My bag was clutched tight to my chest as I left Dominic's house. The guards by the front door didn't even react to me as I walked past them and down the stairs outside. Then I hurried off down the sidewalk and looked around for a taxi.

As I got further away from the house, my walking speed slowed down. Soon I was just strolling along in no particular hurry. The street seemed quieter than normal, and there were no taxis in sight.

It gave me a chance to think about what had just happened. My main thought was about how Dominic had reacted when I told him I was on my period. It was odd that he seemed so uncomfortable and awkward about it.

I had assumed that Dominic would have dated loads of girls before. I mean, a super hot guy like that must just have girls fighting over him constantly. Then when you add in the fact that he is super rich too, he would have no trouble getting a girlfriend. Even for me, I hated him for what he did to my parents, but I still had a massive crush on him because he was so hot.

So it didn't make sense why it had made him so uncomfortable. With the amount of girls he would have dated, he should have loads of experience of dealing with periods.

But before I could wonder about it any more, I saw a taxi coming up the road towards me. I quickly stuck out my arm and waved at the driver.

I settled down in the back seat as the taxi started driving. The driver headed back down the road the way I had just walked, so I shuffled down in my seat as we drove back past Dominic's house. Then we turned left at the end of the block, and I sat up properly again.

Once we had travelled a bit further, I pulled out my phone and called Jay.

"Hello," he answered.

"Hey, it's me," I said. "I installed the USB thing."

"That's great," said Jay. "You got on to his computer undetected?"

"Yeah, well I used his laptop while he was in the bathroom," I said. "I didn't see any other computers."

"Hmmm. Okay, I'll tell the tech department," said Jay. "Hopefully they will find something useful."

"Yep, hopefully," I said, with a shrug.

"Yeah," said Jay. "So on to the next part, were you planning on going to the funeral?"

"Funeral? What funeral?" I asked.

"Antonio Poletti. His funeral is tomorrow afternoon," said Jay. "Did you not know?"

"No," I said.

So it was Tony's funeral, and no one had told me. Although I wasn't sure if I should expect to be invited. Probably Lucas would have asked me to go with him, but he was kind of busy at the moment what with getting arrested for murder. And maybe Joe would have told me, but I hadn't seen him since Tony's body was discovered. I had called him a few times to find out when the coffee shop was reopening, but he had never responded to any of my messages.

"Do you think I should go?" I asked.

Jay was silent for a while before he answered. "Yeah, perhaps it would look less suspicious if you were there," he said.

"Oh, okay," I said, hoping that he would have told me not to go.

I didn't really like funerals, but going to the funeral of a guy I killed would be even worse. But then, Jay was probably right. If Tony was supposed to be a friend of mine, then I should really go to his funeral.

The taxi dropped me off on the corner of my block. I was starting to feel hungry as we had been driving, so got the driver to drop me off up the road from my apartment. That way I could walk to the bagel shop first before going home. Though when I entered the shop, the wonderful smells made me even more hungry, so I got an iced coffee and two pieces of chocolate brownie too.

When I got back upstairs to my apartment, I was feeling exhausted. The stress of everything was getting too much and beginning to wear me down. It was hard work having to pretend to be someone older and more mature. It made me miss being little, and I wished I could just be myself again.

And so, as I started munching on my bagel, I turned on my TV and loaded up my favourite streaming service. And then I settled down and spent the rest of the evening binge watching my favourite show; My Little Pony, Friendship Is Magic.

The next morning, I woke up in a cold sweat. Tony had visited me again in my dreams. His angry face chased me all through the night, and left trails of blood all throughout my brain.

I crawled out of bed and shivered at the cold feeling from my damp pyjamas. Then I changed my mind, and crawled back into bed. The funeral was not until after lunch, so I could stay in bed for a while longer.

And so, after another two hours of laying down, I finally rolled out of bed. Though I hadn't been sleeping for all that time. It was mostly split between thinking, and playing match games on my phone.

For breakfast, I didn't feel hungry, so I skipped that. And lunch too. The bad dreams of Tony had chased away my appetite yet again. Instead, I went straight to getting dressed ready for the funeral.

