After You

Max

Dear Alfie,

Willow and Finn are dating.

I know it's none of my business, but I don't know how to feel about it. Not about them in particular – what they do is their business, and I suppose the most important thing is that they're happy – but about everyone moving on.

I wonder if people were waiting until your birthday. Perhaps that was the point where most people felt like they could say with certainty that you're really gone and never coming back, so it's time to pick themselves up and adjust to life without you. The last three months have been a weird kind of limbo. When writing these letters, I've alternated between filling my waste-paper basket with drafts because I'm worried about hurting your feelings, and writing whatever the hell I want because you're dead and you're never going to read it. Maybe I need to follow everyone else and start to move on.

After weeks of pestering, I finally had a look at the university prospectuses my parents have been shoving under the bedroom door every few days. I've been delaying it because it didn't feel right. Remember when we used to talk about university? At one point, the six of us were all going to go to the same one, until Jacob decided he didn't want to go to university and put paid to those ideas. Then it was going to be you, me and Willow, going to Oxford or Cambridge together. You would study Philosophy, I would study History and Willow would study English Literature.

Then you confided in me that you weren't sure Willow's grades would be good enough for Oxbridge, and I thought that was your way of saying none of us should go. When you said "so I guess it'll just be the two of us", my stomach did a somersault.

I feel daft admitting this; it sounds like some ridiculous schoolboy crush. I didn't have a crush on you, and I still don't. I just liked the idea of starting uni with a friend by my side. I dread the thought of going in on the first day and being completely alone. It's not like they assign someone more experienced to be your "forced friend" at university, after all. That's the reality I'm facing now, and it's the reason why I've procrastinated so much on the application front.

I won't be going to Oxford or Cambridge. The application deadline was in October, so I've missed the boat where they're concerned. I could be disappointed about that, but I'm not. After all the plans we made – the discussions about which colleges we preferred and who'd be captain of our University Challenge team – it wouldn't have felt right to go without you. It doesn't feel right to be going without you anyway, but I know I need to. I can't throw the rest of my life away to pine for you.

That sounds awful, and I promise I don't mean it in that way. I just mean that lately, grieving you has become a full-time job. I missed four days of school last week. Me. I have never missed a day of school in my life, and last week I just couldn't face it. Each morning I'd wake up with good intentions, get ready, eat breakfast – one morning I even made it to the bus stop – and then it's like I'd hear you calling my name, or catch a glimpse of your face in the mirror, and it floored me. I'd give up and crawl back into bed. The memory of you is infecting every inch of my life, which is why some of the universities Mum is suggesting might be a good idea. Places like Durham and St Andrews – so far up north, I'd have no choice but to make a fresh start of it all, away from everyone.

Away from you.

I'll think about it, anyway.

Max