I had no choice to be the stronger one.

With their son dead and the bills from the hospital and medication piling up, my parents were stressed and depressed beyond belief. They would cry and I would hug them. They would express their concerns and I would listen and reassure them. The funeral, put together by my grandma, was in one week. We had a showing the day before with an open casket, meaning that family I haven't seen in a long time would be there. I was nervous because I didn't generally like big groups of people since I wasn't really a social person to begin with. But I would power through for my parents, and for Charlie, of course.

When they weren't crying, I was crying.

My grandma wanted Charlie's room cleaned out but my parents decided against it.
"You can still smell his scent in there." Mom said. "It's that cologne we got him for Christmas when he was fifteen. I can't believe that things lasted that long. He used it every day."
I agreed with her. The only thing we took out was the oxygen machine and when it was gone, I felt something missing in that room. It was as if the machine was Charlie. But maybe it was because it kept him alive for so long. I only took one thing out of there and one thing only. That one thing was our photo album. He kept it hidden under his bed and we took a picture every day before I would leave for school (Or whenever it was convenient for me since he was home-schooled). That was the first time I cried about him being gone. I didn't cry when he first died at the hospital because my parents did that for me. I also locked and closed my door when I first felt the tears coming (After making sure that they were doing okay of course. I needed to be there for them when they were upset.) and I cried for hours on end. The showing and funeral were going to break me, I just knew it.