Eight Years

10

**Not edited

One out of six exams I finally finished. I wanted to kill myself. Despite all my studying, despite all of my memorized notes, I still managed to get stuck on so many questions. I swore to myself, realising I had methods the next day. I pulled out my all my maths books and flipped through all the notes. My brain felt like exploding from all the stress. Sky was in Japan already, I had to worry about her being able to come back. Mark would disappear constantly and my time was almost up. After our exams, then graduation. After graduation, only a few weeks that I needed to treasure.

I stood up from my seat and headed over to the bathroom for a quick shower. The steam ridded of my view of my surroundings and I felt at peace. As I added the conditioner into my hair, I started thinking about how it would feel back in America.

I sighed to myself and washed out the conditioner. I slipped into a pair of leggings and a blue printed t-shirt saying 'Stressed, depressed, but well dressed'. I guess November was getting warmer, which meant checking the weather forecast constantly. Also, hayfever season. Which was pretty annoying because I needed to take tablets before leaving the house.

At around 6pm, I headed out to play with Melody and spent quality time with her. Gran let me take her out after she drank some medicine. Since it was pretty late, I could only take her places as far as the cinemas. Thankfully, Sarah's dad was in charge of the cinemas, so I requested to watch 'Finding Dory' for Melody to enjoy. We used an empty cinema and watched.

We finished the movie with Melody partially asleep. I gave her a piggy back on the way to Grans. I was about to struggle to ring the doorbell when I realised that the door was unlocked. As in, the door was creaked open. I entered the house and couldn't see anyone inside. After tucking Melody in bed, I went to look for Gran. I walked around the house looking but I couldn't see her.

My feet took me to an unfamiliar part of the house, there was a door that always had a key hanging from the lock. Weirdly enough, there was no key and the light was open. Before knocking, a glass photo frame caught my eye. It was a photo of myself and Mark as babies. I smiled and thought back to when we first became friends. I was the ugly but more mature one whilst he was the adorable clumsy one.

I was about to put it down when I heard a loud slap, followed by yelling.

"My patience was thin enough! Leave this place immediately!"

"No! I won't give up! Mark needs to leave Nicole!" Rose was there. "I don't care if you don't approve, I will make sure he leaves that her!"

"So that he'll be with a witch like you?! I will never hand my grandson to you!"

I could hear her scoffing, "So you'll let him stay with a person who causes his brain to worsen?"

"Whose fault was that? Yours! Thanks to you, he's been lying to himself, he's been lying to everyone about his health. All because you wanted him to forget about Nicole. Thanks to your selfish behaviour, you almost killed him." Gran paused, her voice cracked and it almost seemed like she was crying. "Thanks to you, he has to pretend to know and love a stranger. Thanks to you, he doesn't remember a single memory of her."

I dropped the frame. My legs dropped to the ground. The door opened and Gran was in shock. "Nicole? What are you doing here?"

I let out a laugh, "So, I've been lied to this whole time? I came back to think that everything was still the same, when I was only a stranger with an over told story?"

"Nicole, please try to understand."

"I already do Gran. Mark doesn't know me and you knew. I was in love with a boy that claimed to know everything about me, yet he knew nothing. I was forced to believe that he was in love with me too, when everything was a lie. I think I understand enough." While I cried, Rose left the house, leaving Gran to comfort me and explain everything.