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Her mother hadn't been invited. Her older brother didn't want to come. The others had other fathers, and though Princess had offered, they didn't come - mostly because Cutie Cutie Cupcake had been throwing her motherly hissy-fit over not being invited. Princess Carolyn doubted whether she even would have wanted to come.
As it was now, it didn't matter, but she still found herself thinking about it. For some reason, she kept looking for her mother in the faceless crowd of people who'd known the life her father never had with her, but of course she wasn't there. The entire room of the church seemed to be clad in black - there were a good thirty people there, some young, most just as old as her father had been. He didn't see anyone who looked like his wife or more children, though, and it left her feeling both glad and empty. What use had his life had if he never started a new family? Did he work himself to death? Like she might, sometime in the future?
She looked at Bojack, so tall and dressed-up next to her, fidgeting with his bow tie. They were playing a song her father had apparently really liked, and Bojack's movements were almost in tune with it. It was a slow, southern ballad. She'd bawl her eyes out if she listened to just one more second of it. She turned to Bojack right when he turned to her, and she bumped into his nose. Instead of apologizing, he pointed to his bow tie - he'd pulled and pushed it in just the wrong way again.
"Why do they make these things so small?", he whispered. "Don't they know the biggest stars have huge hands?"
"Here, let me help you." She reached out to touch it, just to feel Bojack's skin against hers. He was warm. That's what she needed right now.
"I'm just dandy, thank you - what - what are you doing?" "There. Now you don't have to fidget." "Oh, I'll still fidget. I'll fidget all day if I have to. You know me. Bojack. Serial fidgeter."
"Sounds gross when you say it like that, like something I'd have to pull your ass out of jail for. This is a funeral, Bojack."
"Oh, I am aware of that, thank you very much. Seen this on TV before, you know." It almost made her smile.
"You okay, PC?"
She hadn't expected genuine concern in his voice. Another friend of her father's stepped on the podium, a tall lizard. The coffin looked much smaller than she had imagined it. He'd been a giant the last time she'd seen him. Then again, that had been so many years ago she barely recalled his face - she wouldn't have been sure she was at the right funeral without his picture by the front, for all to see. He was old on it, almost unrecognizable, but there was that glimmer in his eyes she remembered loving so much, and missing even more.
"You're the cutest, nicest litte girl in the world. Your papa loves you. But papa has to go now."
And she'd run after his car just like in all those cheap 80s films, shouted after him, begged and pleaded with her mother to take him back.
"PC?"
"Y-yeah?"
"Are you okay? Well, I know you're probably not okay, but, you know."
"I'm fine. I'm a strong girl."
She heard her name from the front. A sudden feeling of being caught out in the open traced its way up her spine. All eyes in the room were on her.
"Uuuh", Bojack said, rubbing the back of his head, "autographs later?"
The lizard cleared his throat. He started to say something, but saw a fly, extended his tongue and chewed its crunchy body loudly. The entire room watched him swallow, cough a little, and swallow again.
"Though we do appreciate you being here, Mr. Horseman, our attention now is on Princess Carolyn."
"Oh, got it. Of course."
Bojack looked dejected and more than a little irritated - Princess Carolyn made a mental note to talk to him about it later, just as a measure of damage control.
"Your father, Princess Carolyn, left you a letter - and he told me to either send it to you or read it here if you come. Please understand, whatever's in it, I'm just doing what the old man's wanted."
He opened a small, coffee-stained envelope and started reading.
"If you came and my friend Giamanni's reading this out loud, congrats, you're gonna have one hell of an awkward moment."
Parts of the room laughed quietly. They knew him, Princess Carolyn thought, they knew his humour. What did she even know? He never called, not even once.
"Bojack", she whispered, "let's get out of here."
"Don't have to tell me tw-"
"I just want you to know that I was a coward, but I was a coward who loved you all those years", Giamanni continued. "I didn't make it to much, but what I made, it's yours. I never met another woman like your mother - I didn't even try, to be honest, I was too scared. These past years have made me think about a lot of things, and even now, as death approaches, and I can feel it coming for me like that one pimp that time I went to Vegas and forgot to pay, I can't lift a finger to call your number. I found it, of course I did. But I never called. And I won't, I know I won't."
Giamanni cleared his throat again. Princess Carolyn's heart skipped a beat. She felt her hands move on their own accord, reaching out for anything - her seat, the hem of her dress. Without saying a word, Bojack took her hand in his, envelopping her shivering form with his calm, large, warm hands. They felt gigantic, like a blanket of him around her. She squeezed as hard as she could, with no regard for anyone at this point, and he squeezed back.
"Your mother cast me out, but I could've come back. I could've begged her, like you might have begged her to take me back. But I didn't. You're my one regret, PC. I just want you to know that, when you think about the life we could've had - I've been thinking about it for thirty years. And I'll think about it forever, if there's any heaven up there."
Tears. There they were.
"But it's not your fault. If you ever looked for me and gave up, if you ever felt like you could contact me and we could do something, anything - it's not your fault it didn't happen. It's mine. I love you and hope your next project's a hit. Just dump Bojack, would ya? Just kidding. You're big now, make your own decisions. Sincerely yours, Your Papa."
She held it together when Bojack finally let go of her sweaty, tired hand while they walked to give their last regards to the coffin.
She held it together when they lowered it into the earth.
She held it together when a bunch of the funeral's attendants asked Bojack for an autograph, though he didn't hear them - he was ranting about Honeydew being present at the small buffet Giamanni offered.
She held it together when Giamanni hugged her and told her, with a frog in his throat, that her father had been "a good man with a lot of problems", problems she'd never get to know, and handed her the letter.
She broke in the car.
They drove to the side of the road, Bojack stopped the car and she threw herself at him, all pretenses dropped, her body a jittery, heaving mess. She pushed her face so far into his chest she was afraid she'd cut off his air supply or make him throw up, but she didn't care anymore.
She felt his arms wrap around her.
"Come on", he said, "let it out, it's alright."
She didn't scream, she didn't dry-heave anymore, she merely, quietly, cried into his chest for half an hour, with him stroking her hair, her back, her everything.
"We'll go home", he whispered after a while, with her still lying in his arms, "and we'll eat some ice cream, and you can talk, alright?"
"B-Bojack, I..."
"Shhh. We had an episode of Horsin' Around about a funeral once, and a grief one after that. I'm an expert."
"Oh, you are?"
She wiped her eyes. He kissed her on the forehed.
"Yeah, but we should probably watch that episode, I might have forgotten the details. You know me."
"I do."
"You good to go?"
She nodded.
There was no ice cream - they stopped at a bar instead. There wasn't much talking, either, or time to grieve. Bojack blacked out at the bar and she had to drive him home, still in the clothes she wore to the funeral, her make-up still messed up from crying.
But she remembered the promise - his hand - and when she tried to cuddle him in the night, felt his arms wrap around her again and the stench of alcohol coming out of his mouth didn't seem as bad, that was something. No, not just something.
It was more than they'd ever had before.