The Framing

The wake

December 19th 2015 10:02am
"We're already late mom, hurry up." I said as she tried to find a parking spot outside of the church. It wasn't her funereal yet, it was only a pre-gathering or whatever. Which started two minutes ago.

She parked next to Jeremy's new car and we all walked in together as a family. A lot more people showed up than I expected, from the way I saw it, she didn't have many friends. She really only had me.

We sat next to this family full of people that I had never seen before, I figured they were part of her extended family or something. I kept quiet and paid attention to what the priest had to say.

I didn't know why this was being held at a church. Julia wasn't even Catholic, and I'm pretty sure Catholics believe that if you kill yourself, you go to hell.

After many people were done speaking, the priest came back up, said a few words and it was over. It was the quickest hour of my life.

I went up to Jeremy who was sitting with Neil. I could tell Jeremy dragged him here because Neil had said about 3 full words to Julia ever. And being gay wasn't exactly the number one thing Catholic people enjoyed.

"Okay well now that that's over, what did you want to do?" I asked them.

"We should go out to eat and then hang out at Jeremy's." Neil suggested. I didn't care what we did, I just wanted to think about other things.

I texted my mom telling her where I would be and she said "ok".

"Ally I'll let you pick where we should go out to eat." Jeremy said and pulled out of the church.

"Let's go to Chipotle then."

"Ok never mind, Ally is not picking where we eat due to the fact that Chipotle is gross." Jeremy kept driving.

"You shut your mouth, it is delicious and you know it."

"Okay so maybe it does taste good, but I would like to live my life without getting E-Coli. Or whatever the hell is in their food."

I sighed, "Ugh you are so annoying. Fine then let's just go to Pizza Hut."

Jeremy smiled, "Now that is something I can agree with."

He pulled into the parking lot that had a Pizza Hut. We all got out and went inside, there was absolutely no one but us.

"How do these people stay in business?" I asked as we all sat down.

"What do you mean?" Neil asked.

"Literally every time I go inside one of these, it is empty. Or at least close to it."

Jeremy shrugged, "I don't care. Just as long as they give us food. Plus they have delicious chocolate dessert bread sticks."

After a while, a waiter came to our table. It took a lot longer than it should have considering we are the only ones inside.

We ordered drinks, I got an unsweetened ice tea, Neil got Mountain Dew and Jeremy got a Coke.

"Are we going to order appetizers?" I asked looking at the menu.

"No, we aren't made of money Ally." Neil joked. I rolled my eyes, "Well maybe if we explain to them we were at a funeral, they will give us a discount."

"I don't think that's how it works. Although it should because I am starving." Jeremy said.

We ordered one large pizza that we all would share and refills.

"It better not take long, it's not like they have anything else to be doing." I said.

Right after I said that, another family walked in. It didn't matter much, they were way overstaffed for never having customers.

Jeremy played with one of the table mats while we waited. Neil and I played Rock Paper Scissors.

It didn't feel like it was that long, but half an hour went by and we still didn't have any food. I began to grow impatient, but it was quickly brought out from the kitchen.

"Well it is about time." I whispered. The food was placed on our table and we all began to eat.

"I always forget that their pizza doesn't taste very good." Jeremy said.

"Yeah, every time I come here I have this high expectation that it will be delicious. Maybe that's why not many people ever come here." Neil started to laugh.

We finished up our food, Jeremy and Neil bought those chocolate dunker things and ate them as dessert.

"Who is going to pay?" I asked.

"I guess I will." Neil said and put in a few twenty dollar bills.

We all left, "It still isn't late if you guys want to head back to my place." Jeremy said.

We all said yes and Jeremy began to drive. It was pretty obvious we weren't going to say no. No part of me wanted to go to my house. Everything there is so sad and I always feel like I should be helping my parents.

Jeremy pulled into his driveway. "What do you guys even want to do?" He asked.

We walked inside and looked around. He had absolutely nothing.

"Oh you guys are home." A girl walked out of the kitchen. I wasn't used to his aunt being here.

"Oh yeah we just got back from lunch-dinner. Where are you getting back from?"

"I just got back from a flight to Hawaii." She smiled. "I wish they would have let me off of the plane, Hawaii seemed like a beautiful place."

"Okay well the three of us are going to go upstairs if you need anything." Jeremy said.

She waved at us and we left. There was something I admired about his aunt, she was always smiling and did a fantastic job at destroying the stereotype that "all people with tattoos are bad."

Jeremy jumped on his bed, it had been nearly a week since I had been in here. The last time was when I found out who Julia really was.

Except that was all behind me now. There was nothing I could do, I couldn't save her. She was really gone a long time ago.