CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WILL'S FUNERAL

To say Aaron felt out of place as he walked alone on the grass would be an understatement. He had bunched up the sleeves of his suit so he could hold onto them tightly in hope to calm his swiftly rising nerves.

Each person in attendance to the funeral walked along to the casket with their family and loved ones, Aaron was hoping he could walk along side the party, unfortunately for him they all had their family in attendance along side them.

Steve had dropped Aaron off just like he said he would, but that was all. The older boy didn't get out of the car, he didn't even turn the engine off as Aaron left the car. Aaron didn't blame his older brother for not attending the funeral with him, Steve didn't know Will.

Aaron supposed it was good enough that Steve had driven him, his parents hadn't even called.

But he couldn't deny that the comfort would have been nice. All his other friends had their families show up for their own comfort.

Upon reaching the spot where all in attendance had paused and surrounded the hole in the ground, Aaron looked around him as adults who he didn't recognise made their way over to stand by him. The boy began to inwardly panic, nervously adjusting his clothes.

"Aaron?" A familiar voice called out in a whisper, causing Aaron to flinch as he looked to his left with a wide eyed expression. "Come stand with us."

Aaron scratched his neck and frantically nodded, quickly making his way over to the woman who had called on him - Mrs Sinclair.

Aaron loved the Sinclair family. Though none of them were aware of his situation at home, they knew his parents weren't exactly present. The Sinclair's occasionally asked Aaron over for dinners when his parents were away, much to his delight as Steve was never home to have dinner with him. And Aaron hated the nights he had to spend in the big empty house himself.

There was no denying that Lucas Sinclair was Aaron's best friend. The two always had been and always would, they had the type of friendship where they could argue all they liked, yet never really fell out over it.

Dustin and his mom were stood to the right of the Sinclair's while Mike and his family were stood to the left.

The four boys exchanged smug smiles with one another as Aaron approached, as if to say the entire thing was a waste of time seeing as they knew Will wasn't really dead. Aaron forced the smile onto his face, trying not to show how bothered he was by the entire situation.

The boys were quickly broken apart by Mike's mother, the woman scolding the boys and pushing them to face ahead where the service had already begun.

Aaron tried not to look at the casket in front of him, knowing he'd crumble.

Aaron was a fragile boy, he always had been. For some unknown reason, the boy took most things to heart, he couldn't help it. He found it difficult not to show he was bothered by something, or to keep his emotions at bay. Although, he had gotten better at keeping himself and his emotions calm. Now, he only ever found himself cracking in certain circumstances, his family as well as his friends funeral definitely being some of them.

Aaron was just glad that his father wasn't there to see him at Will's funeral, he'd have never heard the end of how embarrassing his behaviour was.

Aaron tried so hard to be nonchalant, he really did. But he couldn't help it, he wasn't good at pretending everything was fine when he wasn't. He always overreacted to everything, panicking and stressing out over the smallest things.

Aaron bit the inside of his cheek hard and dropped his gaze to his shoes as the casket began to lower into the ground.

Aaron knew it was pathetic, but he couldn't help but get upset at the sight. He knew Will wasn't dead, yet, the funeral setting just made it all too real for the boy. The thought of any one of his friends dying was too much for him.

None of his other friends were crying at the thought of Will dying, and they shouldn't be. Aaron had just overthought things, as per usual. He took a shaky breath, hoping not to draw attention to himself and covered his eyes with his hand hoping to repress the tears which had began to fall.

"Jesus, Aaron are you really crying?" Lucas whispered from his side, accidentally drawing the attention of Mike and Dustin who began to giggle. "It's not real."

"Lucas," his mother scolded, reaching out and pulling Aaron into her side as he continued to sob. "You leave him alone. Your friend has just died." 

Aaron couldn't see, but he could have guessed that Lucas replied with only a roll of his eyes before shifting back to the sight before him.

Despite all of the issues at hand, Aaron couldn't help but feel utterly mortified at the stares of sympathy which were no doubt being sent his way as his sobbing only slipped further and further from his control.

