Notes: Apparently, I wrote this ages ago and forgot about it. I had 'Ocean Eyes' by Billie Eilish on repeat while writing it.


Tomorrow

Tomorrow, you will have your first period.

A warm, syrupy feeling will churn in your lower abdomen, whisking you to and from the brink of nausea, and when you go to the bathroom, the toilet paper will come away red, more vivid than blood has any right to be. You will find a box of sanitary napkins at the back of the cabinet, the cardboard dusty and tinged with damp from the two years that have passed since they first appeared in there, presumably left by your mother in foresight of this day. You will spend ten minutes trying to get one of the damn things to stick to the cotton of your panties, but no matter how you place it, it will feel bulky and awkward, and when you leave the bathroom you will feel certain everyone will be able to see the padding through your skirt. As subtle as an adult diaper.

You will spend the rest of the morning hiding in your bedroom, trying to find a way to sit which doesn't leave you constantly worried blood is about to seep around the edge of the napkin to stain your inner thighs and clothes, so maybe then you can forget about your changing body for a short while and concentrate on your math homework. When your brother barges into your room you will be lying on the bed, on your stomach. He will ask if you're joining him and your parents for milkshakes at MG's, but you will refuse, saying you have to study, when really you fear what mess might await you if you were to move. Your father will insist you come with them, but you won't relent; instead, you will infuse your tone with sweetness and offer your mother a lick of a smile. Bring me something back—strawberry. And she will agree, but as she leaves, that sweetness in your voice will vanish as fast as sugar will burn, and you will yell after her to, Close the door!

Later, you will regret that these were your final words, and though you will tell yourself you couldn't know what was about to happen, that you were a teenager, hormonal, it will never lose its sting and you will never stop thinking about what could have been, mentally rewriting this moment.

An hour will pass before you realise how long your brother and parents have been gone. Far longer than the fifteen minutes your father promised. You will wait half an hour more before finally braving the bathroom, where you will make a mess as you try to clean yourself with wads of toilet paper wetted under the warm tap, the paper disintegrating on contact with your skin and forming rough bobbles, like pilling on wool. Despite your efforts to brush away the balls of paper, you will still feel the chafing when you venture downstairs and onto the front porch.

You will sit on the top step and stare out across the bristling green and brown grasses of the paddock to where the gravel track meets the road. Your mind will spin like it is careening along a corkscrew Möbius, running through countless reasons as to why they haven't come home, though all of those scenarios—flat tyre, traffic, impromptu trip to the mall (your brother's latest scrap left him with yet another torn shirt)—will feel like distractions designed to stop you from reaching the conclusion that in your bones you already know.

When the patrol car finally pulls up, beacon unlit, gravel crunching and popping beneath the tyres, blood will have seeped around the edge of the napkin, through your woollen skirt, and formed a wet stain on the porch boards.

You and your brother will be sent to live with your Aunt Joan. Not because she wants you, but because she lives closest. She will make clear the inconvenience your parents' deaths, and by extension you, have caused her on the drive from the police station to her house with a mutter about missing her friend Ruth's birthday dinner in order to collect you. Months later, once the fog of numbness has thinned, you will think back upon her comment with a stab of hate, How could she be so callous?, but with time you will encounter more than enough death to understand that this—and nearly everything, from raging anger to uncontrollable laughter—is a normal reaction to the shock of loss. And you will remember how at the funeral she cried.

You won't cry.

Summer will pass in one long smear, like grief has taken a wet cloth to the chalk mural of life. Your home will be sold, as will the horses; your possessions will be whittled down to what will fit beneath the twin beds, topped with matching rose-patterned bedspreads, in Aunt Joan's guest room; sometimes you will forget your parents are dead, will make a mental note of something you want or need to tell them.

And then you will remember.

And it will feel like someone has punched you in the diaphragm.

You will grow tired of remembering, of being winded again and again and again, and so you will start to tell yourself your parents are still out there somewhere, not spiritually but physically. It will take you over thirty-five years to admit to this delusion and finally visit their graves.

At the end of summer, your aunt will inform you she can no longer miss business trips to stay at home and supervise you and your brother, and so, as of next Tuesday, you will be attending boarding schools: you a co-ed, your brother an all-boys. (Because you need to be challenged and he needs discipline.) You will accept this without protest. Not because you believe it okay to make such a decision without consulting you, and not because you buy into the fresh start line your aunt tries to sell you, but because there is no point arguing over what you want and what is fair anymore.

