JUNE 29

Adrian, Tommy, Ty, and I stood a little farther away, watching the funeral. None of us had really known Annalise Beaumont, Willow's grandmother, but we had come to support our friend. We felt kind of awkward, so that was why we were standing back. We didn't want to intrude on Annalise's family and friends who had come to mourn her.

"Poor Willow," Ty whispered.

I nodded. "Yeah. It sucks when someone you loves dies." I remembered the deaths of my great grandparents. Well, most of them. Grandpa Uther had died just after Bex had been born, and I honestly didn't remember much of his funeral. I didn't really remember much of Grandpa Uther himself. Grandma Ygraine had died when I was eight, Grandpa Balinor when I was nine, and Grandma Hunith when I was eleven.

"Man, I wish everyone would stop crying," Adrian muttered, sniffling a bit himself. "They're making me cry."

I sent him a reproachful look. "Stop being insensitive. It's a funeral. Of course people are crying. Idiot."

"Whatever."

"Are they going to feed us after this?" Tommy wondered. I turned to glare at him. Had he seriously just asked that? "What? Crying makes me hungry, okay?"

"Everything makes you hungry," I snapped. I shook my head in disbelief. I seriously couldn't believe they were acting like this. We might not have known Willow's grandmother, but we knew Willow. How could they stand around and talk like this? "You guys are acting like jerks. Willow's grandmother died. Can you try being a little more sensitive to that?"

They shut up. We watched the rest of the funeral in silence, listening as several people talked about what a wonderful person Annalise was. Willow stood next to her mom – who looked almost exactly like her – though neither of them said anything. They were hugging each other tightly, both crying softly.

They really only had each other. Willow's mother didn't have any siblings, and her father had one brother who lived in Nebraska. Her father had died when she was ten. Her mother hadn't remarried, though she was seeing someone now. But still, it had been just the two of them for about seven years.

It was pretty similar to the relationship I had with my own mom, now that I thought about it. Mom and I were really close. We always had been, even though it had never really been just the two of us. Not like Willow and her mom.

Mom had lived with Mamie and Pappy until she married Alex, and then she and I moved in with him. So it was never just us.

And yet…it kind of had been. We were a team, Mom and I.

I knew that she sometimes worried that I was ashamed of her, because she'd gotten pregnant with me in high school. She worried that I thought badly of the choices she made in high school. She couldn't have been more wrong, though.

I was proud of my mom. I thought she was one of the most amazing women alive. She'd finished high school with a baby. And her grades never declined because of it. In fact, she worked hard and made herself into a better student, again, with a baby. Most other people in her situation probably would have dropped out and given up. Or even if they hadn't dropped out, they probably wouldn't have put in much effort. She hadn't done that. She'd worked hard. She'd made a good life for herself and for me.

And she'd always, always, let me know how much she loved me. She'd never acted like she resented me for changing her life, when that easily could have been her attitude. I had basically ruined her plans. She could have hated me for that. She didn't.

I'd tried explaining all of that to her, on a couple occasions, but I'm not sure that she believed me. She could be a very stubborn woman, my mother.

Looking at Willow and her mom made me glad that I had the relationship that I did with my own mother. It also made me glad that I had a large family that I was close to, and not just my mom. I had a lot of people to support me in tough times. I had grandparents, and aunts and uncles, cousins, even my siblings were supportive.

I was also glad that I could add to Willow's circle of support, however small of a contribution if might have been. It made me glad that I knew that she had at least one more person to lean on when she needed to.

The funeral lasted another twenty minutes. When it was over, Willow came over to where we stood.

She stopped in front of us, wiping away her tears. For once, she wasn't wearing a graphic tee-shirt. Even more surprising was the fact that she was wearing a skirt. I'd never seen Willow in a skirt before. "Thanks for coming, you guys. All of you. It means a lot to me."

"Of course," Ty said.

"My mom said you guys are welcome to come to our house for a luncheon." She grinned ever so slightly. "I know that'll make you happy, Tommy. See you all in a few minutes?"

We nodded. She went back to her mom.

Okay, so this chapter kind of took a turn that I wasn't originally planning. I had been planning to have more interaction between Stryker and his friends and Willow. And then Stryk's thoughts just kind of went off on a tangent. But I think it's nice to see what Stryker thinks of his mom and the choices that she made. Anyway, there ya go. I think I might give you guys another chapter today, but I haven't decided yet...