It was finally time, they had been sitting there waiting for the last few years. Gabby wasn’t exactly sure what she was wait for, the inertia of her lack of action was totally alien to Gabby as she was always organised, always on top of jobs – the reason didn’t exactly take a Criminal Psychologist with a PhD to work out that sorting out her mother’s final personal belongings wasn’t going to be fun, it would finally mean her mother was out of her day-to-day life.

She missed her, it had been two years, 256 days and after looking at her watch 2 hours and 26 minutes since Gabby had said her good byes in the hospital – Gabby was too young to lose a parent and resented it. Deep down she was annoyed when Mother’s Day came along and would walk into her local supermarket and see an entire aisle of flowers, plants, cards and other paraphernalia which made her shout expletives in her head ‘WHAT ABOUT ME, I DON’T HAVE A FUCKING MOTHER’, it was unfair and at 20 she had lots of years of repeating the hurt.

Her life had been put on hold since she died and unsurprisingly looking after herself was put right to the back, fun, going out, boyfriends, girlfriends all ceased to look after her brother and her father – but now it was her turn, it was her turn to get a life. She was due to go to University in a couple of weeks and had time to prepare her head that it was really time for her.

She was excited, scared as hell but excited – everyone else would be younger and after the lose of a parent you grow up quick smart and have a more cynical approach to life. Would she fit in, would she make friends, would she be able to discover herself or was that just cliche bull shit. She hoped that she would be able to spread her wings and experience even a little bit of the amazing life she saw her friend living over ‘gram’ and tiktok.

She had had a boyfriend, he was great but she had to end it after her father fell apart and she needed to look after him, Donnie was great, kind, gentle and they even had sex before her life fell apart – she missed the intimacy and missed the touches and the feelings of longing when they fooled around in her bedroom. Paul was as inexperienced as she was but that was two years ago and so her heart lifted just a little when she thought about what see might experience.

She looked at the boxes in the cupboard, there were three of them – clothes, pictures, bits and pieces and some paperwork. She pulled them out and sighed as she slid one closer to her and lifted the dusty lid – her heart sank as Gabby saw a smiling picture of her Mum with her arms around her and her brother at a BBQ they had about five years ago.