When you arrive at your dorm, a soulless room with champagne pink carpet and cappuccino white walls, three of the four beds will already be taken, bagsied with suitcases emblazoned with LV's, Polo Ponies and interlocking C's, leaving the one tucked beneath the L of the corner windows empty. You will traipse across the room and drop your father's duffel bag, its brown leather mottled and cracked, onto the free bed, and as you begin to unpack, a draught will gust past the window panes and prickle over your skin, calling the fine hairs on your arms to attention. As you nestle the last of your balled-up socks into the drawer beneath your bed, brash voices and exaggerated laughter will near. You will stumble to your feet, turn around and be confronted by a semicircle of three girls. Debbie. Angie. Kimberly, they will announce. You will hesitate, drinking them in, searching for any detail amidst the blonde curls and pastel tones that will help you differentiate between them, then you will offer your own introduction, Elizabeth. And when they flash you manicured smiles and say how won-derful it is to meet you, Lizzie, you won't correct them.

Lizzie will be mild, Lizzie will be agreeable, Lizzie won't make anyone uncomfortable by telling them her history.

You, however, will be lonely.

It will feel like there is an emptiness gnawing away inside you. Hunger pains. Only, this hunger won't be for food but for something else, something you cannot put a name to.

Connection. To be seen. Freedom to be the real you, and for the real you to be appreciated.

This, you will realise once you meet Joey.

The Crown Prince of Bahrain will be nothing like you'd expect him to be. For starters, when you are paired together in AP English and are instructed to deliver a presentation on a topic of your choosing designed to 'persuade and convince', he will turn to you with the look of an adrenaline junkie about to take on class 5 rapids. I want to argue for the abolition of the monarchy, he will say, and before you have a chance to process that, let alone point out he is part of said monarchy, he will proceed to systematically pull apart the ruling system of his own country. He will pause to check if this topic is of interest to you, clearly aware his enthusiasm could come across as controlling, keen to demonstrate he believes in the equality for which he advocates, that he's not just being contrary for contrary's sake, but his passion will ignite something in you and you will agree. Prepping for the presentation will turn to studying side by side at the library, to attending debate club together, to putting the world to rights on the roof of Sukaly. He will tell you about his life in Bahrain and the expectations his birth placed on him; you won't tell him about your parents, not explicitly, but you will know he knows and you will know he will be there to listen whenever you are ready.

One day, decades after you graduate, your friendship will cost Joey his life, and his death will mark the beginning of the end for the Bahraini monarchy. Joey would have laughed, would have found amusement in the irony, but you will feel no amusement, just overwhelming regret, the ache so heavy it will be like every cell of your body is lined with lead. You will never get to tell him how much he helped you, never get to thank him for giving you the gift of becoming yourself again.

It will be Elizabeth, not Lizzie, who arrives at UVA, the college chosen because, aside from being one of the top universities in the country, it is the place where your parents met, and part of you hopes that knowing they once walked the same paths and attended the same classes will ease the pain of all the memories you and they will never get to make, like they will be there alongside you, from matriculation day to commencement ceremony. But you won't feel their presence as you lug your bags on your own across the quad, no father to strain his back when he insists he carry them for you, no mother to scrutinise the class schedule the Morticia lookalike handed you, to check three times you know where you're supposed to be going, to point out all the best places on campus to eat—And I mean eat properly. Real food, Elizabeth. You can't survive on popcorn, takeout and ice cream. Instead, you will see all the other first-years with their families, laughing a little too loudly, chatting a little too keenly, trying to distract themselves from the undercurrent of sadness that comes with one of their unit breaking away, and you will be reminded of what you no longer have, that your unit has already crumbled, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and you will anticipate the fist of grief winding up, ready to punch you again, only for you to be caught off guard with a swift left-hook of envy. But you will set your face, hitch up your bags, not let it show, and you will vow that when it comes time for your brother to move into dorms he will have you beside him at least.

