Iðunn's Apples

Anubis

† he, who guides the souls of the dead into the eternal afterlife †

Cara was buried last. I was sat at the very front, just behind the immediate family, amongst cousins and uncles and aunts, but, in the end, very alone. It was the third funeral, and I still hadn't figured out someone I could bring with me so that I wasn't alone. Truth be told, there wasn't anyone that I wanted there. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have chosen either Jenna or Cara, but they were... well.

And so I sat amongst the strangers who had loved my friends as I did, trying to hold back the tears that somehow flowed more and more easily for every funeral.

Alone.

That was what I was. Alone. I sat by myself - taken in by the mourners, of course, but in the end by myself - trying not to cry.

Afterwards, at the reception, I met Mr and Mrs Virji. Mrs Virji was wearing one of her finest saris.

"Good afternoon, Melissa," she said with a kind smile, touching my arm. "How are you?"

I smiled, my head nodding automatically to reassure her. "I'm fine, just fine. And you?"

"I'm good," she said, looking around. "It is a tragedy." She looked back at me. "Three is too many, far too many. I am just happy not to have to go to your funeral as well."

I bowed my head in gratitude, unsure what to say. I knew that any mother would, if she had the choice, have traded my life for her own daughter's - but Mrs Virji was the kind of woman who was consoled to see others spared.  She had often taken on a great deal of pain in order to spare others from it.

"Chandra," Mr Virji said, touching his wife's arm, "we should go pay our respects."

Mrs Virji touched my arm again, lovingly, and Mr Virji shook my hand with a nod of respect before moving on.

Looking around, I saw that Cara's parents were speaking to Amy's parents by the window. Soon, all six parents would be standing together, joined in their grief as they had been in the past month. Even though they had all been kind to me, I still felt like an intruder when I spoke to them. Their sadness was so much bigger than mine, so much more all-consuming. It felt disrespectful to stand amongst them now.

Instead, I grabbed my blazer and walked outside. It had been raining and the sky was still cloudy, so the air was humid and cold compared to the fact that it was still mid-August. My arms wrapped around me, a small shelter against the wind.

Sitting down on a wooden bench just down the road, I pulled out my phone. My mother had texted me, asking when she should come get me and if I was alright. What did I want for dinner? Tapping the green 'Call number,' button, I raised the phone to my ear.

"Oh, hey, sweetie," my mom's voice greeted me. "How're you?"

"Fine enough. You?"

"Same, really." The noise in the background told me that she wasn't at home. "Did you get my text?"

"Yeah, we're finished here in an hour or so."

"Okay." A moment's silence passed. "Listen, Jamie is coming home from uni, so your father invited us all out for dinner. Sound good to you?"

"Jamie's home?" I asked, my voice a bit lighter than before. I hadn't seen my brother for a month now.

I could hear my mom's smile in her voice. "Yes, he's arriving with the train tonight."

"Oh, that's great," I said. "See you in an hour, yeah?"

"See you then. Love you."

I hung up the phone and looked across the road. My eyes fell upon a black Porsche parked there, and I absent-mindedly gazed at it while I let my thoughts drift away. They went from the death of my friends, to the fun we'd had in Budapest, to school, to my future, and somehow ended back on the black Porsche.