MORE THAN THAT
Chapter Thirty-One
February 17, 2004
It had been four days since she
was killed. The school had remained closed and the friends had attended her
funeral. Christina couldn’t stop crying at the wake. She couldn’t stand seeing
her friend in the casket. It was the most depressing day.
Now they were attending her
burial. Her parents were a sight. Ruth looked dead, pale as a blanket of snow.
As for William Bukater, he tried to stay strong, but as the casket was being
lowered into the ground he lost control. People had to keep him from jumping in
there with her.
Jack scared his friends most of
all. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. He stared at the casket and didn’t even blink.
Afterwards, he went straight home and locked himself in his room. No phone
calls were answered or IM’s.
The most appalling thing was that
Cal attended the funeral. He pretended to be distraught, but deep down, they
knew he was celebrating her death and they knew he had killed Rose. However,
there was no proof, and the bullet could not be traced to a gun.
At the moment, the friends, except
Jack, were at Rose’s house after the burial to pay their respects. Christina’s
eyes were still wet and she looked at Cal as if he were poison.
"He has some fucking nerve
to be here!" Christina said in a low voice.
"It’s all right, babe. As
long as we know who she really loved, it’ll all be okay," Tommy said,
trying to console her.
"No, it won’t. He did this,
and he is still free!" Christina yelled.
"We don’t have proof of
that, Chris," Hannah said.
"No one is ever gonna
believe us," Fabrizio said.
"I don’t give a fuck. Jack
should be here! Rose should be with us! We should have been happy on
Valentine’s Day!" Christina continued to rant.
The friends knew it was going to
take a miracle for Jack to come around again, but it just wasn’t right that he
was being like this. He needed to cry it out. It was unhealthy for him to be
alone and hide his pain. Rose would never come back.
*****
Why? That was the one question
Jack asked when he woke up. Why did she have to go? Why couldn’t she just hold
on?
He couldn’t eat, he stayed up
until all hours of the night, and couldn’t even bring himself to draw. The
craziest thing was that couldn’t even cry. Maybe he just didn’t want to believe
that she was dead.
"Jack?" He heard mother
call out on the other side of the door. She knocked, but he wouldn’t answer.
Jack stayed in his bed and look at the ceiling. "I’m leaving your food
outside the door. Not like you’re going to eat it," she said under her
breath. "Please come out, baby. I miss you. You need to eat something,
Jack!"
Rebecca gave it a few more
minutes and gave up. There was no hope for her son. His heart was too broken.
Jack wouldn’t rest, though, until
Cal was put away. It was so obvious. To see him there at the funeral was
disgusting. He felt like killing Cal with his bare hands.
It’d be too hard to go to her
house to console her parents. He needed consolation himself. He couldn’t bring
himself to speak to anyone, either. There was nothing left to say.
However, in the back of his mind
he knew he should be there. Damn it, he had to be there. Jack stood up,
realizing that he’d feel guilty if he wasn’t there all the way for Rose. Cal
would win if he didn‘t go. He had to be there.
Jack put on his coat and ran
downstairs.
"Mom, take me to Rose."
*****
The car ride to the Bukaters’ was
a quiet one, but Rebecca was glad he was getting out of his room.
When they got to Rose’s house,
Jack walked right in. Christina ran to him as soon as she saw him, but he was
left emotionless. She whispered in his ear that she knew Cal did it, but that
was all.
The next motion Jack made was to
the Bukaters. He went down on one knee and placed his hand on Ruth’s.
"I’m sorry. I loved your
daughter," Jack said. She took one look at him and Jack saw the
resemblance she had to Rose. It shook him inside and that’s when it happened.
He shed a tear and hugged Ruth. Ruth hugged him back and they both began to cry
hysterically.
When Jack stood up, he wiped away
his tears. Then, he had an adrenaline rush and made a beeline for Cal.
He saw Cal smiling and couldn’t
control his anger. He stood face-to-face with Cal and knocked him to the
ground.
"You fucking asshole! You
killed her!" Jack yelled.
"Get this gutter rat away
from me!" Cal said, still on the floor holding his mouth. "He is
crazy!"
"You fucking killed her! You
know you did!" Jack said.
Cal stood up and shoved Jack.
"Get away from me, loser!"
"You’re a murderer,
Cal!" Christina yelled.
"Sunshine, be calm,"
Tommy whispered.
"Stay out of it, you dumb
Spic," Cal yelled, making everyone at the Bukaters’ home gasp in shock.
"And there goes the Cal Rose
did come to know," Jack said.
"But everyone knows this
whore is one," Cal said.
"You’d better keep your
mouth shut, you sack of shit. For someone who is high class, you sure have an
odd way showing it," Tommy said, holding Christina.
"That’s enough! I will not
allow you, Caledon Hockley, to disrespect my daughter’s friends at her
funeral!" William Bukater shouted at the top of his lungs as he hugged his
crying wife.
"Don’t you see that if it
wasn’t for Jack she’d still be alive?" Cal asked.
"Jack didn’t pull the
trigger," William said.
"No. He made me do it!"
Cal admitted.
Everyone in the room was shocked.
Cal realized what he had said and began to run for it. However, Cal didn’t
notice Fabrizio’s foot in the way and tripped over it. Fabrizio hadn’t even
done it intentionally.
Jack ran over to Cal, face down
on the floor, and turned him over. He began to punch him in the face
repeatedly. Cal rapidly bled from his nose. Tommy and Fabrizio had to pull him
off. However, Jack managed to get a few kicks in. As Cal was about to leave,
William stood in his way.
"Who do you think you’re
kidding? Christina, please call the police. There is no way Daddy is getting
you out of this one. You’d better pray you don’t ever get out of prison. You’d
better pray that you are found guilty or you won’t live to see another day.
That’s not a threat. It’s a promise. Compliments of my baby girl, Rose
DeWitt-Bukater."
Although he resisted, Cal was
taken into a police car. Nathan Hockley arrived and tried to bribe the
officers, but they refused to accept it. Everyone watched him being embarrassed
by that and becoming even moreso when he and William exchanged fighting words.
It was a glorious sight to see a
Hockley put in his place. The five friends didn’t know what would happen next,
but as long as justice was served, they’d be all right.
"How’d you get him to say
it?" Hannah asked Jack.
"Say what?"
"To say he shot Rose,"
Christina replied for all of their friends.
"He just blurted it out in
front of everyone," Fabrizio said.
"Because he is an
idiot," Tommy said.
"No. I didn’t get him to say
it. He admitted it because, in the end, Cal is his own worst enemy," Jack
said. It was that thought more than anything that killed him that this had
happened to Rose. Yet he knew that if he wanted to keep Rose’s spirit alive, he
would have to go on.