FOREVER WINTER | taylor swift

2

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as it turns out, living for ten months is a lot harder than it sounds for juniper. life is just determined to keep piling things on her to see if she finally breaks. 

one month into her new mission to stay alive, her dad loses his job. a huge layoff at his workplace left him suddenly stuck at home with alcohol. they already struggled to pay bills and afford food at the same time, now it's impossible.

two months into it, her mom files for a divorce and leaves the house (and juniper) as soon as humanly possible. last juniper heard was that her mother is now in the bahamas with her new fiancé, the man she's already been with for a year. not hard to work out what happened there.

three months into it, her dad loses his cool for the first time. by the fifth month, juniper is already used to the near-daily beatings. sometimes it's as a punishment, most times she's only a punching bag for his problems.

in the seventh and eighth month, she gets two jobs to help her dad. one at a gas station with a sleazy manager who stares at her lower half for far too long. another at a local library, where nobody pays any mind to the young girl with long sleeves in the summer heat.

school isn't safe either anymore. her rapidly declining grades and constantly sleeping through classes makes her an easy target for everyone. 

alec isn't an idiot, he sees it all. all of the signs that something's wrong. he knows she's always struggled, her family has never been kind and she's always had those thoughts. he spends most of their lunches pleading with her ("juni, i'm worried," is a frequent statement now), trying to convince her to stay over at his house some nights. she can't do that, her father would be mad.

on the ninth month, eight days in, juniper lays bleeding out on the bathroom floor. it's not a new position, she's been here before multiple times. she shakily reaches up to etch one last cut in her wrist, to finally give in. 

juniper pauses.

she thinks of the journal under her bed, she thinks of that one page. she thinks of alec, she thinks of the upcoming concert.

she's so close. all she has to do is attend that concert, and then she can give up. nothing else is stopping her anymore.

she weakly pulls herself up and stumbles back to her journal. her trembling hands take her to a fresh page and she grabs a pen.

she writes a location and a date. then she turns to another blank page, and starts it off with, "to alec, if i die."

she scratches out the 'if' and writes 'when' over it.

she glances up at the clock and does a double-take. she's late for work.

quickly, she covers her arms with a long sleeve shirt and throws a hoodie on over that. she rushes through the house, sparing a look at her dad passed out on the couch.

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author's note

i wanna sleep but i'm not tired :( so enjoy this new chapter 😃

i love writing short chapters sorry not sorry

i'm doing weekly updates on this so see you next week 👋👋