From the rows behind us, one of Jack’s friends called out, “Three days? Jack would have finished it in ten minutes!”
Theo laughed.
“Exactly. He would have made fun of every sentence, so I’m not reading it.”
He looked at the coffin.
“I’m just going to talk about my best friend.”
Theo told the room about the day Jack tried to teach him to ride a bicycle without training wheels and pushed him straight into a hedge.
He told us about the summer they spent building a treehouse that collapsed before they could finish it.
He told us about the time they tried to cook dinner for us and nearly set a kitchen towel on fire.
“Jack insisted the smoke alarm was broken,” Theo explained. “It wasn’t. We were just terrible cooks.”
Daniel laughed through his tears.
Then Theo spoke about high school.
On their first day, Theo had suffered a panic attack in the bathroom. He’d been overwhelmed by the noise, the crowds, and the feeling that everyone else knew what they were doing.
