Forever

Monday soon came around and despite not wanting to, Brooklyn walked to school. In two days, they’d be burying her mom and that was the only thing she seemed to be able to think about.

“Morning stranger,” came Brandon’s voice as she closed her locker door, smiling over at her best friend and falling into step beside him, “Rumour has it that you were seen on a date with none other than Axel Garcia on Saturday.”

“Is that so?” Brooklyn replied, earning a nod from Brandon and rolling her eyes, “People really need to find better things to talk about.”

“You don’t seem all that surprised.”

“To be honest, I just don’t care,” Brooklyn told him, “Whatever is going on between Axel and me is between us, not us and everyone else.”

“Who peed in your cereal this morning?”

“No one, I just have more important things to worry about,” Brooklyn explained, following Brandon to the back of their English class and taking a seat, “My dad wants me to write a speech for my mom’s funeral on Wednesday...”

“Damn,” Brandon mumbled.

With a nod, Brooklyn shifted her attention to their teacher and listened as she explained the work. The rest of the school day continued slowly with people whispering behind her back and throwing her weird looks, but she managed to ignore them as much as she could.

Sat in the cafeteria at lunch, she stared at the piece of paper in front of her and bit her lip. No words could express how much her mom meant to her, nor could it ease the pain and grief that her death had left behind.

“Aww, are you writing Garcia a love letter?” Tyler teased as he snatched the writing pad from in front of her, holding it out of her reach and reading the short passage that she’d managed to get down, “I remember growing up listening to the crazy stories at bedtime that you made up from scratch, I remember running around wearing the cape you made from one of your old dresses and fighting the evil fairies that lived in the tree at the end of our garden...”

“Give it back,” Brooklyn demanded with tears in her eyes, snatching the pad from Tyler and swallowing past the lump that had formed in her throat, “Stay the hell away from me.”

Storming out of the cafeteria, Brooklyn reached her locker and slid to the ground as tears rolled down her cheeks. Jerks like Tyler had never bothered her too much, but everything seemed a thousand times harder to handle without her mom and she just wished that she was still there to guide her through.

“Brook?”

Unable to hide the fact that she’d been crying, Brooklyn quickly wiped the tears from her cheeks and pushed herself to her feet as Axel approached her.

“Hey.”

“What’s wrong?” He asked, lifting her chin with his thumb and pulling her into a hug when fresh tears began to fall, “Talk to me.”

“I just miss my mom.”