Aaron did his best to calm himself down, now only sniffling as he furiously wiped his face on his sleeve and took deep shaky breaths to easy his stress.

The funeral didn't continue for much longer, the longer it went on, the more Aaron managed to control himself and wipe his face clean of tears.

...

While at the small ceremony after the funeral, the party nervously approached Mr Clarke, hoping for some sort of explination as to what Eleven had been implying when referring to Will and his hiding spot.

"Mr Clarke?" Mike asked in a small yet nervous voice, Lucas and Aaron pushing him forward to speak as they stood behind him.

"Oh, hey, there." The older man replied sadly, a small smile still tugging on his lips never the less before his smile dropped and he turned to Aaron with a pitiful expression. "How are you holding up, Aaron? Feeling any better?"

Aaron felt his cheeks go bright red at the comment, his face falling into a sheepish expression upon realising the man had seen his sobbing while outside.

"He's much better now, aren't you, Aaron?" Lucas replied quickly as he gripped his shoulder upon realising both Aaron's embarrassed expression as well as the fact the sandy haired blond wasn't going to reply. "Wouldn't mention it again if I was you, wouldn't want to set him off."  

The man nodded sadly, seemingly missing the way Aaron's face only grew redder at the accusation thrown his way.

"We were wondering if you had time to talk?" Mike prompted in a faux sad voice, quickly changing the subject. "We have some questions."

Aaron and Lucas nodded instantly, wearing the saddest faces they could muster.

"Yeah, we have a lot of questions." Dustin added soon, his voice muffled by the large portion of candy he had stuffed into his mouth.

The man nodded once again, motioning for the four boys to follow him to his table, which they did. Following him without hesitation. Although the second his back was turned Aaron was shoving Lucas' hold off his shoulder, causing a mini yet silent altercation to erupt between the two as they walked.

Because of this, the two were the last to take a seat at the table, and by this point Mike had already began talking.

"So, you know how in Cosmos, Carl Sagan talks about other dimensions? Like, beyond our world?" Mike questioned at an impressively rapid pace as the two boys sat down. Pausing for a brief second to allow the teacher a chance to nod. 

"Yeah, sure." The man replied calmly. "Theoretically."

"Right, theoretically." Mike mused quickly while nodding his head.

"So, theoretically," Lucas chimed in from across the table, his voice curious. "How do we travel there?"

The man quirked a suspicious brow at the question. "You guys have been thinking about Hugh Everette's Many-Worlds Interpretation, haven't you?"

The group hid their taken aback looks - they hadn't been wondering about the Many-Worlds Interpretation. None of them even knew what that was, Aaron had never even heard of it.

"Well, basically, there are parallel universes," Mr Clarke continued after the brief silence. "Just like our world, but just infinite variations of it. Which means there's a world out there where none of this tragic stuff ever happened-"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Aaron blurted, his face scrunched in confusion as he looked to the older man before them, choosing to ignore the horrified stare Mike was sending him. Although his cheeks grew pink at the look Mr Clarke sent him and he instantly began searching his brain for a lie to get him out of the situation he'd put himself in. He quickly forced a look of sadness on his face before speaking up in an upset whisper.  "Sorry, I'm just so, so distraught about what's happened, can't even think straight."

Mr Clarke sent him a reassuring smile and nod before Lucas spoke up.

"Yeah, that's not what we're talking about." Lucas injected in an awkward tone.

"Oh." Mr Clarke murmured, seemingly slightly embarrassed. 

"We were thinking of more an evil dimension," Dustin stated with an innocent look on his face which did not match his wording. "Like the Vale of Shadows. You know the Vale of Shadows?"

Mr Clarke looked to him with a puzzled expression for a moment before speaking up once more. "An echo of the Material Plane, where necrotic  and shadow magic-" 

"Yeah, exactly." Mike cut him off by stating. "If that did exist, a place like the Vale of Shadows, how would we travel there?"

"Theoretically." Lucas added.

"Well..." Mr Clarke began, looking almost unsure as how he would go about describing it before he abruptly picked up a paper plate to demonstrate, drawing a line down the centre as well as a stick man. "Picture an acrobat standing on a tightrope."

