Someone please tell me to go to sleep :')

"How's your fiancé doing?"

"The stupid idiot didn't listen when I said not to mix sprite with milk for a dare. He's sick now."

You laugh. Nathan is an idiot. Cassandra takes a sip of her pumpkin spice latte and closes her eyes. "What about your boyfriend?" She asks. "When was the last time you saw him?"

"Kieth is not my boyfriend," you say defensively.

"Mmhmm," Cassandra hums. "Well with the way you two talk to each other you may as well start dating. I'm pretty sure he likes you."

"Pfft, no he doesn't," you laugh. "Besides, I'm not looking for a boyfriend right now."

Cassandra sips her drink again and looks at you. Her eyes soften and her mouth twists as if she just tasted something bitter. "Still healing?" She murmurs, voice gentle. You look at your hands, which are clasped together tightly. "Yeah," you mumble, smile fading. "Little bit."

Cassandra nods and stands up. "Okay, well, let's go do something before your lunch break ends okay?" You stand up after her, smile back on your face.

"Okay."

•••

The smell of roast beef wafting from the kitchen conquers all thoughts in your mind and replaces your objective to shower and clean up with the need to eat. You set your bag down by the stairs as you make your way into the kitchen, where your mom is dishing a yummy-looking roast beef out of the crockpot and onto a plate.

"Mmm," you hum, sitting down at the bar counter. On the stove, there is a pot of boiling potatoes and another pot with corn in it. Mom glances in your direction.

"Hey Y/n," she says. She only ever speaks softly to you anymore. There is a tiny rift in between you two that's been there for months, ever since... well, ever since it happened. "Have a good day at work?"

"Yeah. Cassandra came during my lunch break and we got to go around the mall and look at clothes and stuff," you say. "Nothing interesting though."

You work at a Starbucks at the mall. You started the job in May and have been working there for four months. It was kind of hard to work there at first, because you have memories at the mall you'd rather leave alone, but now it's easy and your coworkers are really friendly.

Half the memories are gone anyway, since some shops closed down due to the Coronavirus and went out of business. No one can go to the theatre anymore and it's been abandoned for a while. The pretzel stand is gone. Most of the stores are still a little nervous opening up, so they're not allowing too many people in.

Everything is different.

"That's really nice," mom says. "How are Cassandra and Nathan? I haven't seen them since last week"

"She's doing great. Nathan's not though. He's sick today so I didn't get to see him."

Nathan and Cassandra started dating in December not long after winter break started. They're engaged now and still planning when to have their wedding.

"What about Kieth? How's he doing? It's been a while since I've seen him too."

"It's still only been a week," you mumble, playing with the hem of your shirt. "And he's doing fine. Came to work early for his shift and left late for me, as usual. It was a slow day. Not very many customers."

School started up again about a month ago, and is still online here. You're kind of glad that you graduated and don't have to deal with that anymore.

"That was sweet of him." Mom pours the meat juices left over in the crockpot into a small bowl to make gravy. "I like him."

You nod, pressing your lips into a line and rubbing them together. They're bitten raw and stinging.

Kieth is your coworker at Starbucks. He's a year older than you and vowed to "take care of you" when you first got your job. He's always been so nice and actually has gotten to come over to your house a couple of times. Just downstairs though. You don't let people into your room anymore.

"Well anyway," mom says, ready to move the conversation onto something else. "I saw your sketchbook today."

You freeze. "You went through my room?"

"I just wanted to clean up in there a little bit. Make your bed and vacuum your floors. You know, tidy up. I wasn't going through your stuff." Mom whisks the gravy mixture together and sets it aside. "Your sketchbook was just laying open and I saw what you drew on it."

You scowl at the counter. You forgot to close your sketchbook again, it seems.

Mom looks at you, then comes over to lean on the counter across from you.

"The drawing is beautiful," she murmurs. You don't meet her eyes. You don't want to talk about this. Mom sighs and looks down at the counter. She knows you won't talk about it. Not to her anyway. You only ever talk to Lily when it comes to stuff like that.

"Dinner will be ready in a moment," mom says. "Just let me mash the potatoes and I'll-"

"I'm gonna go take a shower."

Mom frowns worriedly as you get up. "And then come back and eat?"

"Probably not."

"But you haven't eaten that much this week. You were doing so good before-"

"Good night, mom."

•••

You step out of the shower and grab your towel to wrap around yourself. Then dry off a little bit before grabbing your pajamas off of the counter and changing into them, avoiding the mirror.

You hate looking in the mirror.

You leave the bathroom and walk into your room right next door, hair wrapped in a towel. You don't turn the lights on. You'll probably just go to sleep immediately. Or at least try to. You don't really sleep well. Technically, you never have. It's just that now, you don't have texts to wait for at midnight.

You steer your mind away from that subject. Best not to think about it before bed. Especially since whenever you do, you wake up from nightmares.

