8.1

She understood how that felt.

She let the memories roll in, almost defiantly now, all the times she’d spent at Delia’s, how much a part of her life it had been, and O’Reilly’s—Delia’s grandmother’s restaurant—too. Birthdays, graduation dinners. Older kids going to prom. O’Reilly’s had been gone before Hannah had reached prom age, but she remembered family dinners as a young girl, watching the teenagers coming in, boys all awkward in their tuxedos, girls in their fancy dresses, hair pinned up, corsages on wrists and boutonnieres pinned crookedly to lapels. It had all seemed so romantic to her.

Hannah forced her thoughts away from what she thought about romance these days, and thought instead of Delia as she’d been that afternoon, in the awesomely appalling bridesmaid dress she’d worn to the rehearsal. The gothic, almost funereal, punk-style getup—complete with studded collar and chainmail chastity belt—had made Hannah feel positively stunning by comparison. Delia was about ten years he