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respected and approved of by more than just my dead best friend when my doorbell rings later that afternoon, and friend after friend, after acquaintance after friend shows up for some kind of post- can you fucking believe what an incredible travesty that was-let’s remember our buddy and say goodbye the right way -party that I was unaware my antics had invited everyone to. I mean I was just planning on sitting at home and drinking alone, but by seven o’clock, it seemed like more than half my graduating class was at my house and it was accompanied by a portion of the graduating class from the year before and this year’s as well. Regardless of the class they were representing, they were all friends of Holden’s at some point in his life and they were all disturbed by his sendoff; all of them wishing they’d had the balls to either do something like I had or to just simply get up and walk out of the stands.
    With the passing of about four hours or so, and several cases of beer and assorted bottles of wine and booze drank, things start to turn a little rowdy, making it less like a sendoff party with people coming together over the common ground of having lost a friend, and more like an after Prom keg party with idiots shot-gunning beers and picking fights over stupid shit like whether or not someone hit on someone else’s girlfriend back in tenth grade. I look at the mess that’s being made and begin predicting what my dad’s reaction would be if he were to come home right now. Starting to get irked about that and having to clean up after everyone and the evidence of their so-called mourning, I take to asking the most sober people to get the most drunk and disorderly out of my house by directing them towards the front door and saying lame things like, “Last call was three bottles of beer ago,” and, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” That girl I was standing next to in the food court when the news of Holden’s death was first announced has been following me around all night like a lost puppy, although with her and Jake’s help, the crowd begins to dwindle considerably and although I know my work isn’t done, I start to chill a little. But then, my doorbell rings…and all Hell breaks loose.
    Tightly holding onto the cigarette between my lips and grabbing the bottle of beer someone opens right before they put it to their mouth, I turn to answer the door with the intention of hurling the guy who apparently doesn’t know what last call means right through it. I barely get the door open, though, and don’t even have time to digest the fact that Erica is standing on my doorstep with a big cardboard box in her arms and angry tears dripping down her face before she dumps the box on my feet and then ferociously slaps me right across the face.
    “I heard what was going on tonight, but I didn’t wanna believe it! I mean what is wrong with you?! You were supposed to be his best friend, Cole! His parents saved a seat for you with us and you don’t even have the decency to show your face at his funeral?!” she screams at me, “You can’t be bothered to make time to see him when he’s in town, or get him from the airport, or to even go to his funeral , but you can throw a fucking party just so you can get wasted?! You didn’t deserve him!”
    She slaps me again and then snatching the bottle from my hand, she throws it against the wall behind me. The bottle shatters and its contents run down the wall to pool on the tile floor while she continues ranting at me about how I didn’t deserve having Holden in my life, how I was a shitty best friend, and how she hates me as she pounds her fists against my chest, her tears practically pouring from her eyes to trickle down her cheeks like two rivers of heartbreak coursing parallel to one another. Feeling every hit she lands and tear she sheds in my gut and heart, I reach for her but she pulls away, shaking her head and trying to fight me off. In her