Every second, of every minute, of every hour No.1

This begins; Dear Nick.

I sat down on the bed and started on the papers to the left of me. My
Mum was on the other side of the bedroom with another bin bag, and
another few piles of paper. I was redecorating my room, I'd saved
enough money to completely redo everything, from the colour to the
furniture, but before I could paint anything, I had to sort through all
my stuff and decide what could go.
"What about this?" Mum laughed, holding up a folder of notes I'd kept
from Emma, written when we were bored in maths or science.
"No way!" I shouted, "There's about seven years of happy school
memories in that folder!" I cried, knowing how annoyed Mum was when she
found notes when I was in year eight. We'd both got the, 'You should
concentrate on your education' speech, and we'd decided to just hide
them more carefully!
"What does BFFE mean?" she asked, reading the top one.
"Best friends for ever!" I giggled, I didn't bother telling her we
still wrote that at the bottom of letters now, "Leave it out." I said,
watching amused as my Mum began to kill herself laughing.
"You two are pathetic, what are you going to do when you're thirty with
families to think of? Live next door to each other and talk through a
gap in the fence?" she keeled over, clutching her stomach. I just
sighed and continued to shuffle through my pile of papers. Amy and I
were really close, anything that happened to one of us, both of us had
to go through, sometimes it was good, sometimes it was bad. When you've
known someone wince you were two years old, and never lived more than
three minutes apart, you get that close, and you never want to believe
that anything could tear you apart.
I picked up a pile of bank statements and clipped them into my finances
folder, that's how I am now Nick, organised, I have folders lining my
shelves, everthing filed away. But that's only recent, my desk has been
neglected since I was about thirteen, and there's so much crap in it! I
threw out old notes, and books, ones I didn't need, and searched high
and low for the ones I did, but to no avail.
"Photos!" Mum cried, throwing a Boots envelope at me, "God only knows
how long they've been in there!" she laughed. I thought I had every
photo I'd ever taken in an album with a little note saying, the place,
the date, and the names of the people.
"Cool." I smiled, catching the package. Maybe they were from some long
forgotten party, they were always amusing. But as I pulled out the
photos, my face changed. I flicked through them, one by one, each had a
picture of you and me on. I remembered. It was the wekend where we'd
had the house to ourselves, do you remember that? It was unforgettable,
I'd only got the film back after, well, you, I'd had to hide them, we
were both so happy in those pictures, so full of life and love. I
couldn't believe it was only a year ago, and I couldn't bear to look at
them.
"What are they of?" Mum asked, looking at my paled face.
"Nothing." I bit my lip, I could feel the pricks behind my eyelids, I
didn't want to cry infront of her, not again, "Just nothing."
"Hey, sweetheart, what's the matter?" she cried, I felt the burning
trail of hot, salty tears cascading down my cheeks. I'd failed. "Oh my
God, what ever's the matter? They can't be that bad! What are they of?"
she was distressed, you kow she always gets upset when I do.
"Nick." I whispered. I saw her face crease up, I knew she was
regretting finding them.
"Oh no." she came over, put her arms around me, "Come on, look how
happy you were!" I saw her own eyes well up with tears, as she glanced
across at the pictures.
"I'm sorry." I sniffled, trying to stop myslef from crying.
"For what sweetheart?" she asked, I knew she was trying to hide her own
hurt, she always did.
"For being like this again, everyone's tried so hard to get me over
this, and I just can't forget him, and then we find this and it just
all comes back to me, and I miss him so much, I can't get him out of my
head, I miss him so much Mum, I just want him back, why can't I have
him back?" I sobbed, I felt my whole body shake with my tears.
"We don't want you to forget him love, and you needen't be sorry,
there's nothing to be sorry for, it's going to take you a long time to
be fine again, and it doesn't matter how long, we'll always be here."
she was crying too.
"I miss him." I felt pathetic, and alone, and more pathetic, and even
more alone. I just wanted you to be here to wrap your arms around me
like you always did.
"I know," she whispered, rocking me back and forth, like I was a baby
again, "we all do."