Chapter 1


Tuesday, 2 weeks ago, I received the worst phone call of my life so far. I didn't recognise the phone number, but when I heard the voice at the other end, I knew who it was.

"Hello, this is Justin...." I said, answering the call.

"Ah, hello Justin, I'm glad I have the right number for you. This is Derek, Simon's dad."

"Oh, hello there, what can I do for you?". I'd met Simon's dad on many occasions, he was actually a really nice guy - Simon took after him in many ways.

"I'm afraid that I'm the bringer of rather bad news.... Simon was a passenger in a car crash yesterday, and he died!"

I'm sure if I'd looked at myself in a mirror, I would have seen a white face looking back at me: my blood felt like it had just drained from my head, and I suddenly felt a bit light headed. Did I REALLY hear that right? NOOOOOO! Simon is much too young to die!

SH*T! And double SH*T!!

"Derek, that is such terrible news, I'm SO sorry to hear it! What can I say, it's such a shock? I mean, I can't think of any suitable words....". I took a deep breath. By now my heart was pounding. "My condolences go out to you and the family of course...."

"Thank you, Justin, but you're right, it is a bit of a shock! Look, can you do me a favour: you now have my mobile number, could you send me a text with your email on, then I can keep you in the loop. I don't suppose you could confirm the phone numbers for Robert and Kevin could you, could you?"

"Sure, I'll include them in the text. Tell you what: would you like me to call them, break the news to them?"

"Would you? That would be helpful. These are the sort of calls you never really want to make, but they need to be done. Luckily Andrew has offered to get in touch with a load of Simon's online friends, which is a geat help."

"Ok, let me send you a text - if you can respond with an email, I'll send you as much info as I can about people. I guess it's far too early to have any idea about the date for a funeral?"

"We actually met with the funeral director earlier on, it will probably be in a couple of weeks time - our thoughts are to make it as open an invitation as possible, for it to be a celebration of his life, but we'd like to get an idea of numbers."

"It doesn't matter when it is, I'll be there....."

"Thank you, that will mean a lot to us. Ok, I'd better go, more calls to make..."

"Before you go, how's Ellie taken it?"

"Pretty hard, as you might expect...."

"Yes, absolutely. Tell her she's welcome to call me, if she'd like to chat. Anyway, thanks for letting me know, Derek. If there's anything I can do, please ask!"

I ended the call, and sat there crying for the next 10 minutes! How could Simon be DEAD? It must be a mistake....

Chapter 2


Ok, I guess I need to explain a few things to you.

I'm Justin, 28, work in the offices at a large supermarket chain. I first met Simon - and Robert and Kevin for that matter - on my first day at university, so about 10 years ago. We shared a flat with 3 others in one of the halls of residence, and in our second and third years, all four of us shared a house together, so we all got to know each other pretty well.

In the holidays, and for the first couple of years after university, we would get together: for example, I stayed with Simon at his parents place on several occasions, so I got to know his parents - Derek and Shirley - and his younger sister - Ellie - quite well. Sadly, in the last few years, 'life', plus distance, has got in the way, and we've not met up quite as much.

After uni, Simon did a few jobs, then started doing YouTube videos, getting quite a following, and now earns a respectable amount as an 'online influencer' (well, until yesterday, he did!). As such, he had a small team around him: Andrew was the main guy, he editted Simon's videos, and knew most of his online friends - I'm  not talking about people who watched his videos, I'm thinking of the various other YouTubers he worked with.... so Andrew was obviously in a good position to 'pass on the sad news'.

Simon wasn't married, and was actually single at the moment, which made things easier in some ways. Robert has a long-term girlfriend, and Kevin got married 2 years ago. Me? I parted ways with my long-term girlfriend about 6 months ago, and I've had a couple of one-night-stands since, but I'm thinking I'm maybe ready to think about a new relationship.

After having a strong cup of tea, in attempt to calm my nerves, I called Robert, then Kevin, to tell them the bad news - unsurprisingly, their reaction was pretty much the same as mine.... complete shock. I explained that I would pass on their phone numbers / email addresses to Derek, so he had all of our contacts. They both said that they would most likely be at the funeral, whenever it was.

