The funeral was nice. There were loads of people there. Which was good, he deserved a good turn out. He was a good man, even though Hannah didn't know him that well. It turns out he'd died of a heart attack, he was running around the block, and was nearly home when he collapsed and died on the spot. Terrible. Really Terrible.
Hannah walked out of the church, arm in arm with her mother. Hannah hadn't cried, though her mother had. Hannah tended to see the funeral as a celebration of life, and returning someone to where they originally came from, though to her mother, it was saying goodbye, and her mother hated goodbyes.
They reached the car, and as Hannah closed the door for her mother and turned away she reached out of the window and grabbed the bottom of her dress as to get her attention. 'Hannah, aren't you coming to the wake?' Hannah turned round and saw that her mother's eyes were still puffed and red.
'No, I think I'm gonna stay here for a while, pay my own respects and that. I'll meet you over at the house in a bit. I promise.'
Hannah turned on her heel and heard the car pull away. As she walked into the graveyard the only sounds she could hear were the clip of her own heels against the pavement and the sound of the church bell hanging in the air. She knelt next to the grave, and placed a singular rose on top of the raised soil. She kissed the cross delicately and walked away again, leaving him to sleep in peace.
She wanted to go and get changed, but the house was where thewake was beign held, so she wouldn't be able to slip in, change, and slip out without anyone noticing, so she walked into the town centrw still in the black dress and heels she wore to the funeral. It was a little harded walking along the un-even path in heels than it was in the sneakers 4 years ago. In many ways this symbolised the change in herself. She was much less confident than she was before, and even though she was 21 now she still felt like a child, like she was just watching over her life, not playing any part in it.
She still remembered her way around An Arbor asif she'd been here every summer. She remembered the coffee van around the corner from Café Zola, she remembered Maggiano's. She remembered the Blind pig, where they'd met 'Team Starkid' as they're now known. It was too much. It was too much being back here, walking to the palces he had with him, risking bumping into him at any moment. She fought with herself over and over about checking the places to see if he was there. She dreaded seeing him, yet she couldn't leave without doing so.
Eventually, almost subconciously, she crossed the road, and pushed the door to 'Sweetwater Records' open, and all the ill feeling she'd had before coming slid away, like water down a draining pipe, an before she could stop herself she walked toward the spot where she'd first met the man that had ruined her life.