Going to my closet, I pulled out the little black dress I had worn to my parents' funeral. It was fairly short, but still formal, with 3/4 length sleeves and a high neck. Although, when I put it on, the dress seemed really loose on me. It wasn't like that the last time I had worn it. I must have lost more weight than I had realised.

It was the guilt and depression, it was eating away at me from the inside. Like literally, there was less of me now than there was before. It was like I was being slowly digested by my own guilty conscience.

I tried to dismiss these negative thoughts, but once they had taken hold it proved impossible. My mood dropped, and as it did, it brought on the fog in my brain. It was like my head was shutting down and going dark. The negative thoughts took over and I was shut out. I couldn't think clearly, and my body started drifting along on autopilot.

In a fog, I finished getting dressed and left my apartment. Then I walked down to the street and caught a taxi. I mumbled an address for the cemetery, and the taxi started driving. I was sleep walking towards my destination, and I didn't wake up until I reached the gate outside the cemetery.

I became more aware of my surroundings once I had climbed out of the taxi. The air was warm and sunny, with a slight breeze that carried the scent of a nearby chemical factory. It smelled kind of like the inside of a hospital. Kind of clean, but not in a natural way.

There was a large group of people dressed in black, who were congregating on the corner of the path. Just off to the side there was an empty patch of grass where there were smaller groups of people chatting. Among them, I spotted Dominic talking with one of those Catholic priest type guys, and someone in a wheelchair with a male nurse pushing him.

As I walked slowly closer, I realised that the guy in the wheelchair was Joe. I hadn't seen him for a few weeks, since I stopped working in the coffee shop. He looked so much different from how I remembered him. I mean, he was in a wheelchair, so obviously that was a big difference. But apart from that, he looked almost like a different person. He was so much older and frailer than he did before. And the cheeky spark was gone from his eyes, he just looked kind of hollow and dead inside.

I walked even slower the closer I got to where Joe was sitting. I needed to speak to him, but I couldn't think of anything to say. I had gotten about two metres away from them, when Dominic spotted me hovering there. He stopped speaking and stared at me, which caused Joe and the priest to look around in my direction too.

"Hi, Joe. How are you doing?" I asked, nervously.

Joe looked at me with cold eyes. His mouth was hanging open slightly on one side, and a little bit of drool was dribbling down his chin. "Not good," he said, with a slurred voice.

Dominic came towards me, and led me away with an arm on my shoulder. Once we had gotten far enough away, he stopped and turned to speak to me. "He had a stroke," he said. "It was the stress of what happened to Tony, it was too much for him. They have just let him out of the hospital for a couple of hours to come to the funeral."

"Damn," I said, a cold sliver of ice piercing my heart.

"Yeah," said Dominic. There wasn't really anything else to say to that.

"His family are selling the coffee shop to pay for his treatment," he added after a short pause.

We stood in silence for a few minutes. I couldn't think of anything else to say. What had happened to Joe was awful, and it was all my fault. The guilt was worse than I had felt for Tony. He had deserved what happened to him, but Joe didn't. Joe was basically innocent. Well, he was kind of a creepy perv, so not completely innocent. But he didn't deserve anything this bad.

"It's time," the priest said, suddenly. "Shall we make our way over to the grave."

The crowd of people who were standing around went silent, and started to walk through the cemetery behind the priest. He led them slowly amongst the grave stones, until he stopped in front of an empty grave with a coffin next to it.

Dominic walked off quicker to stand next to Joe, but I hung back rather than going with him. My legs were heavy and didn't want to move. The closer I got to where the coffin was, the heavier my legs became. Also my chest started feeling tight. The muscles were constricting around my lungs and making it impossible to breathe.

I couldn't do this. Struggling for breath, I started to slowly back away from the others. The further back I got, the lighter my legs became, and the faster I moved. Soon I was almost running out of the cemetery. Through the gates I went, and ran out towards the street and waved for a taxi to rescue me and take me back home.