Dan and Phil imagines

Breaking my own heart.

It's as I sit on my bed one day that I realise it's been almost a year since it happened. I watched it on the news, just like I'd feared I always would. I watched it online and I watched the memorial video go up. I watched all the memories go up and saw everything I loved turn from ice to water. Solid to liquid. Strong to weak.
How many hours I spent sitting in front of the screen - laughing and crying, smiling and being happy - I'll never know. It happened too soon. It always does.
I'm wearing my shirt again. I shouldn't keep wearing it, but it brings me so much comfort from when things were happier and everything was okay. They stare down at me from my wall and, occasionally, I run my fingers over the signatures; a fragment of them and a fragment of my happiness. It's all I have left.
I didn't cry when I found out, I just gasped. I didn't fall to the floor and break down, I just stood and felt my knees wobble but forced myself to stay standing. I had to stay strong, it was only fair for them. Only when I heard whispers around school and voices on the radio did I realise it was real. I didn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. I didn't really believe it until I saw the scene.
It's been almost a year since they died. It's been almost a year since I last saw their faces, shining and full of life. It was too soon. It always was too soon. I took them for granted and never realised how much I relied on them.
I'm crying now. I always cry when I think about it. I always cry when I wear this shirt. I always cry.
So I take off the shirt and swap it for a flannel shirt, something comfortable that I can sleep in. I step on my bed and take down the posters, carefully peeling them away from the wall. I can't rip them. I won't rip them. They don't fit into the tubes easily, but I get them in eventually. They go to the back of my cupboard.
Now for the shirt.
I run my hand over the faded print and breathe in the clean smell, somehow relating it to them. I stop myself before I get too attached. Folding it in on itself, I make sure the shirt is neatly pressed into a square before pulling open the bottom drawer. I move some shirts aside, placing it right at the bottom of the drawer. I can't see it again.
As I close the drawer, I feel relieved, I guess. Something feels a bit better, but I don't think it will ever really be better, will it? I don't think so. Nothing will ever really get better. I just wish I'd appreciated them more when they were around.
I'm crying again. Things are awful now. They never cared about me as much as I did them, and that's okay. They probably didn't think about me as they were dying, and that's okay. They probably didn't even realise that I was around, and that's okay.
Maybe if it were me instead of them, they would have cared then. Maybe they wouldn't have, but that's okay.