Chapter 3


So, it was just before lunch, and there I was standing at the grave-side. The church had been packed out, probably between a hundred and two hundred people, and the service was actually quite a nice one - as far as funerals go. The coffin had been interred a little while ago, and people were starting to leave, to go on to the wake. I was standing with Robert and Kevin, and I noticed a girl standing alone - she seemed to be rather upset, so I decided to do the decent thing and go and console her. It was very obvious that the girl was Ellie, Simon's little sister, because she had a leg brace on her left leg - not something that you see very often, and definitely made her stand out..

I had first met Ellie in my first year at Uni: Simon had invited me to stay with his family for a few days, so I guess I was 19, and Ellie would have been about 15. As a 15 year old she was a little chubby, but still a nice kid, although she had quite a love-hate relationship with her leg brace. We had chatted about it a few times over the years. Her need for the leg brace was the result of an accident when she fell off her bike very badly when she was about 11: whilst her left leg still 'worked ok' it was now quite weak, and her knee would just 'give way', causing her to fall over. Her hate for the leg braces was partly because of the annoyance of having to wear it in the first place, but mainly because of the way people - and I'm thinking mainly the kids at school - would treat her. Yes, she COULD cope without the leg brace by using crutches, but that was even worse. The phrase she used was 'feel like a cripple'. Her love of the leg brace was the opposite: that she was able to walk, and walk quite reasonably, without needing either crutches of walking sticks. It gave her her independence.

The last time I'd seen Ellie was about 5 years ago: Robert, Kevin and I had come to Simon's parent's place to collect him, as we were all going away for a long weekend. Ellie would have been 19 back then, a little less chubby, and a lot more cheerful in herself, having started at university.

"Hey, you ok? I can rent you a shoulder to cry on, if it's any use to you!" I said to her. She looked up at me, and recognising me, she gave a small smile, then buried her face into my chest, putting her arms around me. Without a moment's thought, I put my arms around her, and held her close. "There's no rush, cry as much as you need to...." I said in a soft voice. Poor Ellie, I knew that she was very close to Simon, she must have been devastated by what had happened.

So, I'm about 5ft 8ins tall, so I guess that would make her about 5ft 6ins, a couple of inches shorter than me: we were both in flat shoes. From what I had seen of her face a moment ago, and could feel from her body, she was no longer at all chubby, but an elegant looking young lady. Her almost black hair had grown quite long, with most of it currently in a ponytail (held in a lovely multi-coloured bow), but with a couple of bits 'messily' by the side of her face. The dress code for today was 'bright and colourful, avoid black!', so while she was wearing a knee-length black skirt, she had a bright blue top on, covered by a cream coloured jacket, and pink tights. For my part, I was in white chinos, and a dark blue jacket, and a pale blue shirt.

A few minutes later Ellie had calmed down again, and I gently released my grip on her.

"Juthin, it'th tho good to see you again, it'th been a while....." she said with a slight smile. A smile which I could swear seemed to have a slightly metal shine to it. Not to mention the slight lisp she had. She took a tissue from her bag, and dabbed her eyes.

"Yes, it must be about 5 years. You've changed a bit... definitely for the better too. You've lost that chubby face you used to have, and have turned into an elegant swan...". Ellie took the compliment exactly the way it was meant, and gave me a big smile. A smile that showed a set of beautifully straight teeth, with the wire of a retainer across them. I think I may have also seen a similar wire across her lower teeth too, but her lower teeth (and thus the wire) were mostly covered by her lower lip.

"I'm tho glad you could make it!"

"Hey, this isn't something you can say 'no' to... I needed to be here as much as you, to say my final respects to this guy...." I said, pointing at the grave. "Come on, let's join the others at the wake..."

"Hey, do you have your car here, can I come back with you? I'm not sure I can quite fathe mum and dad just yet."

"Of course you can!"

Chapter 4

 
The wake was in the large hall of a community centre. As well as cups of tea and coffee, and a rather nice buffet, the bar was open too. I'm not much of a lunchtime drinker, so went for a coffee, then helped myself to some sandwiches - it was lunchtime, and my stomach needed some food. The turnout was really good: a mix of people who actually knew Simon... relatives and friends, several who had worked with Simon, plus quite a few that knew him from being a YouTuber. Everyone had taken on board the dress code, some rather more than others. A guy in quite an amazing pink suit for example. And another who looked ... well, a bit like a colourful version of a morris dancer. Lots of colour, and not a lot of black.

