*Joe*
A week after I had lost Niamh, my dad invited me and Zoe and Alfie around to sort through old photos of me and Zoe and family to make lots of photo albums. After saying goodbye to Caspar I made my way to Wiltshire. When I went inside Zoe and Alfie was already sorting through the pictures in the living room. "Hi Joseph! Everything okay?" She asked me. Was I okay? "I've been better, but I'm happy about going to Playlist Live this year!" I answered. She nodded in a understanding way and we started speaking about Playlist. We spent hours in the living room sorting through the pictures there and putting them in different photo albums while laughing about some memories we had. "Is there anymore pictures?" Alfie questioned after we finished sticking in the last ten pictures. "I think I have some up in my old room, do you want to come look in there?" I replied. "You and Alfie can have a look, I'll sort out the photos in my old room." Zoe said. Alfie nodded and followed me into my old room. I opened up my old wardrobe to take out a huge box full of photos and other things.
While me and Alfie were sorting out the photos I found something that I haven't seen in years. At the bottom of the huge box was a old shoebox that was painted a sky blue colour and had Spiderman and flower stickers all over it. The on the top in huge decorative red writing read 'Joe and Elena's memory box'. I gasped and took it out to show Alfie. "I haven't seen this in years, I don't even remember what's in here." I admitted. Alfie looked at it curiously. "Open it!" He grinned. I agreed and lifted the lid and placed it next to me. As I saw each item, memories flooded back. The first item was a Horse Conch shell from the beach. "This is the shell from the beach in Brighton where we first met." I informed him. Alfie seemed confused and enquired "Brighton? When was this?"
I smiled and let my mind flashback to the very day. "I was almost nine at the time and so was she. It was during August and my parents were still together and they decided to take me and Zoe to Brighton for the day. In fact, you were there too, how crazy is that? But you didn't meet me or Zoe because you were shopping with your parents and Zoe was somewhere else with my parents but me and Elena stayed on the beach. I was making a sand castle and she was throwing a bouncy ball around. Elena being her clumsy self accidentally threw the ball onto my sand castle making it collapse. She came over and apologised and even then I thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. I asked her to help me make another one and yeah we chatted for what it seemed like hours. When it was time for us to go our separate ways we wrote down each other's addresses on each other's hands to write to each other. And was the start of our friendship." I explained. Alfie seemed surprised. "That's amazing. What else is in this box?" He wondered. I shrugged before looking in the box.
One by one we pulled out the stuff from the box, with the help of Zoe, for me to explain the background of them. In the box was the first letter she sent me, the first birthday card that she gave me which she made especially, the cinema ticket from the first time we went to see a film together (which was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, that I saw twice with her and many other times with Zoe and my parents), the Alton Towers wristband that we had from the time that I begged my Dad to take us and Zoe, the tickets from the 2004 A Ticket For Everyone Else tour in London that I took Elena to when both of us were 13 and big fans of Busted, a deflated birthday balloon from the surprise birthday party I threw for her when she turned 16, the photo album from our joint 18th birthday party and various cinema and theme park tickets and photos from the holidays we've had. "This is amazing Joe, you've had so many beautiful memories with her. Don't lose this." Zoe beamed. I nodded and then I noticed I had tears rolling down my cheeks. "I remember these things as if it was just yesterday, it makes me miss her more." I sighed. Alfie and Zoe looked at me sympathetically before pulling me in for a hug and helping me put all the things back in the box ready for me to take home with me to keep forever.