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Cordelia

It was around one-thirty in the morning when Cordelia got the call, and she'd been waiting for it. 

  After the fiasco that had been the bar mitzvah, Charlotte had told Cordelia to go home, that she didn't need to be here. Knowing there was no point in protesting, Cordelia had gone home. 

  And that was where she was, at the moment, sitting on the couch with a book that she wasn't really reading. 

  She couldn't stop thinking. 

  Why does everyone I care about have to leave me? 

  Why does everyone assume that I'm not strong enough for anything? 

  Why can't the good things just stay in life? 

  Cordelia knew Whizzer was dying, but she had taken it upon herself to be strong for him. That was her job, wasn't it - acting happy and unaffected for everyone, so they had something to cling onto, regardless how she felt inside. Making soup and saving chicken fat while everyone else went out saving lives and doing interesting things. That was her place in life, she knew, but it didn't mean she couldn't sometimes regret it. 

  Her place in life meant being sad wasn't an option. Her place in life meant that being broken wasn't an option. She was the housewife, and a housewife's job, as Trina put it, was to make the dinner, make it pretty, and love. It seemed easy, but that's all that anyone seemed to think her fit for.

  The phone rang then, and Cordelia picked it up immediately. "Hello?" 

  A tired voice responded on the other end. "Hi, Cordelia." It was Charlotte. 

  "What's going on? Is-"

  "He flatlined at 1:06 in the morning," Charlotte said, her voice almost monotonous. "We tried, but we couldn't save him. I'm not going to be home for a while." 

  Cordelia felt a lump in her throat. "Charlotte, I-" 

  "I can't talk right now. This has been really hard for all of us. I'll come home when I can." 

  There was a click, and silence.

  For a few minutes, Cordelia just held the phone in shocked silence. Whizzer was gone. Whizzer, her friend for years, the only person who'd ever liked her food, the one who'd supported her and Charlotte through thick and thin. Unfalteringly loyal, always making her laugh, helping her through her problems even though he'd gone through plenty of his own. 

  And just like that, he had gone - wiped from the face of the earth like his entire existence was nothing but a little game, a short chapter in the book that was life. 

  She'd never get to see him again, never get to hear his laugh, never get to sit between him and Charlotte on the couch again. 

  They'd never blast music and dance to it all together in the living room.

  They'd never gather together to watch cheesy romances and laugh at the characters. 

  They'd never be there for each other when times got rough to talk and support each other. 

  For the first time in years, Cordelia let herself cry.