4. Memories

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On Monday you went back to work, dreading it as always.
You stepped inside the tiny room that you could barely call a bookstore, and walked straight over to the counter. You didn't bother to go say hi to Jason, who was probably in his office, "working". Yeah, he liked to call playing games on his computer all day working. And he was the one telling you to put your phone away and do your job.
Well, your job was helping customers and making sure the bookshelves looked fine. Most of the time there were no customers, and dusting the bookshelves took you about ten minutes, so you had nothing to do. But whenever Jason decided to leave his office and shout at you for not doing anything, you'd just rearrange all the books in the alphabetic order. Or, pretend to, because the books were already in alphabetic order and it hardly ever changed. It at least looked like you were doing something then.

You sat down in your chair behind the counter and took out your phone. You plugged in your earphones and hit shuffle play on your favorite playlist. You leaned back and closed your eyes, breathing in the stale air. The place smelled like books. You loved the smell of books.
In your head you went over everything that had happened that weekend again. How you met Phil on a Friday afternoon in the pouring rain, and how you went to drink coffee with him two days in a row. Honestly, you'd love to do that again sometimes.
You thought about how he'd told you about his career as a youtuber. You had never really known that was an actual way to make money.
Curiosity took over and you looked up his YouTube channel.

He seemed to be quite popular, with nearly four million subscribers. You watched a few of his videos. You had to admit that they were really funny. His off-camera personality wasn't very different from how he was in his videos. His videos were, how did you say that, real? He wasn't acting, he was just him being himself, and you liked that.
Not much later you'd also come across Dan. He looked like a really nice guy too.
Watching videos of them playing video games or doing Q&A's together left you with some kind of empty feeling inside. They looked so happy, having so much fun. You missed that.

And then, without any warning, faded memories of you and your sister came rolling back into your mind. You and her together watching a movie, wrapped in a blanket on the sofa. You pushing her on the swing in the backyard, the bright sun shining in your eyes. Unwrapping presents early in the morning on Christmas Day.
More memories of your old life followed, as if watching Dan and Phil had opened a door to all those things you had tried to repress for so long. It had worked, you had put them away somewhere safe in the back of your mind where they couldn't get out, until now.
You and your sister Lyla used to be best buddies like Dan and Phil. Their friendship was very similar to yours and your sister's.
She had been two years younger than you, but you had had a really good bond with her.
You missed her, your little sister.

Up until you were ten, your life had been perfect. Your mum and dad had been the best parents anyone could ever wish for, and you loved them and Lyla very dearly.
Your dad had been a doctor, and you were always very proud of him. He saved people's lives. It was unfair though, because no one ever saved his. He got nothing in return.
Your mum had been a writer. She spent a lot of her time with you and Lyla at home. She didn't have a regular income, but that wasn't much of a problem with your dad's job.
You had gotten your love for books from your mum. That, and the few books she had actually published, was all you had left of her.

Everything had been fine in your life.
You had had friends to play with, a loving family, school had been fun.
Until that one particularly hot summer day, when the universe had decided to turn against you.
You had been sleeping over at a friends house, and your parents had gone to visit your grandparents with Lyla.

They died in a carcrash, all three of them.

That was when you were thrown into the deep, icecold pool that was real life, and you had never learned how to swim. Your family was gone, and there you were, only ten years old, all on your own.
You had spent the next eight years of your life in about fifteen different foster families. None of them was able to deal with you and your depression at that time.
You had lost all your old friends, because you had to switch schools very often. They hadn't even cared about you enough to keep in touch with you. That was life, you'd learned that quick enough.

When you were eighteen you had immediately left for college, and started a life on your own. After two years you had dropped out of uni because it drove you crazy.
And now you were here, twenty-three years old, no family that cared about you, no friends, and one hell of a crappy job.

You didn't realise you were crying until you switched off your phone and saw your reflection in the black screen. You quickly wiped away the tears and got up to get some coffee.

At that moment you regretted watching Phil's videos, because he somehow brought back the memories.
If you had known how much he would continue to remind you of your family back then, you would've never spoken to him again. The memories were too painful.

But you didn't know.

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Okay this story has exactly 1000 words (excluding this part under the line :] )
Yay. The perfection.

This was very emotional. Im sorry. I didn't know how to continue so HERE'S A TRAGIC BACKSTORY FOR YA.
Gotta love tragic backstories.

Okay bye :)

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