B-Every second, of every minute, of every hour.. 3

"Look at that smile, what a cheeky grin!" Mum smiled, "Do you know
what I love most about that boy?"
"Loved." I corrected, because I always have to make sure you really
have gone.
"I loved his way with you." I say her eyes fill up again, "He had you
sussed right down to the very last letter! I never could understand how
he knew you better than I did!" she laughed, I smiled.
"He did, he understood me. God, how many arguments did we have over
that?" I felt a pang in my chest, we'd wasted time over arguments,
"He'd think he was clever and say, 'I know you, I know what you're
thinking!' and I'd always tell him that nobody ever knew what was going
on in my head, but he did, he knew he did, smug git!"
You did though, stop saying 'I told you so', I can hear you, I don't
know how you managed to figure someone as complicated as me out, but
you did. I knew reminiscing about you was something that made me smile,
but it never stopped the pain, it just made it worse.
"What about his, well, propensity to get emotionally attached to
things?" that made me laugh, you were a sucked for a good cause Nick,
don't deny it, animals, plants, The Big Issue, sometimes you bought two
copies in the same day of different people!
"Or the way he used to joke, when he told your Gran he was planning to
elope with you and live in sin?" she guffawed, "I've never seen her run
so fast, or when he asked your Dad for his opinions on teenage
pregnancy! The look on his face Beth, he thought his little girl was
pregnant at what, fourteen?"
"When he told his Mum and Dad he'd proposed to me and he hoped they
didn't mind that he'd used their engagement ring."
"You'd have thought after ten years of Nick's little jokes that we'd
have become a bit wiser to them!" she sighed, "But no."
I stroked my finger over your familiar face, I could almost feel the
dimples by your mouth and the laughter lines by your eyes. I could
almost smell your smell, not the smell of your deodorant or aftershave,
but your own smell. You always told me I smelt of peach skins in the
mornings, but I could never put words to you. I still scent your shirt
and wear it to bed, then when I fall asleep it feels like your still
there with me. Maybe it's sad, but it helps me, it makes me feel
secure. And although I miss you more than anything, and I'm frightened
of being alone for the rest of my life because I know I'll never find
anyone who I love as much as I love you, the thing that scares me most
of all is the thought that I might forget. Your clothes, your pictures,
your smells, they all help me to remember every little thing, and then
I feel less scared that I might forget.
"Well, we'll have to get some more frames." Mum sighed, knowing I was
going to be alone with my thoughts for a while, so she edged back to
her pile of papers and started shuffling. Well, photos bring back
memories, infact I remember that particular weekend rather well. It was
fun. We rented videos, ordered pizza and stayed in bed nearly all
weekend. Dirty. When Mum and Dad came back the house was just as
pristine as they'd left it, but my room looked like a bomb had hit it.
We talked about everything, ate pizza and laughed and cried our way
through films.
I wandered out to our den with a photo album and a pen. As I sat there,
sticking in photos and writing, 'Me and Nick - Dirty Weekend' next to
each one, I thought just how happy we had been, I hope you remember
that.
I'd never been one of the girls who had thousands of boys milling
around me, I'd left that to Amy who'd had enough boyfriends for the
pair of us. You always used to tell me I was an 'acquired taste' but
one everyone else was missing out on. I suppose I am, but I have never
ever seen another boy that I want to be with, and you'd never seen
another girl, well you'd better not have. Maybe teenage love doesn't
last, but I'll never know, because the boy I love was taken away. Maybe
that's a good thing, because if I knew we'd split up, then you wouldn't
have this wonderful rarity about you. I smiled wishfully at the last
picture in the pack. Us both in our underwear on the bed, looking smug
with the happiness we'd found, that we knew everyone else was missing
out on. Sunlight was pouring in through the window and shining in beams
on our flesh, we had the biggest, happiest grins on our faces. What
fools we were.
I was going to find a frame, because those were the kind of memories
that I wanted to try and block out the ones towards the end.
"Not another one!" Mum sighed, when I re-entered my room, "I'm sure
when you get another boyfriend he'll not be happy about this
shrine."
"I don't want another boy, Nick was my boy." I snapped, I just wanted
to make sure I didn't forget what we'd had. I knew I'd got a lot of
photos of us, infact my walls, windowsill and tables were covered with
photos of us, from when we were little, right up until the day you
died.
"Sweetheart, there'll be others, mark my words. You can't spend the
rest of your life chasing someone who isn't there anymore. You know
he'd want you to be happy."
"How can you know that? Don't put words into his mouth. Stop using
him!" I started o cry again, of course I knew she was right. You'd told
me that you'd never forgive me if I didn't find somebody else, I'd
promised you I'd never love anybody as much as I loved you, that's the
truth. But although I knew I'd never love anybody with such ferocity, I
also knew I'd end up with someone, but now I wasn't ready for that. I
was sick of people thinking I needed a replacement to help me get over
you, because Nick, you were too special.

You're someone in my heart who can never be replaced. And however long
it takes me, it will be too short. In a way I feel like I'm cheating on
you, maybe that's not fair on me, but I know it's the way I feel. I
still hear your vice in my head, and sometimes when I have a dream
about you, I wake up, and it's that wonderful, precious, ignorant
moment before you come round, when all your dreams and reality are
mixed into one. That fuzzy, warm second is one of the most beautiful,
but most cruel, because I think you're still alive and still mine. Then
I realise you're not, and it's like a punch in my stomach, I feel
myself wince, and I feel as though I'm going through the horror of
losing you all over again!
"Sorry." she said, I shook my head smiling.
"Do you remember when I used to wake up and think he was still here?" I
asked.
"Yep." she replied, looking distressed. For the first few days after
your death, before the funeral, I was in denial. I used to wake up each
morning feeling happy and in love. It wasn't just the first few seconds
of the day, it was the first few minutes. Each day it changed,
sometimes I'd get to the door before I realised, sometimes it was
breakfast. The day after was the worst. I wandered downstairs, planning
my day with you, I got to the table, Mum and Dad were sitting there
looking solemn, I picked up my post and ripped open the envelope. When
I pulled out the card I didn't understand for a full minute why someone
had sent me a condolence card. When, finally, I remembered that you
weren't next door anymore, I just couldn't breathe. I don't know what
happened, the Doctor said it was some kind of panic attack, and then I
just blacked out. When I came round I just cried, I cried all day,
you'd have thought that I'd un out of tears, but I didn't, I don't
think there was one second during the day when tears weren't falling
from my eyes. Sometimes they were silent, sometimes accompanied by
wrenching sobs, but each day I'd wake up with the same feeling, then,
wherever I was, I'd just collapse in hysterics. Mum and Dad would come
and help me back to bed, and sit with me until I could breathe again.
I'd see through my own blurred vision, that they were crying too.
"You scared us Beth, we didn't think you'd ever get better." They'd
sent me to a psychiatrist, but I still haven't told them that I bunked
the sessions, what helped me most was laying on your bed, in your
house, talking to your Mum. Grace was the one person, who
single-handedly saved me from chronic depression and suicide.