As Dylan pulled the old black convertible off the main highway and onto the side street, Andrea glanced at him with a perplexed look. It was strange to feel the connection that she did to him. She had watched two of her friends battle it out over the man during their teenage years, a time when she harbored a crush for her then-best friend, Brandon. Back then, she had never really understood the feelings they felt for the guy.
Their friendship had never really been much until after his father died. After Jack's death, it was Andrea that he went to for help with his writing. Not Kelly, his girlfriend, or Brandon, his best friend, it was curly-haired brunette he had trusted with his emotions. She likes to think that is when their connection began, and over the years, it would always reappear in their lives when they needed it most.
When had she needed him most? Hands down, it was during her affair with Peter. When Andrea was ruining her life, Dylan had inadvertently found out about her afternoon excursion to the dingy motel room with the doctor. Never judgmental but forever supportive, he had been there when she wouldn't let anyone else in. Thinking back over the years, her feelings for Dylan were starting to have some sort of validation. They might not make sense to anyone else, but they were hers and she wasn't about to apologize for them.
"What's got you so far gone?" Dylan asked as he pulled the car abruptly into a parking space at the church. The inertia caused a stack of books to fall into her lap, a range of literature that covered everything from Byron and Keats to Chaucer and Shakespeare.
"I see your choices in literature haven't changed," she commented, shoving the books to the consul between them. His taste in books had never really fit his bad boy persona. "I was just thinking about the time you found me at the motel. Do you remember that?"
Dylan shifted uncomfortably next to her. Of course he remembered. He'd held her when she had broken down in tears. It was one of the few times Dylan had ever seen her lose her composure when it wasn't over school. The raw emotional element of the moment had been something that stayed with them both for many years. "That was a long time ago. What brought that on?"
"I don't know," she lied. "I guess I was just thinking about all the times that we have all gone through since high school. My affair with Peter had a theme that would resound throughout my marriage to Jesse. It wasn't the cheating that reoccurred, it was the lying. We lied about how we felt for each other for years, long after the feeling had faded away."
Dylan stared blankly at the steering wheel. Andrea had always been able to state how others were feeling without doing it on purpose. Looking across the seat at her, he knew that he shouldn't be having these kind of emotions for her. They made no sense. No one would ever expect them to work. Some might even say she was wrong for him, but everything screamed in his heart that he needed to try. He wasn't ready to act on them quite yet, but there, in front of the cathedral, he vowed to do it before she got on the plane for Boston.
Brenda and David were the next to pull into the parking lot, loud hip hop music blaring from the speakers. Their laughter was barely audible over the pounding bass line, which automatically cutout as soon as the car had come to a stop. Flipping down the visor, Brenda smoothed out her eye makeup and straightened her topknot in the mirror. David was leaning back against the seat, his eyes closed in concentration. "Penny for your thoughts?"
David's eyes flew open. "I was just thinking how weird this all is. I've been to a lot of funerals over the years, Scott's in high school and my grandfather's in college. When I went to Donna's dad's a few years ago, I thought that the next wave of deaths would be our parents. I never thought that one of our best friends would be the next to go."
"I didn't know Janet, but Brandon said she was a lovely woman. What can you tell me about her? I already feel like an imposter for coming today, so maybe it would help to know a little bit about her."
"Janet was absolutely perfect for Steve. She made him grow up, something I never thought anyone would be capable of doing. But, she also kept the best parts of him, the childlike humor and the willingness to do anything for a laugh. She was beautiful and intelligent, a truly gifted journalist. An amazing mother, she made Madeline their entire life."
"Sounds like a great person. I wish I had known her better. I shouldn't have stayed away so long," Brenda mused, looking out the window.
David smiled. "You did what you thought was right at the time. Things change, people change. We're not the same people we thought we would be when we were sixteen. I thought I would be a famous musician by now, married to Donna with a heard of kids. Instead, I'm a programming director for a radio station, still doing my show out of the After Dark. Donna and I only tolerate each other these days, and we stopped talking about having kids three years ago."
"I'm sorry, David, I know that must be hard."
"It used to be a lot harder than it is now," he admitted. "It's like we don't even care anymore. Donna has tried, and maybe I should have tried harder. But we always had some excuse to explain it away, some random justification to make it okay. I hate myself for doing that to her. She deserves better than that, better than me."
"Donna loves you, David. No one is forcing her to stay," Brenda countered. "There is no one better than you out there, David Silver. Trust me, I've looked. I've been to London, Paris, Rome, New York and Los Angeles. I've traveled all over the world and I'm yet to find someone better for Donna than you."
"We're not the same people we were in high school, Bren," David told her. "No offense, but you don't really know Donna or me that well anymore. But think back, to when you did know us. Whenever I got stressed, I would always take it out on her. When I lost my record deal, I took it out on her. When she didn't want to have sex with me, I cheated on her. When I lost the video deal in college, I was mean to her. When my grandfather died, I mistreated her. The examples are countless, but Donna always stayed. The only difference between then and now it's mutual these days."
Brenda thought for a moment, her mind flashing back to those first days of college when David had been going through one of his dark spells. She had been the one to break through to him at the dance contest. Donna hadn't been able to get through then, though Brenda was sure that there were times when she hadn't been able to tear down the wall. They'd shared a connection that afternoon, a sexual tension somewhat alleviated through sensual moves on a makeshift dance floor. "You're right, David. I don't know anything anymore."
