Page 1 of Promise Kept

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The Whole “Welcome to the Funeral” Thing

ELLIS

This whole thing starts at a funeral.

Standing outside on a sunny afternoon, looking around, trying to avoid making eye contact with the bulky, glistening casket that contains the remains of my best friend.

To be fair, it’s been a long time since I’ve talked to him.

I’m not even sure if I can consider him a best friend.

I guess that status doesn’t matter at any point in life, does it?

Not that it matters right now.

He’s getting ready to be lowered into the ground.

To be covered by dirt.

Gone forever.

Nothing but a memory now.

As for me, I’m standing on the ground.

Not sinking in.

As far as my eyes go?

They’re open.

They’re working.

They’re staring right at the last person I should be staring at.

Hint - this is when things start to get really fucked up.

LARISSA

Who wouldn’t get drunk at their father’s funeral, right?

Especially this one.

My father didn’t grow to be some old man. He didn’t suffer from ailments or have a sudden heart attack in his sixties. Ironic enough, if he had died in his sixties, a lot of people would have said, ‘that’s so young…’

Well, here’s my father.

Forty-five. Dead.

I find it pleasant that people think it’s okay to walk up to me and point out that I had him for twenty-four years. As though that means a thing.

I’m completely alone now.

Like… really alone.

Not that I was close to my father.

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