How Many Heroes

12- Funeral

     I woke up in my bed, smelling of sweat. My head was so groggy that I barely noticed Maria sitting at the edge of my bed, the way she does when we have a sleepover.

She gives me a weak smile. "You're awake," she says, except it's not her voice. It's raw and wavering instead of bold. Her face is different too. Her smiles are never weak, and her eyes are rarely red. She's cracked, but she's trying to hold it together for me.

"What's wrong?" I ask, sitting up.

And then she broke all over again. Tears filled her eyes as she tried to tell me what happened. "Z-Zach...Z-Zach is..."

It all comes back to me: the broken glass, the blood, the lifeless brown eyes. Overdue adrenaline rushed through me, but I was still except for a slight shiver. No...He can't be dead...I saw him last week, he works at the restaurant...The restaurant is broken...The restaurant...Zach...

"Bethany! Bethany, are you okay?" Maria said, shaking me as if to wake me up. "Should I get your mom?"

Instead of answering, I asked, "What happened?"

Maria rubbed her sleeve across her eyes. "I don't know how much you remember, but we went to Buffer's to pick up something for Jesse. The place was wrecked, but Luke didn't want to leave 'cause he thought Zach might still be inside. He opened the employee room and..." She took a deep breath. "You fainted as soon as you saw him. I almost did, too. Hathaway called 911, everything after that was chaos."

"How did Zach..." I let my sentence drift.

"Hathaway said the police said it was the stab wound. He lost too much blood." Maria shook her head. "It was the gang, I know it. Dammit, Beth, I'm scared. I'm scared as hell."

I looked out my window. Fall nights come quickly, deepening the sky into blue-black. There were no stars tonight, but the reams of streetlights made my neighborhood into a constellation. Even without looking, I could tell that everyone was locked inside their houses, hiding from an enemy they could not detect. I thought back to when Luke walked me to my house, saying he liked walks on my side of town. While I'm sure that wasn't the complete truth, he was right about one thing. It does get quiet around here.

"Beth, I gotta go. My mom wants us- my family- to stay close, with all this goin' on." Maria said, getting out of her chair and making her way to the door. "Will you be okay by yourself?"

No. "Yeah," I said. "Goodnight, Maria."

"'Night Beth." She paused. "Beth?"

"Yeah?"

"Try to get some sleep."

"I will."

She opened her mouth as if to say something else, but instead she shook her head and left.

I laid awake all night, terrified of nightmares.

***

The next morning, I woke up, took a bath, brushed my teeth, and dragged myself to the kitchen for breakfast. Despite all my work, I still looked awful. My hair was a mess, my skin was too pale, and purplish bags rested under my eyes.

"Good morning," my mom said, wrapping me in a hug. "Did you sleep well?"

It was no use lying. "No."

Mom held me at arm's length, observing my puffy face. "Oh, sweetheart," she said. "It'll be okay. This'll all be over soon."

"Sure," I replied, slumping to the table.

"Happy Saturday," my dad said, walking into the kitchen with a yawn. He smiled at me, then at the pancakes on the dining table. "This looks great, babe."