[COMPLETED] After moving to a new town and starting senior year at a new school, all Juliet wants is to finish high school as fast as she can and go to the university her brother went to. But after a few unpleasant encounters with Charlie Molina, a...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Julie's POV:
Ever since I can remember, my brother, Will, has loved the stars.
I thought they were cool, but to Will it was as though those stars were his dream. It was rather endearing watching him grow more and more in love with astronomy as the years went by. He'd always try to teach me something new, but I just couldn't understand what the big deal was. At least not until he passed away four months ago in February.
I remember looking up at the sky the night of the funeral. I couldn't help but think, how could the sky look so calm, so perfect when Will was gone. That made me angry. Will loved the stars so much but it seemed like the stars were in no agony although he was gone.
What a privilege that was, I couldn't help but think, to not feel the agony that had been embedded into my heart.
And though I wanted to blame those stupid stars, something about looking up at them made me feel comforted. As if I could almost feel his presence here with me. That's what has kept me going these past few months after his death.
It is mid-June now. Just a few days in after moving back to my mom's hometown. We used to live here up until I was in first grade, though I don't remember much of when we did. Being here probably felt like home to my mom, but so unfamiliar to me. Nonetheless, it was either moving to Fairview or staying back in Denning with my dad.
My dad had always been a workaholic, probably the reason why his and mom's marriage didn't last. He wasn't around much after their divorce, and mom married John, my stepdad, a few years after. When Will died, I only saw my dad twice. The first was in the hospital when it happened and the second at the funeral. That was the last time I saw him before the move.
Fairview was an okay town. It wasn't too big nor too small, I had realized through my late-night drives when it felt too suffocating being inside the house. The one thing that really stuck out to me was that they had an observatory. Back in Denning there wasn't one and Will would always bring it up. Before his passing, Will attended UCN, which was only about an hour away from Fairview. He and his friends would drive down and visit the observatory and planetarium at the Molina Science Center from time to time. He never got to graduate though. That's another reason why I decided to move here. I wanted to be able to attend UCN and graduate for him. It was a promise I made to him when he was in the hospital in which I intend to keep.
I just have to get through this last year of high school. Shouldn't be hard, right?
The summer here at Fairview are hotter than the ones back home. I was itching to find something to do instead of staying home all day. Being around my mom and John is nice, but ever since the funeral, each time I'd step into the room it was like the atmosphere would feel so heavy and my mom would look at me with sorry eyes that well up in tears. She'd search for the words to say to me, probably to comfort me, but in the end, she couldn't find the right words and instead stay silent. It would make things worse, and Will's absence would only be more evident than before. It was like they didn't know how to act around me and any wrong move they'd make could potentially break me. Suffocating to say the least, but more than that I hated to see them like that.
