A/N: hey guys. I'd just like to say that I'm not very happy with you. Normally I try to update once a week. Except you made it very hard to update, because I got no reviews! (with exceptions to Leigh A. Sumpter and Auriela) I'm even starting to think that I might as well take it off! So if you do have an account, please log in and review, because it's nice seeing how many hits are on the pages, but it's nicer to see reviews! Please R&R!

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Cam

I sit and stare out the window. Tomorrow's the day of the funeral. I didn't even know Wendy, but the way Em talks about she must have been great. I'm glad that we are doing the wake for them. I'm glad I could at least do something. I feel so useless. Everyone seems to know how it is to have someone die how is close to you. But that's never happened to me. Nobody's died. Em's had such a hard time this past week. Wendy dying, and her getting the headache, or whatever it is. The last time I saw her, she looked terrible. Her eyes were bloodshot and she looked like she hadn't slept in days. She was so quiet. It was as though she had lost her way in the world, and she didn't know how to find it.

It's about eleven when I hear the phone ring. I jump to get it so no one wakes up.

'Hello?' I say.

'Oh, is that you Cam?' I can hear the muffled voice of Em.

'Yeah, it's me,' I say a little groggily.

'Sorry did I wake you, do you want me to call later?' the question lies there hanging until I realise that I have to answer. She just sounded so distressed; it took me back for a second.

'No Em it's alright, I wasn't asleep,' I say relaxing more into my chair.

'Oh, okay… I'm sorry, I just wanted to talk to someone, I just don't think I'll get any sleep tonight.'

'Yeah, it's alright,' I say. She sighs softly. We sit in silence for a couple of moments and I look at a picture on my bedside table. It's a photo of Em a couple of tourist took of us on the first day we met. It was a polaroid so they gave it straight to us after they had taken it.

She looks so lively. I just want her to be happy again. I want to be able to tell her that I really like this friendship, without making her feel guilty about being happy when Wendy has just died.

We try to talk of happy things, but the only thing that is on both our minds is the funeral tomorrow. We sit in silence for a moment or two, when suddenly she takes a sharp breath.

'I just don't know what to do,' she says her voice breaking, 'she's always been there for me.' I don't know what to say.

'It's alright, it will work out, she'll never be truly gone,' I say hoping it will make her feel better.

'Yeah,' she whispers. She sounds so alone; I just want to help her.

'I mean, I've never lost someone-'

'Yeah, you haven't ever have you,' she interrupts, 'Because if you had you'd know that she wasn't lost Cameron, you can always find a lost thing, she died.' I'm shocked, she just changed from someone quiet, almost back into the girl I first met, but a very angry one at that. She is right though, I swear under my breath, I feel like I have to learn a whole lot more before I go trudging into this jungle. She breathes in deeply.

'I'm sorry Cam, everything is just getting to me lately, I want it to be all over, I feel so alone, but that's no reason to take it out on you.'

'No no, you were right, I really have no idea what you must feel.'

'It's just people walk around me like their walking on eggshells thinking that I'll break in a moment, you're the only person that treats me normally, and I don't want to loose that,' she says.

'Don't worry, you won't,' I say smiling a little. We talk a little more, she talks of Wendy, and I talk a bit of Peter, she seems to find him amusing, we talk for almost an hour when she says:

'Hey, I know it's late, but do you want to come over and talk? Maybe we can go for a walk or something? I just need to do something, to get my mind off things' she asks. I smile again. I love the way she seems so nervous, but confident at the same time.

'Yeah, that sounds good, I'll be over there soon.'

When I arrive at her place, she's already waiting outside. I can't help but think that she's beautiful, even though she's a wreck. She smiles bravely at me and waves.

'I'm glad you came, I just didn't know what to do with myself,' she says quietly, but I can hear her. I smile back at her.

We go for a walk. I don't know where we're headed, but she seems to know, so I follow her.

'Do you want to talk about it?' I ask. She pauses, and even stops walking, she looks up at me, her whole face concentrating as though her life depended on getting my question right.

'Maybe I will, but not know, I just want to have fun now,' she looks up at me, happy with her answer, and we do have a great time. She even laughs a couple of times, which is great. You can see the twinkle in her eye as she does, almost as though it had been hiding, but then out it pops, tricking us all.

