The Story We Never Finished

Some days, I think my life would make a terrible novel. Not because nothing happens. Too much happens. My mother says I overthink everything. Maybe she's right. I have a habit of turning ordinary things into stories in my head. A teacher's angry voice becomes a villain's warning. A stranger's smile becomes the beginning of a romance. Even the sound of rain against my window can somehow become a tragedy. Maybe that's what happens when you spend too much time writing. You start seeing stories everywhere. Unfortunately, seeing stories everywhere doesn't mean you know how to fix your own life. Today, for example, started with my mother yelling my name from the kitchen. "Amelia! Get up! You're going to be late!" I opened one eye and stared at the ceiling. I considered pretending I hadn't heard her. It lasted approximately five seconds. "Amelia!" "I'm awake!" I wasn't. Not really. I pulled the blanket over my head and sighed. Another school day. Another uniform. Another collection of teachers who seemed personally offended by the existence of teenagers. And another day of pretending that everything in my life was completely normal. It wasn't. But I had become very good at pretending. By the time I finally got out of bed, Mama had already called my name twice more. I hurried through my morning routine, grabbed my schoolbag, and went into the kitchen. She was arranging some of the goods for her little business when I entered. "Look at the time," she said, glancing at me. "One day, you'll make me grow grey hair before my time." I smiled and reached for my breakfast. "You say that every morning." "And every morning, you give me a reason to say it again." I laughed, kissed her cheek, and hurried to finish eating. That was how most of our mornings went. Mama complained, I defended myself, and somehow we both ended up laughing before I left the house. We didn't have much, but she always tried to make our little home feel like enough. My mother had raised me alone for as long as I could remember. It had always been just the two of us—her and me, our tiny home, her little business, my schoolbooks, and the stories I wrote whenever real life became too loud. She worked hard. Sometimes I wished I could do more to help her, but she always told me to concentrate on school. "Your books are your responsibility," she'd say. "Let me worry about the rest." So I studied, went to school, came home, and wrote. Writing was the one thing I could do without anyone telling me how it should be done. In my stories, I could make a poor girl fall in love with a prince, send a heartbroken woman on a journey, or give a lonely character the kind of family I'd sometimes wondered about having. I liked writing romance most of all. There was just one small problem. I didn't believe in it. My mother didn't like talking about my father. I'd asked questions when I was younger, but her answers had always been short, and eventually, I stopped asking. There were questions I still thought about when I couldn't sleep. Why had he left? Did he ever think about me? Had Mama once been happy with him, before whatever happened between them changed everything? I didn't know the answers. I wasn't even sure I wanted to know them anymore. But growing up watching my mother do everything by herself had taught me something: people could promise to stay and still leave. Maybe that was why I never understood why people wanted love so badly. I'd read hundreds of love stories. I'd written some myself. I knew all the things people said when they were falling in love, and I knew how to make readers cry when two characters lost each other. But I'd never understood why anyone would willingly give another person the power to hurt them. It seemed like a terrible idea. Still, I kept writing about it. Perhaps I was hoping that one day, one of my characters would figure it out for me. When I arrived at school that morning, the compound was already noisy. Students hurried toward their classrooms, a few people were arguing over an assignment, and somebody near the staircase was laughing so loudly that half the corridor turned to look. I slipped through the crowd and headed to my classroom. I wasn't the most popular girl in school. I wasn't the girl everyone gathered around during break, and I certainly wasn't the girl boys found excuses to talk to. I was Amelia. The quiet girl who usually had a notebook in her bag. The one who could spend an entire lunch break writing while everyone else discussed their favourite celebrities or the latest school gossip. I didn't mind being alone. At least, that's what I told myself. People were complicated. Books were easier. Books didn't ask why you were quiet. They didn't stare at you when you said something awkward, and they didn't make you wonder whether a smile meant something more than it should. I had just settled into my seat when my friend leaned across the desk. "Did you finish the assignment?" I looked at her. "Which one?" She stared at me in disbelief. "Amelia!" I laughed and pulled the paper from my bag. She snatched it before I could say anything else. "You're a lifesaver." "Don't say that until you check whether my answers are correct." She was already copying the first line. I shook my head and opened my notebook, adding a few sentences to the story I'd been working on the previous night. My heroine was falling in love with a boy who had no idea how much she liked him. I paused and frowned at the page. How could someone fall in love with a person who barely knew they existed? I crossed out a sentence and started again. It was ridiculous, really. I could spend hours writing about people who would do anything for love, but if someone asked me whether I wanted that kind of love for myself, my answer would be no. At least, that was my answer then. I didn't know that before the school year ended, someone would walk into my life and make me question everything I thought I knew about love. I didn't know his name yet. I didn't know what his smile looked like up close, or how easily he would find ways to make me laugh when I was trying very hard not to. I didn't know that I would begin looking forward to seeing him, or that a simple message from him would eventually become enough to change my entire mood. I certainly didn't know how much it would hurt when things between us fell apart. And I had no idea that years later, I would look back on the day we met and wonder whether my life would have been easier if we'd never crossed paths. But perhaps the strangest part of all was this: Even knowing how much that boy would change my life, there might still come a day when I would give anything to meet him all over again.