The weight of the bleak, grey sky pinned me in the muddy puddle. I blinked raindrops and hot tears out of my eyes, indifferent to the moisture seeping through my trousers and under my coat.

I'd seen the puddle, but my high-heels still slipped on the mud and raindrops are no help to stop yourself from a fall. This was just the latest disaster of many to plague me, beginning long before my move to this city five months ago.

If I laid here long enough, maybe the puddle would rise and choke off the haggard breath that felt like all I had left.

I could only wish.

A dark-haired man with friendly eyes leaned over me, blocking out the rain. He extended a hand that I stared at dumbly. Wiggling his fingers expectantly and said, "Come on lotus flower, up and at 'em. It doesn't rain every day." He wiggled his fingers again.

Since he like looked the persistent type who wouldn't let me drown on the sidewalk, I put my mud-covered hand in his. He didn't even flinch. With a heave, he had me standing upright on my own two, very dirty, feet and snagged my leather satchel from where it had fallen.

"You got to get yourself a good pair of boots. It rains a lot here. Let's go. Joe's waiting." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, turned and started to walk, then stopped and looked back at me. "Come on, we got to get to work."

I had no idea how he knew I was on my way to work. He stared at me until I moved forward and only began walking again when I fell in step beside him.

"Who's Joe?" Other than the barest acquaintance with co-workers, I didn't know a single person here.

"Driver of the bus you've been taking to work for the last four months." The man motioned ahead where the 6:30am bus was idling by the curb. "Kerry saw you fall and said she'd keep him there for us."

"Who's Kerry?" I felt stupid asking, but apparently I'd left my brain back in the mud.

The doors whooshed open, and my saviour waved me on ahead of him. The bus driver, a jovial mid-50s man with salt and pepper hair, held out the day's newspaper to me as I ascended the steps. "So you don't have to stand all the way."

I took it, because, however he knew I wouldn't sit down and get the seat muddy, he was right. I would have stood in the narrow aisle the whole forty minutes.

I took the paper with a "thanks" and turned to the watching eyes of the other passengers. The varying degrees of concern on their faces had to be for my saviour, whose bus pass beeped when he swiped it. I felt a twinge of jealousy that he had people who cared about him.

If the bus crashed and I died, no one would come to my funeral. I had no one. No fiancee and no friends because of him. No parents. Not even a cat.

A woman who looked like my grandmother nudged the burly man beside her to move seats and waved me forward. "Oh, Bob, get her over here by the heater. The poor thing's teeth are starting to chatter." My saviour touched my shoulder gently to get me moving. She was right, though, my soaked clothes were definitely making me shiver.

After I lay down the newspaper and sat, the heat radiating from under my seat felt as good as a crackling fire on a cold winter's night. I smiled weakly in thanks at the grandmother beside me.

My saviour, Bob apparently, pointed at a woman sitting across from me. "That's Kerry." His finger moved to point at the people sitting nearby. "Hatty, Geraldine, Tom, Francis, Jose, and Sally."

Francis leaned forward and asked, "You aren't hurt, are you? That was a nasty fall."

I shook my head and looked around at the five sets of eyes full of concern for me. For me. Tears pricked my eyes again as a bit of the crushing loneliness I was suffocating under retreated for a brief moment in the light of these strangers' kindnesses.

The woman named Geraldine was pouring a steaming drink out of a thermos into it's lid. She held it out to me. "Drink this. Hot tea to warm you up from the inside." I didn't want to be rude, so I took the offered lid. "I have to tell you, I absolutely loved the outfit you had on on Monday."

My brain operated on autopilot outside work these days, so I didn't even know what I had on today, much less Monday.

It must have showed on my face, because she supplied, "Beige A-line skirt? With a striped cranberry-and-beige blouse?"

"Oh, yeah. Thanks. Ummm..." I looked at her, trying to come up with a compliment to pay her in turn.

I sipped the hot, sweet tea and relished the path of heat it warmed all the way down my throat. I had to remember to cherish little moments like these. They were tiny rays of sunlight in my otherwise dreary movement from one moment to the next.

"It's okay, dear," the grandmother, Hatty, patted my knee. "We've got you."

My voice threatened to crack as I said, "But you don't even know me."

Sally said from behind me, "You've been taking this bus with us every weekday for the past four months. We've all noticed you've been getting more and more down in the mouth. We're here to listen, if you'll let us."

I looked around dumbfounded. What they were saying didn't make sense in the world I knew. A world where I'd lived in my old apartment for seven years and didn't know my neighbours. Where my relationship with co-workers ended at 5pm. "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

My saviour, Bob, piped up from the third seat back across the aisle. "Lotus flower, we've all been riding this bus together for on about six years now. If you're going to ride with us, might as well be friends."

The man named Jose said, "And friends help friends carry their burdens. Anyone who doesn't isn't worth being called one."

"Hear! Hear!" the driver said. He nodded and flashed me a warm smile in the rearview mirror.

A stabbing pain stung me. When I'd been offered to transfer here, a huge career advancement and the death knell of my old life, every last one of my supposed friends had sided with my - now ex - fiancé, who didn't think I should have a position higher than his. I was shocked by his archaic thinking, but the abandonment of people I'd known for a decade rocked me to the core.

Sally stuck her hand through the gap in the seats to give my shoulder a light squeeze.

I couldn't get past my disbelief to return their warm smiles. "I'm a little...overwhelmed, I guess."

The petite brunette, Francis, smiled at me. "Like Hatty said, we've got you. I'm Francis. And I agree, you've got great taste in clothes."

The compliment sent a curl of warmth through me and my cheeks heated in a blush. "Thanks."

She looked me up and down. "You're a size ten, right?" I nodded. She held out a dry cleaning bag with a killer black pantsuit and dove grey blouse inside. "These are a twelve. Just dry clean them again and bring them back in a couple days. My boss won't notice."

I was floored. "I can't take your clothes."

"They're my boss'. And someone in marketing can't wear muddy clothes to work."

Now my jaw gaped open. "How..."

"You've read sales reports and Marketing Insider enough times we put two and two together." She thrust the bag at me so I took it, folding it carefully on my lap.

The grandmother, Hatty, wiggled beside me and settled deeper into her seat. "So, dear, we've got a half-hour to the city centre. Are you a salted caramel or regular caramel kind of person? These are important things for friends to know." She winked at me mischievously.

I smiled back at her, feeling a long-disused laugh bubble up inside.

The day may have started off in the mud, but now I could sense the light above me I just needed to reach for.