She takes me down to the wharf. We walk along the planks, listening to the sounds that surround us. We don't speak, because that would ruin it. We finally get to the end, and Em slides gracefully into the seat. She tilts her head back to the stars, and I follow her suit. I look over at her and she tells me she's tired. She lays her head on my lap and closes her eyes.

She's so beautiful. Her golden locks lie on my lap, spread around her head, making her look like the angle she is.

For a moment I think that she's gone to sleep, but then she speaks.

'I remember she once told me that she didn't like aging. She said: "Time is going by, the swing in the front yard is growing old, and the cubby house is filled with nothing but cobwebs and spiders. This house seems so cold to me, but somehow when I see you playing in the garden, there is a pause in time, because you are having fun, and I want to have fun with you." I didn't get her at the time, so I went and got her a blanket. She laughed at me and said: just remember that tomorrow never dies and yesterday never comes. So I've never forgotten it.' She says sighing.

'It sounds like she was a smart women,' I say. She smiles.

'She is,' she replies, and then closes her eyes again, and I can tell by her slow breathing that she's asleep.

I sit there until dawn, stroking her hair. When I take her home, she smiles at me, saying:

'Thanks Cam, I don't know what I'd do without you.' And that meant more to me than anything.

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The next day we all go into the church that's where the ceremony is being held. It's a short one, and I notice that Em cries throughout the whole ceremony.

Our family is standing up the back; there are just so many people here. Wendy must have known a lot of people. Em sits at the front. Taking it all in. Her eyes wander about as the leak out the tears. Her face is creased with pain, slowly gets up and turns to face me once the ceremony is finished. She doesn't see me though, but she looks lost. Her own mother is going outside, grieving by hrself. But Em is left there, and she doesn't know what to do.

I walk to her, take my hand in hers, and take her outside for the burial where I stand by her. She squeezes my hand tightly, and then the priest asks her to say a few words. At first she's a bit croaky, but then she gradually gets stronger.

'Wendy was my grandmother. But that is the wrong word to describe what she was to me. The correct term would be best friend. I was closer to her than I was to anyone. She never even wanted to be called granny or Nan; she said that it made her sound to old for her own good. She once told me that she wanted to die in a fierce battle, but dying in peace is the next best thing. So I guess she got it. I hope she will rest in peace forever, while we all remember her, and the way she was.' By the end of it, we are all sniffling, and Em comes back to me sliding her hand in mine, the tears leaking out again as we watch Wendy's coffin lowering slowly into the ground, until it is six feet under.

Everyone leaves to go to our place for the wake, all except Em and I.

'Are you sure you don't want to come?' my father asks me for the third time.

'Yes, dad I'm sure.'

'Okay then, I guess we'll see you soon.'

I stand behind her for a little while, until she turns around suddenly.

'I miss her so much, but what's the point in crying,' she says wiping her tears, 'it's not going to help anything is it.'

Slowly I grab her hand to stop her from wiping the other eye.

'It might not make anything better, but it's worth it.'

'I just want everything to go back to normal, it just makes everything so final,' she says indicating to the headstone.

I let go of her hand, not noticing that I still had it

'Come on, let's go for a walk.' And so we do, through the cemetery.

We pass through the cemetery, not talking much until we come to a headstone, which Em stops at and sighs. She places a bouquet of flowers that she's holding on it.

'Don't you think it's sad, how no one is here to put flowers on the graves. Like these people here they must have known someone, so where are they? They either can't be bothered or their dead.' She moves on quickly, but I still get a glance at the headstone, and I wonder at it.

'I have this theory, that you're not really dead unless you're forgotten, because you're still living, but through others memories, but what happens after that? When you are forgotten, what happens?' she turns around to face me and I find that we are back at Wendy's grave.

'That's a good theory Em, but the mystery with what happens after is never known to those that are living.'

'That's the thing that I'm most afraid of,' she says whispering, 'I'm afraid of being forgotten.' The tears in her eyes, decide that they will tart leaking again. But Em doesn't want them to. So they lie, brimming her lower lid.

Before I know what I'm doing, I've put my arms around her and started hugging her. She hugs back, and we stand there, in each other's arms.

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A/N: I'd like to say thanks to Auriela and Leigh A. Sumpter who reviewed my story. And I just want to say, for those of you who don't have an account I'm going to enable anonymous reviews, so when I do, I expect a lot more emails, so hopefully around seven more before my next chapter, because I'm feeling really neglected here.

embracing