With This Pen and Paper

2

Simon and I had to go about life as best as possible. We would walk to school every morning. I would sit in homeroom next to Adriana Blackwell who had the darkest shade of black hair that I have ever seen. There weren't that many people left in classes. A lot of families had seen their of-age boys go to war and most families needed all the help they could get with the boys gone, so most of the remaining boys dropped out.

It felt as though our class had been split in two and it was noticeable. On my left, Elijah Davidson's empty chair was a constant reminder about what was happening outside of those walls. Elijah has been captain of the football team and was easily the smartest boy that I had ever met, he also enlisted on his 18th birthday with seemingly half of the football team.

Elijah and I had one to the homecoming dance together the year before. I still remember him asking me in study hall then getting a detention for talking during study hall. He picked me up in his fathers beat up old truck wearing the suit he had worn when he was my escort to the Debutante Ball just a couple of months earlier. We had been best friends since we were little kids. People always used to say that we were going to get married one day and I kind of believed them. I still remember chasing Alexander out of the house before homecoming and getting scolded by grandma because he started singing "Elijah and Josie sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G".

Seeing Elijah's empty chair was now just a constant reminder that the boy I knew was long gone.

I had received my acceptance letter to the university of Virginia just one day after Elijah had left, it made me realise how lucky I was, and I wasn't going to waste a second of it.

My grandmother didn't like the thought of me being alone away from home, so she had found me a home-stay, through her women's group. A lady by the name of Alice Lewis housed girls during the semester. Made sure they ate and did their laundry, basically giving their families piece of mind and letting them know they were okay.

She would also get the girls jobs if they needed or wanted them. With both of my older brothers skipping out on college for the war there wasn't a need for me to get a job, but I didn't want to freeload off my family – or at least I didn't want to feel as though I was. Alice lined up a job for me at the local library. At least this way I didn't feel completely useless.

Despite being a year younger than me Simon was finishing school at the same time as me. He decided he would wait until the war was over to go to college, he thought someone needed to help our grandpa. He was always optimistic.

Simon and I only had a couple of weeks of school then it was going to be the summer break of 1942. Our first summer without Jonathon and Alexander at home. It didn't feel right doing all of the things we used to do with them every other summer, so I was going to school early and had enrolled in some summer classes.

Little did I know that summer was going to change my life and bring me to my happiest. It was also going to lead to heart break. I wish I could have warned myself about that.