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SHE HAD NEVER THOUGHT IT would come true. When he died for the first time, the time he came back, she'd shaken the thought away. He would have a funeral, and she would've had to pull on the darkness her heart sunk in just to visit his body one more time, for the last time, for the time she never wanted to come.
She stood beside her friends, not her family, because even her mother didn't know Atticus like she did - no one did. Her friends understood that, everyone at the funeral understood that, which was why she was crying between Atticus' mum, his brother, and the friends he'd left behind.
His casket was in front of her, yet she refused to look. Alexander was crying this time, because Sylvia knew her oldest son wouldn't return. She'd told him, pressured it into his young and naïve mind until he screamed. He was just so young, too young, to have to push through. His brother had raised him on behalf of their disappearance of a father, and now, he had to live with the thought of eventually growing older than his older brother.
Renna watched from the corner of her eye as the hopeless mother hugged her youngest, someone talking in the distance. She let out a shaky breath, allowing one more tear to slip from her eye as she awaited her fate. She was next, she would have to stand in front of the grieving crowd and share her boyfriend's life while trying to ignore his absence. She wasn't supposed to be doing this, they died together. Although she was standing there, in the middle of the grassy graveyard, it dawned on her. They did die together. Her soul wasn't with her anymore, it was buried with his own.
She couldn't remember walking up to the front of the field, standing on the small, wooden platform as everyone nodded at her out of respect. Everyone knew her, young and old, because she was Renna fucking Lewis. She was the down spiral, the tragedy, the end result of the saddest of movies. It seemed that the island had doomed her, the gold, the treasure. She should've pulled away, left and stole her friends away with her. After all, if it wasn't for the chase, her father would be happy, her friends would be happy, and she would be happy, because Atticus would be there. And yet, there she stood, in front of a crowd full of tears, a shaking piece of paper in her hands, as she tried to hold her overwhelming sadness back from brimming over.
She gulped it down and scrunched the paper into a tough ball, pressing it between her hands as she tried to form a smile. It fell straight away. "Atticus-" her voice broke, and so she stopped and looked down with a shaky breath. Her eyes slowly moved up and landed on her friends. All of them, every single one, gave her a supportive nod with proud smiles. Suddenly, she could softly smile too.
She looked up, her eyes setting in the distance. "I don't think anyone ever really knew Atticus." And that was all she had to say, yet she had so much more. Atticus was so much more. He was worth everything in the world. Then why didn't he remain?