Aaron tilted his head in confusion as he listened to the man.

"Now, the tightrope is our dimension. And our dimension has rules." The man continued to explain, still drawing on the plate to add to his hand made diagram. "You can move forwards, or backwards. But, what if right next to the acrobat, there is a flea?"

Aaron only felt himself grow more and more confused as the man carried on.

"Now, the flea can also travel back and forth, just like the acrobat." Mr Clarke went on, still drawing on the plate. "But, here's where things get really interesting. The flea can also travel this way, along the side of the rope. He can even go underneath the rope."

The four boys looked to eachother with wide eyed expressions.

"The upside down." They chorused Eleven's words from earlier.

"Exactly." Mr Clarke nodded.

"But we're not the flea, we're the acrobat?" Mike questioned carefully.

"In this metaphor, yes, we're the acrobat." Mr Clarke agreed simply.

"So, we can't go upside down?" Lucas questioned in a puzzled voice.

"No." Mr Clarke confirmed quickly.

"Well, is there a way for the acrobat to get to the upside down?" Dustin queried, his face morphed into a puzzled expression similar to Aaron's.

"Well..." the man trailed off, thinking over his answer. "You'd have to create a massive amount of energy. "More than humans are currently capable of creating, to open up some kind of tear in time and space. And then..." Mr Clarke trailed off, suddenly poking a hole straight through the paper plate with his pen. "You create a doorway."

"Like a gate?" Dustin questioned, his face now showing nothing but interest.

"Sure," Mr Clarke nodded, "like a gate. But again, this is all-"

"Theoreticall." Lucas and Aaron nodded in usion, their voices void of any emotion.

"What if this gate already existed?" Mike surprised the man by asking.

"Well, if it did I think we'd know." Mr Clarke replied calmly, unable to hide the surprise burned into his features. "It would distrust gravity, the magnetic field, our environment. It might even swallow us up whole."

Aaron gasped at the man's last sentence, his face dropping in fear as he brung his hands to his mouth. The other three boys ignored this and looked back to the teacher with blank expressions.

"Science is neat." Mr Clarke continued, nodding in Aaron's direction. "But I'm afraid it's not very forgiving."

...

Later that day, Aaron was dropped off back home by Steve as well as his friend Tommy. Although despite the fact the two were picking him up from his friends funeral, Aaron hadn't managed to get home without Tommy making a comment or two about the dried tears on his cheeks as well as the pink tip of his nose.

Steve hadn't said anything in his defence, Aaron didn't expect him to.

Once again, Aaron returned to an empty, dark, cold house. He pulled off his tie and kicked off his shoes upon entering the kitchen, sitting down and eating his dinner while taking the only occupied seat at the table.

Aaron's father may criticise him for performing rather poorly in many areas of life, but if there was one thing Aaron could do, it was cook. Although, he supposed he had to be good at it, seeing as it was either he taught himself how to make himself dinner or he didn't eat dinner at all.

He could have ordered a pizza, but Aaron only liked to have pizza while with his friends on occasion. He worried that maybe if he ordered himself pizza everytime he was left himself - which was more often than not - he'd end up mixing the two situations together. Which was the last thing he wanted.

It wasn't long before he left the table, suddenly not interested in his dinner as he left half of it still sitting on the plate.

He wondered up the stairs to his room, gently closing the door behind him and changing into his pyjamas. Carefully fixing the creases in his bedsheets with his hand. He didn't bother look at himself in the mirror, he didn't want to be reminded of the embarrassment of what he had done at the funeral.

Huffing, he crawled into his bed, burying his face in his pillow as he relived the embarrassment on a constant loop.

Without lifting his head he reached his arm out, grabbing onto his green stuffed rabbit which he was embarrassed to admit he still couldn't fall asleep without and pulled it into his chest.

...

An entire chapter in Aaron's pov whattt??

Anyway I hope this kind of helped you get a deeper insight to what Aaron is actually like and but how he is just through the eyes of Kimmy.

I actually really like writting in Aaron's pov lol.

- AJ :)