The Life and Afterlife of Charlie Brackwood (The Brackwood Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

become more noticeable, until it was unavoidable and Lucy's entire being crumbled under the pressure.
    Russ and I had seen this before when her cousin Gilly died while we were kids.  Gilly was the same age as Lucy. Gentle and mild-mannered, she was easy to like and always carefully protected by her family, including Lucy.  We all adored Gilly. The day she died was a dark day in our young lives and not one we could easily forget. Lucy and she were very close but Gilly was born with a hole in her heart and her days were always numbered.  Even though Lucy was expecting it, she was still distraught by her cousin's death.
    At first she’d seemed fine, laughing and smiling as normal.  Then the smile began to slip and she'd start to daydream.  Lucy was so distracted she became oblivious to events going on around her.  Eventually, her schoolwork started to suffer and she distanced herself from me and Russ.  Her pain only became apparent when, during a family function, she decided to run away from home.  Russ and I spotted her escaping to her room during her mum's birthday party, looking distraught.  We decided to follow her.
    When we found her she was packing her clothes into a suitcase, tears streaming down her face. Russ and I stood watching in shock for a minute or two. We'd hardly ever seen Lucy cry before and she was ten by now.
    "What is it, Luce?  Why are you so upset?" Russ asked softly.
    "Nothing, just leave me alone."
    "Lucy, you're upset. We're not leaving you like this and we won't let you go anywhere.  Just stop packing, all right?"
    I spoke a bit too harshly.  She looked daggers at me, I stared back.  She looked at me with pure hatred.  I wasn't the one to break eye contact.  Then the avalanche struck.  She took a picture frame off her bedside table and threw it at me.  I caught it before it hit me in the face.  I turned it over to reveal a picture of Lucy and Gilly taken when they were five.  I raised my head and looked into her eyes, now shining with tears.
    "It's Gilly, isn't it? That's why you're leaving?"
    "Everybody is having such a good time, but it's not right.  Gilly isn't here.  She should be here with us.  She's been forgotten...by her own family," said Lucy between sobs.  I looked at Russ. He walked over to Lucy and hugged her tight.
    "Gilly hasn't been forgotten," I said.  "She will always be in the minds of the ones who love her.  Sometimes people need an escape from grieving, to give them a break from thinking of what they’ve lost.  You need to understand that, Luce.  If you love someone, you can't help but think of them." I hoped that my words would bring her comfort.
    She looked slightly calmer.  She seemed to have understood what I'd said and wiped her eyes as she pulled away from Russ.
    "I just miss her. I'm still angry about her being taken away from me."
    "That's understandable," Russ said.
    I was silent for a minute as I tried to ignore the pain in her voice.  I hated to see my Lucy suffer even then.  An idea entered my head, an idea that might just make things a bit better for her.
    "Luce, I've just thought of something.  Why don't you write a letter to Gilly? Tell her how you feel and how much you miss her.  Then we'll attach it to a helium balloon and send it to her in the sky."
    "I like that idea," Russ put in.
    What Lucy needed was closure, to accept the fact that Gilly wasn't coming back.
    Eventually, she came round to my idea and the next day we let three bright fuchsia-coloured balloons into the sky, with a personal message to Gilly from each of us attached.  After that Lucy seemed less angry and more her old self.  She would never forget Gilly and we talked about her often over the years, wondering whether she could see us, whether she'd be watching over us as we said our vows. But Lucy found closure that day and it helped to heal a wound that had been left wide open for too long.
    I watched my childhood friends with an intensity of sadness I had never