"You know how I really liked Monday, November eleventh?" Lucy asked.
"Yes," Harry answered. "You said it was the perfect day."
"It was." She paused, shifting on her bed. It creaked under her weight. The dress fluttered around her. "Harry, you don't have to know if you don't want to know. I don't have to tell you. You can just tell me no."
"I won't tell you no."
She arched an eyebrow.
"Continue please. Yes."
She smiled to herself and flipped her hair back. "Monday, November eleventh was the best because it was the last time that I didn't have these scars. It was the last time that I really smiled where it didn't hurt. It was the last time that I heard laughter around me from my family." She swallowed, forcing her own feelings down. "I miss my mom, and my dad, and my brother. I heard their laughter on Monday. They were gone on Tuesday."
Harry froze; she had lost her parents and her brother. Harry couldn't imagine losing William. They all died, she survived. She had to remember them. "I'm sorry."
Lucy's powerful eyes flashed up to him. "I don't want your apologies, Harry. You didn't do anything wrong."
Harry nodded.
"It's always calm before the storm, Harry, and it was like that at the high school. Everything was calm. I feel like it was calmer than it normally was, but it probably wasn't. It's really easy to forget the small details. I just remember Monday being calm because Tuesday was chaotic.
"Usually, Mondays are the worst because you're coming off of the weekend so people are tired, as well as there were parties on the weekends. So whatever happened at the parties was brought to school. There were fights usually and screaming matches. The police officer at our school took care of that, but I don't remember the fights at the school. I don't remember people coming into class and talking about the fights in the hallways, or the rumors. Usually after the weekends, there was a lot of gossip and a lot of rumors. They spread like wildfire, but I don't remember hearing about any of it.
"It must've been there, right? No one knows something bad is coming. Looking back, I think I didn't know something bad was coming. I didn't have the feeling, but I think that I did. I know I have that feeling now, whenever something bad is coming. I think I am more observant now." Lucy laughed to herself. "I think I'm more negative now."
"I don't think so."
Lucy's eyes flickered up to him.
"I don't think you're negative. You're positive, willing to try anything." She blushed so Harry continued, "I have never seen a person so brave."
She laughed aloud this time. "Please, Harry, I haven't even gotten to Tuesday, November twelfth. You don't know much yet."
"I have an idea."
Shrugging, Lucy began again, "At home, everything was the same. Mom and Dad corrected papers. My brother and I worked on homework." She paused. "My brother was only a year older than me. We really had been together forever because we were so close in age." Her eyes came upon him. "I don't have anymore siblings. It was enough, him and me. We spent a lot of our time together, always going places together. We would go the movies together. We would go on double-dates. He was my best friend." She paused. "He dated my best girlfriend."
"What was his name?"
She swallowed. "Andy." Smiling at his name, Harry only had a chance to smile too.
Harry remembered his brother, back home, the one person he could always talk to, and Lucy lost that person.
"Andy wanted to be a doctor, but our grandfather didn't want that. Our parents were both teachers, but my mom's dad runs a company, and since his child didn't want to run the company, he thought my brother should."
"Will you run the company now?"
She smiled to herself. "My grandfather never pressured me to run the company, to even be apart of it, not after November twelfth. I mean, he talked about it before he never pushed me afterward. It was hard on him."
"It was really hard on you," he corrected.
She shrugged. "I'm not sure if I want it. I rather be part of this world than the business world."
Harry didn't know what to say. "Continue."
"It was a late dinner on Monday because Andy had basketball practice after school and I had Lit Mag. We were working on our recent magazine for the school, where we had to work until six every night that week so we reached the deadline. We were going through poems on Monday afternoon." She smiled shyly. "I like poems because they can mean so many things, so ambiguous, so you can make the poems into whatever you want. As long as they're done properly. Tuesday was supposed to be short stories. Wednesday we were doing pictures. Thursday was the formatting. Friday was the party after it was sent to the printers.
"When we ate that night, it was late but my parents always wanted family dinners. On Monday night, we had spaghetti and meatballs with broccoli. My parents and my brother and I always sat in the same spots, so when my best friend ate with us and my boyfriend," Lucy swallowed harshly, "ate with us, we had to shift seats."
"Your boyfriend?" Harry asked, suddenly perked up. "What's his name?"
"Jake."
"Do you two still date?"
"No."
"Oh."
"Oh?" Lucy arched an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"
Harry shook his head and leaned back on his bed, collapsing against the wall. The exhaustion was starting to get to him. As for the Oh, she was alone. "Please continue."
She rolled her eyes. "I did my homework with my friends and my brother. I got help from my parents. When we were done, we watched a movie, whose name I can't remember. I don't even remember what the movie was about. I lied on the couch with Jake, my body laid over his, while my brother and my best friend had built a fort so they could snuggle up together. My parents went to bed early while the kids stayed up to midnight. Jake went home, but before he did, he kissed me and chuckled. He always laughed after we kissed, and it drove me crazy because I thought he was laughing at me." Her hands were thrown onto her the bed.
"Do you love him?"
"No." Lucy never loved him, even though she dated him. It was high school, cute and innocent, naive about the world, not meant to last long. Lucy and Jake were friends, but it was a relationship for a relationship. Still, they had dated for two years. Jake said good night at midnight, and she almost didn't see him on November twelfth. "It wasn't love, maybe not yet, and it could have been. I gave a lot to him and he gave a lot to me." She shrugged. "We were good friends that liked to kiss."
Harry never exactly had a friend like that but he could only imagine. "What else was it about November eleventh?"
"Nothing, really. There was nothing else. There was nothing really special about it. It was a normal day, but the twelfth is what seems like a horror show that the eleventh is just the best day."
"Lucy, we don't have to talk about it?"
"We might as well."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm not weak, Harry, and I'm not scared."
"I never said you were."
"Are you?"
Harry swallowed, his eyes trailing the ground. "A little," he admitted, "but I have no right to be."
"People are scared of what they don't know, but the more you know, the more you care. You can't let go then."
He froze at her words, not wanting to let go. The bed creaked under his weight as he shifted, climbing down and crossing the room to Lucy. He bent his knees to be eye level with her, holding her hands. "I won't let go."