The End of Forever, chapter six

Before this, I wasn’t even aware so many books existed.

I’m in the attic, going through endless piles of books. Textbooks, novels, cookbooks, picture books, workbooks. The list goes on and on, containing every type of thing with the --book suffix except for one thing: notebooks.

There isn’t a single journal up here.

I know, because I’ve just been through every box marked “books” up here twice. I feel like I’ve spent an hour up here, and it’s swelteringly hot, yet all I’ve learned is that Mom used to read cheap love novels.

Talk about a waste of time.

I go through all the book boxes a third time, more out of desperation than anything, then give up. There aren’t any more journals. Why did I give up after only five days of writing? Did I just get bored? But if that’s so, why did I scribble out the last entry?

Why, why, why. The questions pile up. A huge stack of bewilderment, and no certainty. No certainty, that is to say, except one little nagging thought at the back of my brain.

Something happened. Something changed, and now here I am, with no memory of it, yet completely different. Something tore my life apart, and I can’t even remember what it was.

Something happened. But what?

I begin digging through the accumulated stuff again, not through the books this time, but through the other boxes. I even look in the box that contains our Christmas ornaments, although I’m not exactly sure what I hope to find there.

And then, in a black plastic bag in the back of the attic, I find something. It’s a piece of poster board, with pictures all over it.

There’s a picture of me, with my arm around another girl. Her hair is blonde, almost white, and she looks a lot like me, except taller. Then, another picture of her with Emily. Emily’s dark brown hair is in perfect contrast with the girl’s, but they look a lot alike. They’re the same height, and slender, with huge smiles. And then, her with Lissie, a Lissie who looks like the hyperactive four-year-old she once was. There’s a family portrait, too, and several pictures of the same girl alone. In Lissie and Emily’s house, at an amusement park, at the beach, picking up sea shells.

And at the top is a heading: Gretchen Border 1995 – 2004. RIP.

I stare at the poster in horror. Then, without even bothering to put it in the bag, I tear out of the attic.