Without Jesse

(39) collages

✨Talia✨

I tapped my toe impatiently as I waited for the printer to finally print off my final photograph. After all the Blake stuff, planning for the dance, midnight snacks with Sandy, homework and Justin's smirks in the hallway I had totally forgotten about my photo collage for the program.

The final photo printed off and I grabbed it off the tray before rushing to the desk to tape and glue them all together. Isabelle was there as well taping all her photos together as well. I was happy I wasn't the only one that had forgotten.

"Come on Talia!" Isabelle urged as I got the photos in the shape I desired then taped and glued them together hurriedly. I grabbed a purple highlighter from the tin on the table and gave a few of the photos a border while the others were just white. 

I grabbed a spare piece of paper and glued it to the bottom two images and wrote in my most neat cursive font, Friends Forever. Then on the back, Messy Jesse + Tally Wally. I grinned and picked it up gently before running to the session room with Isabelle running alongside me. I grinned at her as our shoes clapped on the tile floors loudly. She giggled as I nearly tripped over and I laughed along with her.

I smirked as a teacher from a nearby class shouted, "No running in the halls!"

I yelled back, "Hakuna matata!" Isabelle barked a laugh as she started to pant from running, "We're nearly there!" I insisted and she nodded before running after me. I may be short but I'm one of the fastest runners around.

I nudged the door open with my hip and held it open for Isabelle to come in after me. We pushed open the door of the session room to see that glasses was mid way through telling the group about her grandfather when we burst in. Her lips curled into a sneer as she drawled, "Well look who decided to show up." 

I glared and retorted, "Well at least we made ours look nice, yours on the other hand..." I deliberately gave her collage a slow look over as she glared back at me, Isabelle muttered an apology before sitting on her bean bag. Glasses opened her mouth to argue back when Alex cut in and stated firmly but kindly,

"Now girls, better late then never and everyone's collages look brilliant because they consist of our loved one. Tally, you'll be after Cassandra." I nodded and slumped into my bean bag next to Isabelle.

Glasses glare only vanished once she started talking about her grandfather, "As I was saying my Nonno was a big man and was one of the best huggers I'd ever met. He... he was diagnosed with Cancer when I was 14. It was weird, he acted normal and we did all the things we normally did but that word was hanging over our heads the entire time. Like one time we went to the local fair and we went on the Ferris wheel," Glasses pointed to one of the images which was of her hugging an older man with a big beard and moustache. His silver blue eyes matched hers perfectly, and they were both beaming at the camera, a Ferris wheel behind them, lit up like a Christmas tree.

Glasses coughed before continuing, "And we were just handing over our tickets when he had a hard coughing fit, he waved it off and it subsided after a while. I was worried and suggested we didn't go on the wheel but he insisted. And he acted completely normal for the rest of our outing... like it had never happened. And it felt as if it hadn't happened.

It only became real at my school assembly, the principal was talking and Nonno had a massive coughing fit, worse than any other and he started coughing up blood. Everyone freaked out cause he collapsed after a few long second of coughing. We were in the hospital for hours. After that whenever he acted normal I would make sure to remember that day so I would know that it wasn't normal." She was breathing hard and glaring at the photo of the Ferris wheel and for a moment I thought she was going to throw a punch at the collage but instead she calmly pointed out,