Oh Marty, we hardly knew ye.. He never did know that Anna could save him, huh? I had thought that the lesson given in the flashback bike scene would be through a dilemma where Anna tells him she could save him, but he refuses and imparts some knowledge bombs. But, this was great too. It was a good send-off.

I guess if I have to have a gripe, I guess it would be the spacing of the death and the ceremony. The way you created Jared as a charismatic figure was done so well, that the downside is that he steals the scene he shouldn't be in. If the chapter ended with the death, specifically the paragraph that ended with "own personal fortress" I think it would've made a lot more impact.

I don't know, maybe I'm just nitpicking, but the following scenes with the planning kind of took some of the melancholy out of the equation. Jenna could've appeared in the next chapter, along with her being intimidated by Jared. Sure, there are length considerations, but if this chapter was supposed to be a send-off for Marty, then the paragraph I noted above would've been a great accent.

She was not known for her skills in planning on a normal day, let alone this one.

A round of applause for this line hahaha! I don't mean to pile on on Anna, but yeah. This bit of meta reference provided a bit of levity. Nice job, my friend :D