Three weeks into your first semester you will meet Henry McCord, a boy with the kindest eyes you have ever seen. You will be sitting at a desk on the upper floor of the library—your desk; tucked away from the bustle of the stacks, bathed in natural light—when a voice as rich and smooth as the hot chocolate your father used to make you will interrupt your thoughts on women's role in the Iranian Revolution by asking if the seat across from you is free. One look at him—floppy brown hair, chiselled features, those eyes, always those eyes—will light a fizzle in your belly. He will join you again the next day, and the next. On the fourth day, when you pause midway through copying out yet another algebra equation to stifle a yawn with your fist, he will comment, Looks like you could to do with a coffee. Two cups of black and a slice of apple and cinnamon cake later, it will feel like you have known each other your whole lives. He will take you for burgers and bowling; you will vote together; though you won't know this at the time, when you miss the Pride and Prejudice ball you were supposed to attend with your roommate, Becky, in order to write a paper on the evolution of the Romance languages, he will be there, dressed in top hat and morning coat and ready to dance the quadrille because he will always show up for you. Always.

You will live together, break up, live together, get married. Your wedding will take place at City Hall, presided over by a judge who would rather be playing a round of golf and witnessed by two of Henry's fellow Marines—not what either of you imagined for yourselves growing up, but his deployment will be looming and neither of you will want to wait.

(War serves to remind you that tomorrow is never guaranteed.)

There will be no honeymoon, no gifts, but Henry will return from active service, alive and unharmed, and no trip to Rome or Paris or 1000 thread count sheets could come anywhere close to that feeling.

Three months after his discharge, you will welcome your first child. Stephanie. This, and the arrival of your second and third, will compare to that feeling.

Life will get hectic. Henry will go back to school, become a teacher, consult for the NSA; you will find a home in The Company, leave that home and retreat to a horse farm when the home that really matters is at stake, one day be appointed President Conrad Dalton's Secretary of State.

You will never want to run for the presidency, but after living through your last few minutes on Earth, watching your children for the final time, only for the nuclear Armageddon that threatened you to step back into the shadows of the future, a waiting certainty if there's no change in policy, you will hear the call of The Office, will feel it's your duty.

You will run and win and serve two terms. A controversial beginning will have you doubting if America truly is ready for a female Commander in Chief, but like so many times in your life, you will overcome. You Will Overcome. And you will be one of the most influential presidents the world has ever—will ever see.

You will retire to the horse farm. It will be difficult at first: you will have too much time on your hands, you will miss having the job to talk about and to give you routine, silence will begin to creep between you and Henry. One night, you will voice your fears by telling the ceiling you have been staring at for three hours straight you're afraid you're growing apart, afraid your marriage won't survive the transition back to civilian life. Henry will turn to face you. The silence will stretch for what seems like centuries, only validating your worries. Then he will find your hand atop the blankets, will wait for you to meet his gaze, then will promise you with such intensity, We'll find a way through, Together, Always, that you will know it has to be the truth. In the following weeks, he will start volunteering with a veterans charity, while you set up a horse sanctuary, even give some of those speeches Mike B has been hassling you about. Once more, conversation will flow.

For a while, things will be good. Very good. And you will forget those teething pains.

But with time, Henry will start to forget other things as well.

You will watch as hairline cracks spread across the surface of his mind. Into those fissures will slip the location of car keys, neighbours' names, then faces too. Just ageing, you will say, but you won't dare go to the doctor for fear he will disagree, fear he will point you to the truth to which the compass in your bones is already oriented.

When chunks of your shared life start to fall through the cracks, denial will no longer be a possibility.

The kids will suggest Henry needs more help than you can give him, but you will persist—he's your husband, your Henry, you will look after him—until one day his grip on reality slips and you end up with a black eye. Only then will you agree it's time.

You will visit him every day, will sit with him and read to him, though he will no longer remember your name. Sometimes, he will look at you and tell you that you remind him of his wife.

Ocean eyes.

You will hold onto these moments, and will decide to move into the home with him. People will look at you with pity, like you don't realise he can't recognise you; but you will pity them for never knowing a love like yours and Henry's. You will sell the horse farm, will package up your life by yourself, rather than waiting for the kids to carve time away from their own kids to help. You will be carrying the last box down the stairs, when you slip. The box will fall, possessions and memories cascading down the steps, you alongside. At the bottom, your head will hit the wall.

The blood that will pool on the floorboards will be thick and syrupy and more vivid than blood has any right to be, and your thoughts will drift back to another day when you bled, the day when everything changed. Then, one final time, as the black veil settles across your vision, you will think of Henry and wonder: Will he notice that you're gone? Will he miss you? Will he be lonely?

But tonight, Child, you sleep.

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life.