Anna's Final Letter - Chapter 6:
The birds sing and the sunlight pours through my window when I finally wake. My environment sure does mirror my mood. I'm still sitting on the ground where I was the night before, and I can't help but feel stiff when I try to move. I hear a knocking on my door behind me and I push myself awkwardly to my feet before opening my door.
"Hi, Mum," I greet my mother who looks like she's been dragged backwards through a hedge. I love my Mum to pieces, but it was true.
"Blake, if you're going to have a shower, please have one now"
I'm grateful for the normal topic for once; people assume that I want to constantly talk about Anna. I want to silently grieve.
"Yeah, I'll go in now"
"Before I forget," my Mum looked at me a way that let me know that she wants me to take in what she's about to say. "Please don't leave your sopping wet clothes over the shower curtain rail again."
I laugh. "Sorry, Mum, never again."
I hear my Mum let out a quiet chuckle before she disappeared back into her room.
*****
After showering, I decide to go to Anna's house to start packing her things up. Someone has to do it; her father is being kept in custody and I don't think Anna would have wanted him to look through all her things anyway. She never liked that man, regardless of whether or not he was her father or not.
She was always her mother's daughter.
I let myself in with the key that Anna gave me a couple of months ago, and make my way up the stairs to her room. The house is still clean - the maid still comes each week and maintains it.
Anna's room looks like it always does. She was naturally an organised, neat and clean person, so she never needed the maid, but since she left her room has needed cleaning.
I spend a while just looking at everything. Anna hadn't been in this room for weeks, but it still vaguely smelt of her perfume - the one I had bought her for her last birthday.
After a while, I go back down to my Dad's car. He drove me here, but had walked into town to do some window shopping and to give me some space while I pack Anna's things. I'm taking everything back to my house; Anna's Dad would probably just throw everything out and convert her room into an office or something.
I take three large boxes from the boot and make my way back to Anna's room. I begin with her bookshelf. It has three shelves, and each one is overflowing with books. Anna and I shared the same love for literature. There is everything from timeless old plays from the likes of Shakespeare to more futuristic love stories like the 'Matched' series by Ally Condle. I know the plot of every single one of the books; not because I read them myself, but because I was forced to listen to an excited Anna tell me what exactly happened in each one.
*****
It took me the whole day to pack away Anna's books. Not because it was a lengthy process, but because I had looked through each and every one, reading the messages on the inside of the covers that said things like 'Happy 13th Birthday, Anna. We Love You. From Mum and Dad xx' and reading through the notes she had made in her copy of 'Romeo and Juliet'. At times, she had written things like 'Blake Turner is my Romeo' and surrounded it with hearts and faces with their tongues poking out, which made me laugh and cry at the same time.
And she was my beautiful, gorgeous, stunning Juliet.
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Anna's Final Letter - Version I
Romance'I'll tell her how I feel tomorrow', he thought. But what if she was gone tomorrow? The love between 17 year olds Blake and Anna was never voiced between them. Anna’s car came off the road and into a river, she was tragically killed by drowning – sh...