I went over and spoke with Simon's parents, Derek and Shirley. "Your Simon seems to have touched a LOT of people!" I commented.

"Yes, he has, hasn't he? I never quite appreciated quite how well known he was till Ellie explained it to us."

"He may have gone too soon, but I think he managed to pack a lot into the time he had. How you guys been coping?"

"Good days, bad days. I wasn't particularly looking forward to today, but actually, it's turning out rather pleasantly. Ellie's struggling a bit though."

"Yes, I noticed. It's gonna be hard for her, she loved Simon so much, didn't she? But I'll tell you what, she's grown up so much since I last saw you all!". I chatted to Simon's parents a bit more, then moved on, they had plenty of others they needed to talk to. I could see Ellie over the other side of the room, talking with a young group, and smiling. Good, she was ok for the moment!

I took my plate and cup, and sat at the table where Robert and Kevin were. "You know," said Kevin, "the scariest thing is that it could EASILY have been one of us three.... Ok, so I've not really seen Simon much over the last couple of years, but I'm still gonna miss him. Miss those videos. Miss the emails he used to send out.....". We continued chatting for a while, eating our food and drinking out coffees, then Ellie joined us.

"Guyth, thank you all tho much for coming today! It'th lovely to see you all again, jutht a shame about the circumstances!" said Ellie.

"And it's nice to see you too, little Ellie. Although you're not so little any more, you've all grown up, and 'blossomed'" said Robert. Over our time together at university, we had all stayed with Simon at his parent's place on several occasions, and had all got to know Ellie. We chatted for a while, reminiscing over fun times.

"Ok" said Ellie, checking the time, "I think it'th time to thtart the 'speeches'..."

Ellie walked to the front, where there was a microphone. "Hello everyone! Thank you all THO much for coming along today, on thith rather sad occasion. More importantly, thank you all for drething up tho brightly, it really does help make it feel like a thelebration, which is what we wanted it to be today. Mum and dad will be thaying a few words later, but I guess I should intoduce mysthelf. I'm Ellie, I'm Simon's younger thithter. Whilst I would love to tell you all about my darling brother, I know full well I'd not be able to get through everything I'd want to thay without bursting into tears.... so instead, I'm going to intruduthe a few people who would like to share their memories of Simon with you. First up, I'd like to introduce Andrew, who has worked with Thimon for a while.

A guy in his mid 20s went up to the microphone. "Hi, I'm Andrew Foster, I've been working as Simon's producer / video editor for the last couple of years. Simon has been a great inspiration for me, he's made it so easy for me to work with him. Over the last week, I've been digging out a load of our unused footage, and put together this mash-up: it starts by showing Simon on camera - including one bit with Angela, who I believe will be talking later - then shows a few outtakes - there were plenty of THOSE to choose from! - then a few 'backstage' bits. Feel free to laugh, cry, jeer, or shout out comments as you feel fit! Let's all watch Simon in action!"

Andrew then played out 5 or so minutes of video... as he had explained, it started with a more serious 'piece to camera', then quickly changed to what most of us would recognise as 'being Simon'. The outtakes were quite hilarious, as were the 'backstage' bits, and there was quite a bit of laughter.

"Well, looks like you all enjoyed that! There's two things I noticed as I put that together: first is that he almost always had a very positive attitude, and second, making everyone else feel good and enjoy themselves seemed to be more important than him having fun himself. Simon has been a joy to work with. So with that in mind, would you all like to stand up and raise your glasses... 'to Simon, a great guy to work with!'".

The mood had been clearly set: this was indeed to be a day celebrating Simon's life, short though it was.

"Thank you, Andrew, that was lovely!" said Ellie, still smiling. "Next up, I'd like to ask Justin to come and share a few memories with you all....". I walked up to the microphone, on the way looking at Ellie. She knew I wasn't going to give a long speech, so stayed next to me.

