the sweetest con [d.m]

epilogue

Mavi's father passes away on a warm night in June.

She hadn't been expecting it — they'd been eating ice cream on the porch just the night before, watching the waves lap at the shore — but she can't help but feel some sort of relief at the fact that he didn't suffer. One night, he was laughing and teasing her, ice cream melting down his cone — and the next, he was gone. There was no pain, no discomfort. It must've felt like falling asleep.

So Arda Sultan goes to join his wife, reunited at last — and Mavi is left alone in a world she feels is not built for her.

Grief is a heavy feeling — but one she can never seem to get rid of. It haunts her, following her, always a step or two behind. Wrapping fingers of forgotten memories and longing dreams around her throat. Reaching into her chest to squeeze her heart with a grip made of wistful smiles and what-ifs.

But if there's anything Mavi is familiar with, it's grief — and she welcomes it like an old friend. Sets out the tea for it and offers it a seat. If she's going to have to live with it, she might as well get comfortable.

The funeral is held the next day — at daybreak when the sun is just starting to clear the horizon. Nezryn is there — and Deiji, Nadia and Idris.

Her father is lowered into the earth — and Mavi has to look away at the remembrance of that same feeling — of the soil that clogged her throat, her nose. She can't prevent the shiver that races through her.

He's in Azkaban, she tells herself, quietly. He can't get to you anymore.

Yet, she scans the trees around the graveyard — just in case.

Deiji squeezes her hand tight during the prayer Nadia murmurs over the fresh grave — and Mavi can feel Idris right behind her, always a steady presence, never touching. She feels her eyes sting when she meets Nezryn's across the grave, her friend of old, a friend she left a year ago. Remnants of the life before everything — a life filled with Easton and dingy flats.

The funeral ends — and Mavi feels her shoulders droop with the loss. The weight of it is all too familiar now.

"We'll be at the Apparition Point," Deiji tells her, gently, giving her hand another squeeze. "Take as long as you need."

Mavi can only offer a small smile in response and then her friends shuffle away. Nezryn hovers like she wants to stay, like she wants to say something more — but seemingly decides against it and settles for a hug before hurrying after the others.

Mavi waits until they're out of sight and then inhales, deeply before she turns, wondering what she should say, how to start this off. She'd caught sight of his pale hair out of the corner of her eye — but she hadn't had the courage to turn towards him.

But the presence she'd felt throughout the funeral is gone — and the thicket of trees he'd been standing at the edge of, just a mere fifteen metres away, is desolate and quiet.

She doesn't know why she expected different. Doesn't know why that first glimpse of him in just under a year had had her heart racing.

She doesn't know why she expected him to stay.

———

It's August when she steps out onto the porch one early morning and finds a tall, achingly familiar frame waiting by the beach

For several long moments, they only look at each other. He hasn't changed — same sharp features, strands of his pale hair falling forward onto his forehead, escaping the rest of his neat hair. But his eyes are hollow — the bright silver seeming to have faded out into a dull grey.