I wear my concert black to the funeral. It's the only thing I can think of to wear.

I barely manage to get the dress on over my head, and then I put my pantyhose and my flats on. I hate pantyhose, but I especially hate pantyhose today. Worst part is it's a goddamn nice day outside, not a damn cloud in the sky. Would have been a great day to sit on the roof and play the recorder.

I don't say a word as Dad drives me to the funeral home. With this as many other things, he's covering all of the basic expenses, since Jaewon's parents couldn't afford it. I don't want to be here, and I especially don't want to see them, but I don't have a choice. Thankfully, I follow Dad into the funeral home, and the first person I see in the lobby is August.

He makes eye contact with me, and then he steps forward and hugs me, and we cry for fifteen minutes straight. We feel someone else envelop us, and of course it's J.P., bawling like an idiot as well. Amber arrives last, still in her LBD, the dress that will never get enough uses. She doesn't cry at all, but walks past us straight into the main room. We hear her screaming five seconds later.

"You absolute fucking idiot! You should have told us something was up!"

There's more words, and then, "No, you get away from me. I will play nice, but I will NOT have ANYTHING to do with you." Well, if Amber's gonna get into it with Jaewon's parents, my interaction can't be any worse. August takes one hand, J.P. takes the other, and we walk in.

There's pictures everywhere, old items set up on tables, things like that. There are people walking around looking at Jaewon's things whom I've never met before, and I'm not sure I want to meet them now. They're probably his family, if you could even call them that. I squeeze August and J.P.'s hands, as if to say, don't let go of me, I can't do this alone. And August squeezes my hand back.

In one corner is Jaewon's graduation standee, with pictures from when he was a kid, growing up into high school. And then there's the box. It was cheaper than a full burial, and I had been SO MAD when Dad said they had already cremated him because I had wanted to see him one last time. But now that I'm actually here, I'm glad I don't have to see him. I'm glad he's just kind of...in the box.

August and J.P. don't let go of me the entire time, not when we sit down for the service, not even when August gets up to say something, leaving me with J.P.. I can't even think straight, so I'm kind of glad I have a massive football player to lean on. When August says something dumb about "he loved all of us," I have to excuse myself, and J.P. follows, still not letting go of my hand.

"He said he loved me, that last night on the phone," I wail. "I didn't get a chance to tell him."

"He knew," J.P. says as he hugs me. "I know that for a fact, Emmaline. He knew."

There's no graveside burial service, because Mr. and Mrs. Wright are going to take the box home with them. And that's the worst part about this entire thing. They get Jaewon, for the rest of their lives, and I won't ever get a piece of him ever again. It's unfair. It's like they've won. They were the ones who drove him to madness in the first place, who didn't pay attention to his depression, and they are the ones who get to keep him forever.

And all I have is his recorder and memories.

I make it through the rest of the service, and then Dad drives me home. And then I lock myself in my room, and I cry, because I can't think of anything else to do, because there is literally nothing that I can do other than cry.

Dad doesn't force me to get a job. I had been talking about it, teaching piano for a while and getting students, or otherwise getting some menial job at the mall to last me for a while until I started at CBSU. I'm living at home for the first year, but starting as a sophomore Dad wants me on campus. Which means that technically I could sit in my room and cry for pretty much the entirety of my first college year. And quite frankly, right now that would be fine by me.

I can't watch anything. I can't do anything. It's weighing on my head, like a huge blanket that I can't take off. I don't even turn on my computer for two whole weeks. I finally emerge when Dad says he has an entire row of Care Bears tapes from Blockbuster. "They were looking to unload them," he says.

"You're an idiot," I say, and Care Bears is about all I can watch right now, so I watch every tape all in a row. By my third watch-through, I'm feeling a little bit more like myself, but still a mess, still unable to do anything. I'm not crying anymore, and I feel bad for not crying.

Eventually, I get up on my own again. I watch something other than Care Bears on TV, but I don't watch anime. And whereas the first week I didn't eat anything other than popsicles, I finally eat solid food again, and even stomach the pizza we got for takeout. But I don't do much more than that, I don't go outside, and I definitely don't touch the Korg.

I fall asleep on the couch one day. When I wake up, the Korg is no longer in my room. My dad has taken it back to the storage unit, with the rest of Walking on Starlight's equipment. Just like everything else, it is no longer needed.