You glance at your clock. 7:46pm. The sun should still be in the sky, but your window is covered with cardboard and a new set of curtains. No light gets in.

It's nice and dark. Calm, quiet, peaceful.

You look at your phone. The date flashes at you.

September 22nd.

It's been a year since that day.

You push the thought away, rejecting all that comes with it. You're happy. Have been for a while. No need to change that now.

It's just that... today, one year ago, is when it all started.

You're heading into the months when... when it all happened. Everything.

Your eyes sting and your nose twitches. No, don't start that. You think. We were doing good. We don't need to go back into that.

But then suddenly everything reminds you of him.

Your bed, your window, your desk chair, your nightstand, your beanbag- your walls, even. Memories are attached to everything in this room that he touched.

You walk over to your closet and open the door, which is decorated with photos of you and your friends. The mirror on the door is gone now, taken out of your room several months ago.

That was one of your bad days.

There were many bad days.

From the closet, you grab your bin of art supplies, take it out of the closet, shut the door, and then drag the bin over to your desk.

You sit down on your chair. Just as mom said, you left your sketchbook open on your desk, to a page you finished last night.

The sight pushes you over the edge. Tears spill out of your eyes and onto the paper. You can't take it any longer.

Today's the day you met him one year ago and gave him your number.

On the sketchbook page is a drawing of him, laying down, eyes closed, surrounded by flowers.

You bury your face into your hands and shake your head. You don't want to cry anymore. You've cried way too much already. You were doing so good before. And now you're falling back.

You stand up and walk back into your closet, chair dragging behind you. You position the chair in the corner of your closet, climb on top of it, and reach to the top shelf where the other bin is.

It's a small, clear bin with a white lid covered in crayon markings from when you were a kid. Inside, you can see gray fabric and a white cord. You pull the bin off of the shelf and bring it out of the closet.

After dragging the chair back to your desk, you sit down on the bed with the bin and open it.

Inside, the gray fabric is a hoodie. The cord is a pair of earbuds neatly wrapped around your old phone. Other things in the bin are a small collection of movie tickets, two photo cards, and a yellow envelope with folded paper inside.

You grab the hoodie and the phone. You know you shouldn't be falling back to these habits but you can't help it anymore. You need this right now.

With tears on your face, you pull the hoodie on. It no longer smells like him anymore. It hasn't for a while. Still, you bring the collar up to your nose, close your eyes, and take deep breaths. In and out. In and out.

If you try hard enough, you can imagine that the scent is still there.

When you can finally control your breathing, you take the phone out, shove the bin away, unravel the earbuds and put them in, then lay down.

You unlock the phone. The last time you used it was a couple of months ago. The battery is low, almost dead.

You unplug your current phone and plug the charger into the one in your hands.

With blurry vision, you tap into photos and open the an album you made a while ago.

It's all him.

All of the pictures, videos, everything that had any sort of trace of him.

You calm down. The tear flow slows to a stop. Your breathing becomes shallow and steady. Your heartbeat is speedy but not way too fast.

You click on a video you took a long time ago. During Thanksgiving last year.

The bright face of a girl is the first thing on the video. It's you, but much happier.

"Happy Thanksgiving!" She whispers excitedly. It was a video you made at midnight, when the grownups started pulling the drinks out in the living room.

Past you flips the camera around and hurries quietly down the hallway on her socks. The camera goes wild, then stops and lifts up, viewing the living room.

Mom and Gabriel are sitting on dining room chairs next to each other. Lily is in between Tristan and Annie on the couch. Everyone is laughing at something Gabriel said.

And there he is, in the big armchair in the corner of the room, facing you. He's clutching his stomach, laughing hard at whatever Gabe said.

And then he spots you, the moment you enter the room. He lifts his head and flashes you the biggest toothy smile he has, eyes slits, long silver hair covering his forehead.

Jimin.

Before everything happened.

Past you slides over to him on her socks and flips the camera back around, then squishes onto the armchair right next to him.

"Hey Chim," she says. "Say something for the camera so we can remember today."

Jimin cards a hand through his hair to brush it out of his face, and grins at the camera. Then he reaches out, cups past you's face, and kisses her softly.

"I love you," he says. "A whole lot of a lot."

Past you blushes madly and mumbles out a quick, "I love you too."

And then Jimin leans forward and kisses her face lots, and tickles her at the same time.

"Stop!" Past you squeals. "Stop it that tickles!"

But Jimin doesn't stop for a while, until he's tired and laughing.

The two of you calm down.

Jimin kisses your cheek. "My precious," he murmurs, and the video ends.

The paused screen stares at you and for a moment, all you can do is stare back.

And then burst into more tears.

I have had ideas upon ideas on how to write the sequel to HMN and none of them worked until FINALLY I get a good one. I'm ready to start writing and publishing this now and I canNOT wait for Set Aflame to be done before I publish this so you'll be getting both stories at the same time. :)

Hope you enjoy! Have a great day/night!<3

-L