"Hi! I'm Justin," I said. A picture I'd provided was shown on the screen. "So, the first time I met Simon was on my first day at University - it's where I also first met Robert and Kevin too," I explained, pointing to both Robert and Kevin. "We were all sharing a flat in a university hall of residence with 3 others. We four all seemed to just hit it off, becoming instant friends. This picture comes from back then. In our second and third years we all shared a house together, and over those 3 years, I guess we all got to know Simon well, and I like to think that some of his attitudes rubbed off on us all. The things I'm thinking of are 'enjoying life', but also 'helping others to enjoy life', and ' making this world a slightly better place'. I have to assume those traits come from his mum and dad, so Derek, Shirley, feel very proud of the son you brought up!".

I looked left, and saw Ellie, and took her hand to calm her... "It was a few months after meeting Simon that I was invited to stay with his family for a few days, and that's when I first met his mum and dad, and Ellie here, Simon's little sister. She was quite different back then, the phrase 'slightly angsty teenager' comes to mind, and I'm sure she had a teenage crush on me back then!" I said, looking at Ellie with a big smile. There were a few laughs. Ellie smiled back... sounds like I was right! "What I felt the most back then, and whenever I've met them since, was a family full of love: Simon absolutely adored his little sister, and she clearly loved him too. The same went for his parents."

I spent a few minutes relating a couple of the 'fun events' that had happened at university, which Robert and Kevin clearly remembered well, and others thought amusing too.

"Sadly, we started to drift apart a bit after university, if only because we no longer lived near each other. Most of you now know Simon as a YouTube channel provider, maybe even an 'influencer': that all started at university, when Simon, and sometimes we, used to take videos of the silly things we all did, and posted them online - I'm sure if you look carefully, you'll find them - but don't feel you need to look TOO hard, some are a little embarrassing! Ok, not quite the following back then that he has now, but it was a beginning. Like the rest of us, Simon got a 'real job' for 2 or 3 years, but continued making the videos. Then he found he was starting to earn MORE from the videos, than from his 'real job', and we all know the rest. Over 3 million followers on YouTube isn't it? Andrew, thank you for posting that 'mash-up' of Simon earlier: what still stood out for me in all those clips was those original attitudes Simon had: 'enjoy life', 'help others to enjoy life', and 'make this world a slightly better place'."

"Ok, probably a good place to end... Simon, I'll miss you, but I'm SO glad I met you. Let's all stand and raise our glasses: Simon, thank you for being my friend!"

I looked over at Ellie, who was, not too surprisingly, crying. Whilst she was supposed to be acting as 'MC', clearly she wasn't in a good place right now, so I gently took the piece of paper from her hands, and read it.

"So, it seems that next on this list of lovely memories is Angela. I have no idea who she is, but I'm sure she'll introduce herself to us all....". I moved away from the microphone, took Ellie's hand, and took her to sit down. While I did that, an elegant lady, I would guess late 20's, went up to the microphone. Whilst she was as slim as Ellie, she had a wider frame than her, wider shoulders, and was maybe 2 or 3 inches taller. Her hair was blonde - whether that was natural or not I couldn't tell - and quite straight to just above her shoulders, with a fringe at the front. Her makeup was simple, and best described as 'colourful' (which suited the mood of the day) , and she was dressed in what were clearly quite elegant designer clothes, with a pair of designer glasses.

She introduced herself: "Hello everyone, I'm Angela, I'm another YouTuber, and whilst I'm great when there's a camera right in front of me, I'm really crap at doing this sort of thing. So, yesterday, I put a video together, which I posted earlier, I think it says things far better than I can here....".

The video started: "Hi everyone, most of you know who I am, but I have a feeling that there's a load of people watching this video today who have no idea who I am, so let me introduce myself." she started. The thing that I noticed instantly was the amazing set of golden brackets on her top and bottom teeth, brackets I'd not spotted when she'd come to the front of the room.

"I'm Angela, and I've been doing YouTube videos for over 6 years now. A couple of weeks ago, I told you that a really great guy, Simon, had been killed in a car crash. Today I will be at his funeral, and I really hope that we all have a chance to remember the fun side of Simon, because that was such a big part of who he was. I first met Simon two years ago, when he asked if I'd like to do a collaboration video. Collabs can go one of two ways - dull and boring, or really great fun: working with Simon was definitely the latter. Here's a couple of 'out-takes'...". The screen showed a couple of short 'backstage' clips of Simon and Angela, and a couple of others, clearly having a lot of fun. "Since that first one, we've worked together 3 times since, and we were planning to do another one soon - sadly that's not going to happen now".

