Letters

Chapter One

My parents died a week ago. It's been a difficult week with my emotions going through all the different stages people always say you go through with grief. As an only child I hadn't had anyone to share all of these things with. Sure I had my friends but at this moment I hated being an only child. For the first time I felt completely alone. At twenty-eight I was an orphan. While I thought I had my shit together most of the time I still liked the feeling of knowing my parents were a phone call away. A short drive away. They had always just been there.

At this point though I'm just feeling numb. My friends are worried about me I can see it in their eyes when they call in to check on me. I'm getting really fed up with the pity looks they keep giving me. I've only cried once in the week since they died. When I heard the police nock on my front door I just knew something bad was about to happen. They'd been in a car crash on their way home and had died on impact. I'm told they wouldn't have felt any pain. I guess it's safe to say I'm in the anger stage of grief at the moment.

I'd cleared most of the house boxing up things I wanted to keep. I'd started going through everything yesterday. Everybody told me I should wait. "There's no rush." Everyone kept saying to me. But I needed to do something. Most of the things were going into storage so I could go through them properly when my head was in the right place. I had one more place I needed to look. The attic. I knew there wasn't a lot of things up there because it wasn't a very big space. But I remember mum used to put things up there so they were safe or more importantly out of the way.

I pulled the hatch on the ceiling and started to climb the steps on the ladders. I put my torch on the floor and saw about six boxes scattered about. All had various stages and levels of dust on them. I moved all the boxes coughing as the dust started to move everywhere and slowly moved them down to the floor.

Christmas stuff said two of the boxes so I pushed them away. Photo albums were in a couple of other boxes and I moved them towards the things I was taking home with me tonight. Then I came to two smaller boxes. They didn't have anything written on them. They'd been pushed right back to the end of the attic.

Inside were letters some clearly opened and some not. I put the boxes with the things going home with me tonight. I couldn't describe the strange feeling that had hit my stomach I just knew I wanted to look at the letters in the comfort of my own home.