Kelly and Brandon were already making their way into the church. The tears had already come for the blonde, slowly tracing their maiden voyage down her dewy skin. Automatically, Brandon reached up and wiped them away with the cuff of his pale blue shirt. Kelly reached up for his wrist and held it there until he moved to cup her cheek. Pressing her face into his palm, she shivered at his mere touch.
For the first time in six years, she didn't know where Dylan was, and she wasn't thinking about it. Her focus was on the moment in front of her with the man beside her. Life had never felt as right as when Brandon was a part of it. Since the night of skinny-dipping on the beach, part of her had always known that it would eventually come back to her ex-fiancée some day.
"This is harder than I thought," she whispered aloud, half talking about Janet's funeral and half referring to what was going on between them. "How do we do this?"
Intuiatively, Brandon knew exactly what she meant. "We take a deep breath, go in the church and try to find a way to get through the day. We'll cry and we'll mourn, and then, we'll wake up tomorrow to a brand new day. Then, we'll figure out the rest of our lives."
"How do you always know what to say?" Kelly asked, wrapping her arm around Brandon's sturdy waist and pressing her body into his. She enjoyed the warmth of his body next to hers, their proximity creating prickly bumps up her bare arms.
"Are you cold?" Brandon asked worriedly. She shook her head but Brandon stopped anyhow. Pulling off his jacket, he draped it around her. Then, placing his arm back to where it had been, he led her into the church. Stopping to sign the book, he watched as Kelly neatly printed their names on the same line. Even our names look right together, he thought, well aware that it was a silly sentiment. Her arm didn't return to his waist but her had did manage to find his.
"Look, there's Andrea and Dylan," Kelly pointed out. Dylan was on the outside end of the pew, so he obviously had intended to sit next to her. Pushing away all of her negative energy, she led Brandon to the row with a newfound confidence. Brushing past Dylan without a word, she quickly hugged Andrea before sitting down and crossing her legs.
Clearly surprised by her behavior, Brandon remained silent. After shaking hands with Dylan, Brandon kissed Andrea on the cheek before sitting down on the other side of Kelly. Leaning down, he whispered into her ear. "Is everything okay?" She nodded silently, locking her eyes on the vast floral arrangement in front of her. Brandon reached and tilted her chin, forcing her blue eyes to meet his green. "Don't lie to me, Kel."
"Nothing is okay, Brandon, and it's hasn't been for a long time."
The sorrowful organ music struck up as the back doors of the church opened. Bright sunlight flooded the royal blue velvet carpet that led up the aisle to the front of the church. Six men, including Steve's brother and other people from Janet's family, carried the mahogany casket up the aisle. Steve and Donna followed close behind, little Madeline clinging to their hands on either side. As the box was set on its platform in front of the altar, Steve greeted her parents and then his before sitting down on the wooden bench. Donna started to move back to where their other friends sat but two hands reached up to stop her. With Madeline's tiny fingers wrapped around her wrist and Steve's larger ones grasping her own, she knew they wanted her to stay.
"Daddy, is that Mommy?" Madeline asked as she crawled into her father's lap. Looking ahead at the casket, Steve couldn't believe that his wife was in their. He hated that she had lost the battle. Maybe he hadn't fought hard enough for her, maybe she'd given up too easily. Either way, he was there, and she wasn't. As his little girl started to cry for the thousandth time that week, Steve began to weep with her.
Donna looked up at Steve, his shoulders shaking with sobs. Maddy was crying in his arms, her face buried from view. Reaching over, she started to rub the little girl's back soothingly as the priest began to spout the standard eulogy. When he started into the 23rd Psalm, Madeline's soft cries changed into a loud, constant howl. Steve's mother looked over at where the three were huddled, allowing the other blonde woman to provide the comfort her son and granddaughter so desperately needed.
"And now, Steve will share some words about his wife," the priest announced. Donna looked up at him, shocked that he had agreed to speak at the funeral.
Steve peered up at her, shaking his head rapidly. "I can't. You have to do it," he told her, pressing the slip of paper into her palm.
Donna nodded slowly. "Okay," she replied. "Okay." Everyone watched in confusion as the lanky blonde made her way up to the podium, wringing her hands nervously as she scanned the crowd for her friends. Her eyes landed on the row, its occupants seemingly out of order. Dylan and Andrea were close together, with Brandon's arm around a crying Kelly. On the other end, most disturbingly, David and Brenda were clinging to each other. As she held her husband's gaze, a part of her felt like she was finally off the hook. Maybe if things worked out for David and Brenda, they would finally make the decision that they had been avoiding for too many years.
"This is what Steve wrote. 'Janet was an amazing woman. She taught me about many things, especially the art of unconditional love. Over the years, our relationship took many turns and tumbles, but in the end, it was our love that would sustain us. Janet was also an amazing mother. Even in her final days, her emphasis was always on Madeline. She spent hour after hour writing letters to her daughter so that she would be able to share her dreams for our little girl even after she was gone. I'm going to spend the rest of my life missing my wife and making sure that all our daughter's dreams come true.' I don't think any truer words could have been spoken about Janet Sosna-Sanders. Always loved, forever missed, we were all blessed to have known her."