But we aren’t the only ones. That poor baby had a mother too.

There are at least two hundred people gathered around the square of green material that covers the open grave and the small pile of dirt that came out of it. More cars are still pouring into the cemetery. More people are coming from every direction, stepping carefully around other headstones in long dark coats. The women walk on their toes to keep their heels from sinking into the grass. Most of them carry flowers or little teddy bears.

I wish I’d thought of that.

On the perimeter, several reporters have set up cameras and are filming the crowd. Taking photos of the arrangements of flowers, and the tent, and the hearse, and the people.

Brother Bill stands in front of the tent, speaking quietly with the preacher from First Baptist, where Sophia and Jake go to church. Their pastor agreed to perform the service. He performed my father’s funeral too, but I can’t remember his name.

I don’t remember much about that service, actually, beyond flashes of memory. The scent of the flowers. The buzz of a bee around my head. That fake green material that is supposed to look like grass but isn’t fooling anyone.

I remember the flag. And the honor guard from my dad’s reserve battalion. And the six men in uniform who carried his coffin. Afterward, they folded the flag into a formal triangle and gave it to my mother. But I don’t know where she put it.

As Jake, Landry, and I take a place on the left edge of the crowd, I can feel gazes on us. I can hear the whispers. I’m recognizable from my interview with Audrey Taylor, and anyone who took the Crimson Cryer’s link to my Twitter profile would have seen the pictures I’ve uploaded. Everyone knows who I am, and the locals recognize Jake as well.

I can’t hear what they’re whispering, but I know. And the longer this goes on, the harder it is to pretend I don’t care what they’re saying. What they’re thinking.

White trash. Teen pregnancy. Addict. Crooked cop.

It doesn’t matter. I know it doesn’t matter.

Fact-Check Rating: False.

It matters, no matter how badly I want it not to.

Amira appears just as the hearse finally opens, and she gives me a small smile as she squeezes in on Jake’s other side.

Cameron Mitchell and Matt Umbridge pull out the little white coffin Sophia and I picked out. It’s small enough that one person could have carried it. But there are two handles.

Jake and I should be the ones carrying that casket. We should have volunteered.

People sniffle as Cameron and Matt carry the small casket from the hearse toward the covered plot. Brother Bill shows them where to set it down, then they step back into the crowd with their girlfriends, who each carry small pink teddy bears.