month, and was pleased to find another flower lying on the ground in front of the stone. Claudia Young, the woman who was buried there, was being remembered, either by a family member or another kindred spirit. With a small smile on her lips, she whispered, “Rest in peace, Claudia,” then moved on.

At the end of a path, she found a stone that was practically illegible. All she could tell was that the person’s name started with “J,” and that he or she had died in September of a mystery year. Whoever it was, “J” seemed like a perfect candidate for this month’s flower. She smiled faintly and placed the red rose on the ground in front of the run-down stone.

“Rest in peace, ‘J’,” she whispered kindly, and she was soon on her way back in the direction she came in.

As she walked, Katherine noticed a freshly dug grave in the middle of the cemetery. There was a pair of people walking away from it dressed in black, who she guessed were the last of the mourners. At that same time, some workers were coming over to finish filling in the grave. Maybe next month, she thought, he’ll get my flower, whoever that is. Yes, her general rule was that it had to be someone who seemed to be forgotten, but sometimes she made an exception. She laid one a few months ago at the grave of a five-year-old who died of an accidental gunshot wound.

Suddenly, she felt her phone buzz in her pocket. Katherine had turned off her sound, but according to the custom vibration pattern, she still immediately knew who was calling. It was her father. Why was she not surprised?

She pulled out her phone and pressed “ignore,” then continued her leisurely stroll out of the cemetery. Katherine had a lot more to think about than her father. After all, she was finally moving out of her home and into her dorm tomorrow. Independence was finally at her fingertips, and she wasn’t going to blow it.

*****

A/N Hi everyone! So, I know I've got another book going right now that's a Newsies fanfiction, and a few more books going right now too, but when this idea came to me, I couldn't help writing it. I hope you guys like it.

Like The World Will Know (as of two weeks ago or something) and my other works, this book will not have an updating schedule due to my schoolwork and college applications needing to be completed. I'm sorry about that delay, but I'll try to post chapters as soon as I can write them. I don't want to keep you waiting too long for anything I write. Hopefully writer's block won't show up with this story. I'm really excited to share it with you.

Anyway, thanks for reading chapter one! Please vote and comment on this story. I'd really appreciate your feedback. See you next week!