8. June
June
The second between opening my eyes and remembering Annie had died is the only peace I’m granted anymore. Then, reality settles. reminding me that my world is different now.
I rolled over, my muscles aching as if I’d been running a marathon in my sleep. Her face was the first thing I saw. Sitting on my nightstand, the photo felt less like a memory and more like a cruel joke.
her eyes so bright, so full of the life that I still had and she didn’t.
“I’m sorry, Annie,” I whispered. My voice sounded like a strangers, thin and brittle. “I miss you.”
I reached for the paper Julian had left.
I traced the curves of his handwriting, reading the poem again.
It was supposed to be a comfort, I knew that.
Julian was trying. He was being the stand up gentleman everyone always said he was.
But the words felt like they were written for a different girl, one who hadn’t let her childhood best friend slip through her fingers.
A sudden lash of rain struck the window, the sound like gravel hitting the glass.
Julian had obviously opened the window and the curtains earlier, trying to let the light in while I was sleeping, but I couldn’t stand it.
I scrambled out of bed, my head light and spinning, and fought the latch until the window slammed shut.
I yanked the curtains closed, exhaling only when the room was shrouded in gloom again.
Darkness felt more honest. More comfortable. More deserving.
I wrapped my dressing gown around me, tying the belt so tight it hurt, and padded downstairs. The flickering glow of the TV filled the living room. Nana was perched in her usual spot, half paying attention to some loud infomercial.
“Hey, Nana,” I said, my voice barely reaching her.
“Hey, baby,” she glanced back with a small, sad smile. “Your dinner’s in the oven. And make sure you thank Julian for doing the lawn today. Those are good boys, June. Especially that Julian. That’s the type of man you need to marry.”
A bitter knot tightened in my throat. “Marriage is the furthest thing from my mind right now, Nana.”
I retreated to the kitchen. The smell of the food made my stomach twist—a hollow growl reminding me I hadn’t eaten since… I couldn’t even remember. I pulled the plate out of the oven and sat at the table. I picked up the fork, moving the peas around, staring at the steam rising from the meat.
I forced a bite into my mouth. Nana was a beautiful cook, but the food felt like glass sliding down my throat. It was dry, tasteless, and hard to swallow. I had to force myself to gulp down water just to get it to stay down.
That’s when I saw them.
Pushed to the edge of the table were my University applications.
I’d left them there months ago, half finished, and filled with dreams that belonged to a different lifetime.
I picked them up, the paper feeling heavy in my hands.
Annie had been so excited. She was going to join me the following year.
We had the dorm rooms picked out, we had a map of the campus with our favourite spots already circled. We had a plan for everything.
I looked at the blank lines where my future was supposed to be planned out. It all felt so pointless. I put the papers back down, the ink blurring in front of my eyes. How was I supposed to go anywhere when she had to stay here?
Days bled into each other after that. Time didn’t move in a straight line, it just looped around the same echoing ache.
And every time I stepped into the kitchen, those unfinished application papers were there.
They started to haunt me. It sounds crazy, but I felt like they were physically looking at me, tracking my movement across the linoleum like a pair of judgmental eyes. Annie’s eyes.
We were supposed to go together. I’m failing us both.
Eventually, I couldn’t take the silent interrogation or the guilt anymore.
I grabbed the stack and shoved them into the junk drawer, burying them under old menus and tangled twine.
But it didn’t help. Even behind the wood of the drawer, their presence wasn’t any less heavy.
I could feel them vibrating through the floorboards—a constant reminder of the life we had planned and the one I was currently wasting.
Annie would be so disappointed, I thought, the realisation hitting me like a punch in the stomach.
If I stayed here, rotting in this grief, I wasn’t just losing my future, I was erasing hers, too.
It was going to be the hardest thing I’d ever done, going there, walking those halls, seeing the dorm rooms we’d picked out…
knowing she wouldn’t be joining me at the end of the year.
But I realised then that I had to do it.
I had to carry her name into those lecture halls. I had to do it for the both of us now.
With tears blurring my vision and a strange, terrifying spark of hope finally springing in my chest, I walked to the drawer. My hands shook as I retrieved the forms out. I didn’t look at Nana as I turned and headed back up to my room, clutching the papers to my chest.
I sat at my desk, smoothed out the wrinkled edges, and picked up a pen. We had started these together. It was time for me to finish them.