“Garret was a good man, a kind and loving friend. Whenever anyone needed a helping hand, he was there with two.” The reverend prattled on...

Will this guy ever shut up?

Lee sat in the back row, looking across the crowd. Actually, crowd didn't seem an appropriate word for it. A sea of people faking emotion at the death of someone they wanted to pretend they knew would better suit the occasion.

This is all bullshit! Garret wasn't a great guy, I knew him! He was an asshole, just like me!

Garret was the type of person who seemed to unintentionally collect masses of friends. Associates was more like it, actually.

More than half the people here are just people who worked with him once or twice. They all came so they could have a bit of tragedy in their lives. Something to take to the water cooler at work, and make everyone feel bad for them. That's right, shed a tear for the camera, put it on the 10 o clock news: Random stranger cries at the loss of a dear friend, feel bad for him, everyone!

Lee was not very sympathetic, but he was right. Garret was not going to be missed by more than half the people here. He was the type of person that would do something for himself, and would end up helping hundreds of people in the process. It was never about public service for Garret, he was just blessed with a people friendly face. Two years before this, he had a stop sign put up on the road he lived on. He was just tired of people honking at him for breaking for traffic, that was all. Two weeks later, there was a story on the local news about how many accidents a week there were at that intersection, and how “Garret the Great” had saved many a life with his selfless work. It would be enough to make someone sick, if they didn't know Garret personally. Garret was the type of person who cared about two things only. Himself, and his friends. The only thing was, only a few people actually qualified in Garrets mind as friends. But those who did, he always managed to take care of. He was an asshole alright, but he was a great one at that.
The reverend finally finished his form letter of a eulogy and invited friends of Garret to come and speak. All the people seemed to say the same thing. Garret had somehow indirectly touched them, and now they were here to tell everyone how great he was.

Public speaking is the number one fear my ass. These people are soaking this up. That's right, you're in the spotlight now, fake another tear sweetheart, don't want people thinking you're being insincere!

Lee prepared in his mind all the things he would say when he got to the front of the line and stood in front of the mic. He was going to lay in on the whole crowd. Hell, even the old wrinkled hag of a mother Garret always bent over backwards for deserved some. As the line got shortened Lee's fuse got smaller and smaller. He was furious. Garret couldn't even stand half these people! There were three people in front of him now, and that was just three more reasons to be angry in his mind. Lee looked ahead of him and for the first time saw the face of the girl standing in front of him. She wasn't crying, or trying to cry, and she wasn't paying attention to what the people ahead of her were saying. She was just staring. When she got up to the microphone, she didn't say how Garret had touched her, or how she was going to miss him. She didn't lay into the crowd for being a bunch of emotional leaches. All she said was “Thank you.” Then she walked off the podium as serene as she walked on and disappeared out the door. Lee was shocked. When he reached the podium all he could manage to stutter out was “He was a good man...” before he jumped off the stage to try and find her.
Something had snapped inside Lee. He wasn't angry at the people clawing at fifteen seconds of borrowed fame, he was crushed by sadness at the loss of his friend. He needed to know this girl. He needed to know why she had said “thank you.”
By the time he pushed his way through the crowd, she had disappeared. Lee hung his head in defeat, and started walking away, when his eyes snapped to the guest registry. It was covered in signatures, but one stood out in his mind. All of the signatures in the book were typical funeral parlor black, except for one. Written in bright red, were the words: “Love, Alison”.