"There are several ways to express our love for you, but none of them will be enough to fill the void." The preacher's grave and all-too-important tone fill the funeral parlor, echoing throughout the stark white room.

I sit and listen to Eugene Wilder's stepmother cry into her tissue. After electrocuting her son to death, I was expecting iron bars and an indecently large cellmate, not an invitation to a funeral. 

But it wasn't like that. 

Apparently, Eugene didn't die from electrocution, as I'd originally thought. His heart had given out at the exact moment he'd stuck the probe from our experiment into the frogs anus. 

"Would anybody else like to say a few words?" One of Eugene's uncles asks as he stands on stage. Everyone was kind of dressed as if they were planning on going to the local bar after they buried Eugene. His stepmother had even paid for a bartender to make drinks for everyone. 

"Excuse me?" I wave my hand a little in the air. 

Eugene's uncle looks around, sees me sitting in the crowd, then kind of pales. I was certain that seeing the last person who did mouth to mouth with his nephew in the middle of a science lab was a disturbing reminder of what had occurred. 

Eugene's mom sees me and sniffs. "Darcy?" The woman asks me, "We would love to have you say a few words. " She tells me, and her voice is choked. "After all, you were the last person that he talked to before Eugene..." She trails off, and then bursts into tears again. 

My heart felt as if it were in a vice. I had a thing for death, but that didn't make it easy to digest. Instead, I stand up and shuffle up to the stage where Eugene's coffin rests. It was closed, thankfully. Beautiful blue stripes ran down the black lid, just like on his motorcycle, which was parked on the floor nearby.

Eugene's uncle's gaze tracks my slow progress all the way up to the podium. Then he puts his hand over the mic when I come over, his beady eyes narrowing through his thick glasses. "If you say anything remotely creepy, I will cut you off. Do you understand?" 

I take the microphone away from him. "I have more respect than that," I reply, my hands shaking about as much as my voice. I can't look at Eugene's family in the eyes. I knew their grief, I had felt it, lived it. Sat watching Wheel of Fortune with it for two straight days. But until yesterday, I had no idea that grief could push someone to such an extreme.

I face the audience, resolutely restraining my voice. "Eugene Wilder has gone away." I start, and the room goes silent. "He is not dead. He's just stepped away. From his lips, I felt him breathe his last. I felt the kiss of death." 

Gasps go up around the funeral parlour. Eugene's uncle's face goes tomato red.

"That's why I've fallen in love with him," I say, clutching the mic. "And nobody can take that away from me."