Snippet #2820966

Spending time with Eden was good. They'd spent too long apart, and every time he'd been home, he'd been so eager to get away that he hadn't even really been in the moment when they'd been hanging out together. But hanging out with them that day was good, almost like the good old days before he moved away.

Rather unsurprisingly to both of them, he ended up falling asleep, sprawled across his bed around Eden, the still unpacked suitcases, and the instrument cases. When he woke up, it was afternoon, and the reminder of what awaited them that evening suddenly seemed to hit hard. They both pretended not to dwell on it; but of course they both did. There was no question that they’d go. There never had been and there never would be. But the feeling of apprehension was still there. Twenty years later, and it still wasn’t easy.

Twenty years later, and he still had no freaking idea what to wear to something like this. Admittedly, he had attended less and less in previous years, but he had always taken a moment to remember Sam wherever he was and whatever he was doing. A suit felt wrong on so many levels, not least because Eden wasn’t getting changed. But most of his clothes still felt too… wrong for something like this. In the end, and after consulting with Eden, he decided to just wear something that he thought Sam would have thought was cool. A quick comb of his fingers through his hair, and they were good to go.

Neither of them said much as they made their way back into the town. A small crowd was already gathered, with familiar faces dotted around the place, along with a few unfamiliar. Maybe things changed more than he thought in between visits. “So do we… wanna talk to people or just lurk at the back and hope nobody sees us?”

Spending time with Vi and her friends was such a wonderfully unexpected throwback to being in college, and Eva really enjoyed spending time with her. Isla’s food did not disappoint in the slightest, and Eva made a mental note to hit up the restaurant as much as possible while she was in town. Over the course of the conversation, something had been mentioned about the memorial service later that evening. She was assured that the invitation was open to everyone, but Eva wasn’t sure about going alone. And wanting to let Vi spend time with her old friends, she instead decided to convince the only other person she could call anything close to a friend who also happened to be in town. Which was Mason, the detective assigned to the case. He took some convincing, but eventually they came to the agreement to go and respectfully keep their distance at all times.

Going out without her podcasting equipment for the second time in a day felt strange. Part of her wished she’d used breakfast as an opportunity to get some more information, but she also knew that today probably wasn’t the day to go barging in and asking too many questions. Instead, she had her trusty notes app on her phone to take typed notes that she could record in the morning for the podcast.

She made her way to the town square, having changed into something she felt was hopefully more appropriate to the occasion without making her stand out too much. Knowing that the fact she was a stranger would already make her stand out more, she hung back at the edges of the crowd, scanning the crowd for familiar faces and to get a read of the general energy of the crowd. As expected, everyone was somber and serious, a quiet respect settling over the assembled crowd.