My name is August. I was named for a month that ends things. School years. Summers. People who leave without saying goodbye. If I sound calm, it's because I've practiced. August is very good at sounding like nothing is wrong. My room smelled like it always did like the last time I wasn't paying attention. Nothing had moved, not even the dust. I guess some things never do. It was like I hadn't gone anywhere after all.This..this room still looks the same after that day when we…no let's not get into that right now. Nvm. Sorry. Outside, the street was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you notice everything you've been trying to forget. The corner store still had the same chipped sign, the same buzz of flickering fluorescent lights, but the air smelled different, like someone else's childhood. Not mine. I tried to breathe it in anyways.
Rowan would have laughed at me for thinking about it. Rowan said I always thought too much. Sometimes I wonder if he was right.
I swear I can hear him sometimes. Mini Rowan. Tiny version of him, perched on my shoulder like he never left. He's sulking, probably muttering about how I ignored him, how I never understood him, how I should've called that one day.
No.
That's not how it happened. He loves me. I love him. We're going to get married one day and have two kids together. Their names are already picked out. Kinsuko and Toyo. A boy and a girl:
Yes. Yep. That's right.
I nod to myself like this settles it. Like saying it out loud makes it true. Mini Rowan goes quiet, which I take as agreement.
I found a dirty used journal on my desk that afternoon. Not mine, but maybe it was. I couldn't remember ever seeing it before, and yet, the handwriting felt like my own. Someone had left it for me or maybe I had left it for myself. Either way, it was waiting.
I opened it and pretended I was reading someone else's story. Easier that way. Easier than admitting that some of the words felt like they were written for me, about me. That maybe the pages knew me better than I knew myself.