The video told more about how Simon had touched Angela's life. "Farewell, Simon! Gone but never forgotten!" were the last words of the video.

"Andrew, you've been videoing our speeches for posterity, but I think you need to turn the camera around and record all these people pay their last respects to a great YouTuber.....". Angela waited for Andrew to turn the camera around. "To Simon, thank you for making our lives so much better!" was her simple toast, echoed by everyone in the room.

As she left the front of the room I looked carefully at her, at her mouth. Luckily she was smiling, and I could see those lovely golden brackets - between them and the nice clothes, it was clear that her YouTube career was going pretty well.

Next, Ellie introduced a couple of family members, one older, one younger, who recounted their memories of Simon.

With a small tear in her eye, Ellie went back to the microphone one last time. "Thank you all for all of those really amazing memories. If anyone else would like to thay a few words, you're welcome to come up". On guy, same sort of age as me, put up his hand, then came to the front.

"Hi, I'm John, I knew Simon back at school, and even back then, he was a great guy. Sadly, I've not seen him recently, but when I heard what had happened, I just felt I had to be here today. I'm so glad I came, it's been so good to hear all your stories about him! Simon, I'll miss you!"

Short, but sweet.

"John, thank you! Anyone else? No? In that case, mum and dad, come and thay a few words....". Derek and Shirley both came to the front, holding hands, but Derek did the talking. Ellie stood next to them.

"Thank you all so much for being with us today, to celebrate our son Simon's life. Clearly his life has touched an awful lot of people..." Derek's speech was relatively brief, recounting a few incidents from his family life, things that most of us would never have heard about before. "So, please don't feel you need to rush away, do stay and talk - and help eat up all the sandwiches!"  Derek turned around to see the very flattering picture of Simon that was now being projected. "So, let's all raise our glasses one more time: to Simon, a wonderful son!"

OMG I was nearly in tears reading that! Feels like Simon was a real person ?

I will take that as a huge compliment, thank you, Kelly-Marie!!

Clearly, if I'm able to get your emotions going, then I'm doing something right!

One of the problems with any story involving a couple, is working out how they meet. I'm not QUITE sure how I thought of a funeral, but I don't remember any other story with people meeting at a funeral!

Chapter 5


"So, you guys were at university with Simon then?" asked Angela - the girl with the golden braces - as she sat at our table.

"Yeah," I replied, "those were some fun days. Simon probably worked the hardest of us all, he got a good degree, but seemed to be able to enjoy life at the same time." I looked at Angela as she sat there, with her lips slightly apart... letting me catch a tantalising glimpse of her golden brackets. They were neither large nor small, kinda 'medium', but then again, if you've paid for gold brackets, you want them to be reasonably visible, don't you?

In a small group, Angela was clearly a lot more relaxed, compared to when she was at the front of the room. Ok, so I needed to know more about this girl, I mean, those braces of hers did things to me. Nice things. I started by asking what her YT channel was. She told me she actually had several, but told me the main one: I looked it up, and subscribed to it. Shit, HOW many subscribers? Over 5 million? Yeah, that explained how she could afford the clothes (if they weren't given to her free to review) and the fancy golden braces.

We all chatted for a while.

"So, where do you live then?" I asked as innocently as I could. She named a place: "I bet you've never heard of it, have you?"

"Actually I have, I live about 10 miles from there," I replied, telling her where I lived. "I seem to remember that 'The Falcon' is a pretty good pub.". Ok, should I have continued with the next, rather corny, line? Heck, why not, she could always have just said 'no'! "Maybe I can persuade you to let me buy you a drink there sometime?"

She smiled, giving me an excellent view of her golden braces, both top and bottom. "Yeah, ok, why not!".

Well, that went a lot better than I thought it might, and we ended up exchanging numbers.

@xxxforce I was thinking the same thing but like where this is going!

I'm liking the direction this story is going. I'm wondering if he is going to have a relationship with Ellie or Angela. Will either one talk him into getting braces, himself and what will his treatment look like?