She sat up abruptly as she woke up; the familiar coolness of tears was still on her cheeks. She had been crying in her sleep again, at least the dreams had gone. For months she would dream of that morning, the morning where she woke up in his lap. Remembering caused her heart to ache, it felt as if something was stabbed into her heart and then twisted around slowly. The only thing she could do was to wait it out. 8 months, 2 weeks and a day had passed now, it was impossible not to keep count. Counting the days wasn't really helping but she was afraid it might worsen it if she didn't, why risk it?
To make matters worse her brother and mother barged in with cake and a gift singing Happy Birthday. The candles of the cakes were the numbers 17. She smiled at her family’s effort to cheer her up; if anyone knew how she felt it was them, they had to endure her tantrums and random breakdowns. She smiled at them, an honest smile, bleak in comparison to her usual smile. She just couldn’t muster it anymore, as if it had died with him. She nibbled on some cake and opened her gift with the fork still in her mouth. Inside the silver wrapping was a frame, simple and purple. When she turned the frame around she almost choked, she managed to hold the tears back. Inside the purple frame with black dots around it was a picture of him. It was from when they all went down to the harbor and had ice-cream, he was sitting on the wooden walkway along the water with a big cone of chocolate and vanilla ice-cream. His eyes are looking away from the camera; he’s actually looking at her. The picture was taken just as she tripped and was about to pour cola all over him and smudge his ice-cream all over his checkered red and black hoodie. She thought the tears would break through but looking at the picture actually helped to keep them at bay. She stood up in her bed and placed it on her old fat TV that stood on a small stand at the foot of her bed.
School was one of the few places where she felt like she could keep herself in check, of course all of her classmates new what had happened and that she still felt as if it happened yesterday. Some pitied her and others used this as a new method of bullying. She wasn't the most popular of the kids but the friends she did have in class stood up for her. Class was a usual, math first period and then a double hour of English before lunch. In the school cafeteria the noise was comparable to a herd of elephants trumpeting away. After filling her tray with a small bread roll and some tomato soup she sat down at the only table with available seats. Someone was already at the table but he was busy playing on his portable video-game with the sound cranked up so much that his headphones might as well have been unplugged.
“Before you say anything.” As Sarah slammed down her almost empty tray on the table, hard enough for Mr. Headphones to look up, she produced a small parcel from her backpack. It was a small object, about the size of a fist and wrapped in old Christmas wrapping paper. As she opened it she started laughing quite loudly, “I knew that you’d love them”, Sarah smiled as her friend put on the knitted, finger-less gloves her mother had made. “They’re a perfect match,” Tammy said as she put her new gloves on and the bells on each glove chimed along with the one on her cap.