Juno Evans was the last of them all. Her best friends were all dead and gone, and the love of her life was now only a mere ghost, looming over her, lurking in the shadows.
If you told her 5 years ago that the very people that were the only thing keeping her afloat, were now the ones drowning her with their memory, she would have laughed in your face.
The apartment that used to be filled with smiling faces and laughs that never ended, was now nothing but a dull clump of furniture and dust. The dishes and silverware going untouched for weeks.
Juno had ditched the apartment as quickly as possible, wanting - no - needing to escape every last thought and memory of them all. She showed up at her mothers doorstep with a suitcase of hastily packed clothes and belongings. After only a couple of days, Juno had quickly grown tired of watching her mother tiptoe around her like she could break into a million little pieces like a sheet of glass at any second, so she packed up her stuff and found the cheapest motel in town to stay at for the time being.
Obviously sleeping at a motel was not the most glamorous living situation, so spending time in the park across from the building had become routine. Juno had been sitting on the swing, mindlessly kicking the wood chips under her feet, when a young child that looked no older than 11 had come and sat in the swing next to her. He had black hair and emerald green eyes. He was the spitting image of a young Regulus Harding, Juno's best friend, who was now nothing more than a star in the sky.
She froze in place, feeling tears prickling in her eyes. She didn't know what to do, so she did the only thing she could. She ran. And she kept running and running, needing to escape everything from before.
Juno kept running for her life until all the air had left her lungs. Everything was hitting her all at once. She wanted to scream and cry, she wanted to disappear into nothingness. Her breathing was speeding up and her thoughts were racing.
How she was going to live without them all, she had no idea. They were her everything, the only thing keeping her sane. What was the point of life if she had nobody to spend it with? She needed to escape this town, this life.
She made a plan in her head as she walked back to the motel. The next day she would buy a bus ticket that would take her to a house that used to belong to her father before he passed. She would live the rest of her days there, away from everything she used to know.
-
The next day Juno packed her stuff and got on the bus, focusing on the lyrics of the song blasting through her headphones. Before she knew it, the bus had arrived at her stop. She cautiously stepped out of the vehicle and started heading towards the house she used to know.
The house was covered in dark green moss, and had a garden with the most beautiful orchids. Behind the small cottage was a blue lake that glistened in the light of the sun. It was one of the most breathtaking sights Juno had ever seen. Birds chirped in the distance and wind made the trees sway ever so slightly. It was ethereal.
Walking into the house made Juno want to scream until her throat was raw. Inside was filled with memories of her father. Pictures of her family filled the walls. Pieces of ink covered paper littered over the dusty floors.
She knew she was going to struggle. But as long as she tried, everything would be okay. She could get through this.
-
Some days were harder than others. In the morning Juno had woken up with tear stained cheeks and a raging headache. She had spent the previous night with tears streaming down her face, scrolling through pictures of herself and robyn, the two girls holding hands with the biggest smiles on their faces. She didn't know how lonely she could possibly feel until robyn had died.
The world was so painfully cruel to Juno and she didn't know why. Some days she wondered if she should even bother trying to make her peace with all of her friends' passings and just give up trying. But luckily she pushed through, gripping onto every last bit of patience she had.
-
Months had passed and Juno was slowly getting better. She had found something to do on her days when she wanted to just block her ears and hide under the covers like a little kid again. She had fallen in love with poetry, finding that it was a way that she could just let all of her thoughts pour out onto a page. Not only did it give her an outlet but it gave her something to be proud of.
Her mother had found out where she was living and started sending her daughter letters telling her she needed to get over it and just come home already because it had been too long and she needed to just forget about it.
This was all it took to set Juno over the edge. She had ripped up all the pictures of her family, and pushed everything thing in her reach onto the floor. She couldn't breathe and she felt exactly like how she did 4 months ago when she decided to leave.
She felt like everything was falling apart after she had tried so hard to fix it all. Juno grabbed a bag from her bedroom and started shoving clothes in it. Everything was exactly the same as last time except one thing, she had no clue where she was going. But she left the cottage anyway with only one bag of necessities, and a single piece of paper in her hand.
The paper was covered with tear stains and smudged ink, but that didn't matter to Juno because she had poured her heart and soul out onto that page and the thought of somebody that wasn't her seeing it made her sick. The words had been stuck on loop in her head for days until she had finally had enough courage to write them out.
I swear you could hear a hair pin drop
Right when I felt the moment stop
Glass shattered on the white cloth
Everybody moved on
I stayed there
Dust collected on my pinned-up hair
They expected me to find somewhere
Some perspective, but I sat and stared
Right where you left me.
a/n: thanks from reading lol

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right where you left me, original work
Short Storyjuno was drowning. she didn't know how to save herself from the thrashing waves of life. or and original work about dealing with grief and mental health.
