He unfolded it.
“It says: ‘Theo. If you’re reading this because I died, first of all, that’s embarrassing for me.’”
And the room went. Real laughter — painful, wet, completely involuntary, about forty people at once.
Because that was him. That is exactly, precisely him, down to the rhythm of it.
“‘Second: you promised. Red dress. Don’t chicken out just because my relatives are judgmental.’”
Daniel made a sound next to me that was half a sob and half a laugh and he had to put his face in his hands.
And Theo — seventeen years old, in a dress, at a microphone — looked directly at Mitch, two rows back.
The place came apart.
And then his face changed, and he read the third one.
“‘Third: don’t let my funeral be the first time you lie to me just because I’m not there to call you out.’”
He Lowered the Paper and Told Us Three People Had Told Him Not to Come
