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Today was meant to be a good day, they were going to see the president. The president of the united states was coming to Derry.
But James left. He left.
It was no longer a good day; it was actually a pretty shitty one. She may have seen the president, but James left. He had left Derry to go back to London with his Mum and help her with her stupid sticker business. Well, self-adhesive labels as James or his mum would correct it to, but it was pure bullshit. She had tried to act happy when the president walked on stage, but she couldn’t. none of them could.
Because James left.
“Inconsiderate fuck,” Michelle said, as they were walking away from the square. “He could have at least let us see the president in peace without fucking ruining it”
“He didn’t exactly have all the time in the world Michelle” Clare spoke up defending James.
“Who cares, like we even wanted the wee dick to stay anyways” Michelle crossed her arms in front of her, “now we can back like it was before, just us four”
“Do we want it to get back to before though?” Orla said, who had been silent for most of the walk
Orla was right, they didn’t. Erin certainly didn’t want it to, James was a part of their lives, and now he suddenly wasn't
When she got back to hers, she went straight to her room, and just lied down on her bed. Sometimes that was the only way she could think.
Sure, when she first met James, she wasn’t sure if she wanted him to stick around. He was shy and was too awkward to use a girl’s bathroom. But she soon grew to care for him, she didn’t want him to get used by Katya, and sometimes he was the only one who could talk sense into the lot of them. Even if he did go along with their ridiculous plans in the end. She was going to miss his short fuse when to came to the things that weirded him out, and his nerdiness over stuff she had never even heard of. The way he would listen to her rambling and do his best to calm them down when she or Clare panicked. She would miss when he would show up no matter what, like when he showed up outside her door after she got stood up, ditching his creep convention to take her to prom.
She was going to miss him.
A knock on the door brought her out of her thoughts and back to reality, she sat up and rested her back against the headboard. The door opened and her mother walked through shutting it behind her.
“You alright love,” Mary asked sitting down on the bed next to her daughter, who had swung her legs over the side. Mary lifted the plate of cookies up to Erin’s face how took one and bit into it. Her Ma’s cookies were always the best, but even they couldn’t cheer her up.
“Yeah” Erin answered her mouth full, “I’m fine” Her ma just reached an arm around Erin and pulled her close. Her Ma always knew when she wasn’t fine, even if she told her she was. Her mother reached into her back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, and held it in front of Erin. Erin took the piece of paper out of her mother’s hand, she lifted her head in confusion and looked over at her mother.
“It’s his address,” Mary said softly, “I asked Dierdre for it,”
“What?” Erin asked her voice quiet “Why?”
“I thought you might need it” At that, Mary patted her daughters’ shoulder and left, shutting the door behind her.
Waiting a minute until her Ma had gone done stairs Erin jumped off her bed and moved over to her desk. And she began to write. It’s was what she prided herself on after all.
Dear James,
I know that you made the choice to move back to London, which is stupid because who would want to move out of Derry, but whatever. I hope that your Ma’s business with her stickers works out and that you enjoy living in London. But don’t go forgetting us lot in Derry, we’re not got going to forget you. We are going to miss you around here.
Don’t be a stranger,
Erin
She would never admit how long it took to write that letter to James, she didn’t really know where to start. The amount of crippled up pieces of paper in her bin showed the many attempts that it took to finally get to the words, she just needed to remember that this was James. She didn’t need to be poetic or impressive, she just needed to be Erin.
She thought the writing was hard but getting the courage to post it was even harder.
The next morning, she stood in front of the post-box tapping her foot and contemplating if sending the letter was worth it
After five minutes of holding the letter in her hand, she finally let the letter go through the post box. And after she did it let all of her worries go, maybe it would get lost, maybe it was the wrong address but there was nothing she could do about it now.
“What are ya doing?” Clare sudden voice brought her back to reality. She stumbled into the post-box but was able to recuperate herself and pretend it never happened. She turned to Clare holding the handles of her backpack, with Orla behind her.
“Jesus Clare, you could have given me a heart attack,” Erin said pulling her blazer down, to straighten it put after her small stumble, she turned and started walking towards their bus stop praying Clare and Orla hadn’t seen the letter.
It had been a week without James, and six days since she sent the letter, and Michelle was right. It did seem that everything might have been going back to the way it was before. But it didn’t change the fact that it felt like there was something missing from the group. Someone.
She didn’t tell her friends about the letter; it was her thing. Her way to let out her feelings about James leaving.
It was cathartic.
But what she didn’t expect was for James to write back. After she and Orla had arrived home from school, she picked up the mail off of the floor and rifled through sorting out who they were for and ordered them in the respective piles. When she got the bottom, she noticed one which was smaller. She put the rest on the living room table as she continued to stare at the letter.
“You alright Erin?” Mother asked from the kitchen,
“Yeah” She responded without looking away from the small slip of paper in her hand. She recognized the hand writing instantly. Boxy but still neat, none of the letters were cursive beside the certain few. “I just gotta head upstairs” Without making eye contact, she walked straight past who was confused for a second, but just as quickly shrugged it off.
She opened the door to her room, and quickly put the bolt on. One which after a lot of pestering her Ma let her install after the Orla diary reading incident.
She quickly opened the letter, smiling as she read through.
Dear Erin,
I haven’t fully settled back into London yet and living with my mum again, but I wanted to write back to you as quick as I could. I’m sorry that everything had to happen so quickly, but everything was already booked. And even though I left Derry doesn’t mean you’re getting rid of me that easily.
I’ll write again soon,
James