Dante gets up with a sigh and winces a little. On his temple there are several stitches and he underwent a surgical operation just a week ago, but still he looks stronger than you could ever imagine. Strong and healthy.

He approaches us and raises his sunglasses a little, just to dry his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Are you okay?”, Cassandra asks him.

“Yeah”, he nods, regaining his composure.

“You made it”, Shane says huskily, with a shy smile.

Dante smiles back at him.

“Of course I did. I couldn’t miss it, you know that”.

“Yes, I know”.

He stares at her, his head ducked.

“How are you, Shane, my friend?”, he asks, concerned.

Shane just shrugs and I snake my arm around her waist. I know that funerals do affect her a lot. She doesn’t look so different from the day of Dana’s funeral. But this time, I won’t allow her to rock back and forth on the porch like an autistic, feeling all alone and abandoned. This time I know her much better than I did then, and I know what I have to do to make her feel better.

And all I think about is her. How much I love her, how much I need her by my side and how much I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I just don’t know how I could have made it if she was in that coffin. I throw a glance to Cassandra and I have a feeling she must be thinking the exact same thing: how could she have made it if Dante was in that coffin?

Shane and I. Dante and Cassandra. We are so similar that it’s scary. We are nothing more than two faces of the same coin.

I didn’t know Marshall very well but I see the way his death is affecting all the people who loved him. I see how it is affecting Shane and Dante. I see that mixture of desperation and remorse and longing and relief, which is normal and physiologic.

And I feel sorry for Marshall. His daughter was right. He was a very good guy, and Shane used to talk about him like a man of honor with a heart of gold. He was one of the sacrificial lambs of the game.