Death was the painful truth.
Of all the emotions, feelings and thoughts running through Ursa’s head, selfish, stood out the most, because she wasn’t her mother or father or sister, she hadn’t known Nadia since she was born, she was, to put in the simplest terms just her friend. But this label didn’t put a measure on how much Ursa loved Nadia or how much she was now hurting.

At first she didn’t know how to feel, it was like it wasn’t even real, she had spoken to her just yesterday, but soon it sank in the reality, the sicking reality that Nadia was gone. Her bestfriend, the girl she’d known since forever, the girl she’d gone skinny dipping with at Alex’s New Year’s party, the girl that helped her spray paint her ex’s car, was gone. No one ever prepares you for your bestfriends death, it’s just not something you think would ever happen, until one day you wake up to find they’re already gone. The thing that really upset Ursa was that there was no goodbye, no tearful ending, no heartfelt farewell, just a “see you tomorrow”. Of all the things to say, but to them at the time it was true, to them they were going to see each other the next day, but then the irreversible happened.

The sound of crunching autumn leaves under feet, of all things made for the first time she’d cried since she’d found out , it was a violent cry that made her eyes sting and heart hurt. She had sunk to her knees in the middle of walking to school clutching at her heart, face and stomach, it felt like she was being ripped apart like she was trying to hold herself together. The leaves that littered the streets were something that reminded her of Nadia, she’d always go out of her way to stomp on every single one, she’d explain almost poetically how she loved the sound, this always seemed to amused Ursa.

The fact that Ursa had never had any real family might have explained her emotional attachment to Nadia, but It wasn’t just that, it was her. You don’t meet someone like her every day or every month or ever, the way she looked at the world, the way she talked, it was surreal. Passion said a lot about a person and Nadia was passionate about everything, about the things she loved, and hated, she always had an opinion that she was never afraid to voice. So if you met someone like that, someone real like that, it’s pretty certain you’d be just as devastated.

Ursa thought to the time they were on her lawn looking up into to the sky,

“You know ‘Ursa’ is a constellation”, Nadia murmured still looking up,
“Really?”, Ursa didn’t really know why they were talking so softly like they were trying to keep something they were saying a secret, maybe on nights like this, where it felt like the universe was so delicate and fragile , it was only appropriate to talk in a whisper.
“Yeah, it means…little bear” she couldn’t see the smile but Ursa knew Nadia was grinning like a Cheshire cat,
It was silent for a moment but it was a comfortable sort of silane a sort that you could sit in forever, Nadia’s voice broke it eventually,
“Do you know what happens when a star dies”, her voice sounds even softer but she could still detect that spark of passion,
“Stars die?”
“Nothing lasts forever, we all eventually die”

And there it was the hardest thing to accept, everything dies, nothing last forever, Nadia herself had foretold her own fate.

Sometimes it was quite. Ursa stood there staring into the window of some confectionary stand with silent tears running down her face, she wanted to tell herself how stupid she was being , crying over something like this, she wanted to kick and stomp but she couldn't all she could do is stare. Peppermints were their favourite, they must have ate hundreds in a week only, but now she couldn’t even look at them, she felt pathetic. Sometimes she thought that when Nadia died a part of herself must of too.

“No one should have to go through losing someone”, the school counsellor didn’t exactly ease into it.
“People lose people all the time, everything dies”, her tone was annoyed and her reply was blunt,
“Maybe, if that’s how you see things”, her reply was calm and unaffected by Ursa bluntness,
Ursa couldn’t understand, that’s how things were, nothing is forever, we all die, it was plain and simple there was no other way to look at it. She must have took Ursa’s silence to continue,
“We can talk about her if you want”, she had folded her hands in her lap and her head was tilted on one side as she waited for Ursa’s response,
Ursa picked up her bag and stood up, “she’s dead, and there’s nothing else to say”, and just like that Ursa left the room without another word.

Sometimes she felt like screaming, like she had to yell out into the universe and tell them she was gone, to tell all the stars, and planets and moons and suns, that she was gone. One day when the feeling got really strong and no one was home, she tried, she screamed till her lungs ached and her throat burned, but it wasn’t enough, so she punched the walls, and ripped down the photos, she smashed the mirror and she took out all this pint up emotion all this anger, because it wasn’t fair that she was gone, she destroyed her room. And in the end all she was left with was bruised and blooded hands, a train wreck of a room and the same torn up heart.

The thing with getting better is that people can try and help you all you want, but in the end it has to be you, you have to decide you want to get better, you have to fix yourself and pick up all the pieces and put them back together. But there has to be the kick-start, the reason to keep going, and the things that’s worth getting better for. Sometimes all it takes is a sign, sometimes it just takes time.
It was the first time she’d seen her since the funeral shed stood right at the back and left before anyone could speak to her, Nadia’s sister came walking up to her, her hand slightly outstretched,
“Hey….. I uh found this in some of her stuff and I thought you might want to have it, there’s some other stuff too…you can come over anytime to take a look”, in her hand was one of those old styled recorders, she remembered her and Nadia bought a bunch of these and said they would leave a messages in them and make a time capsule for each year of their friendship, a sort of recap of the year, she guessed she just  never got the chance to burry this one.
“I don’t want it”, Ursa shook her head at it and was about to turn, but a hand stopped her,
“Please….just take it”, her face was desperate and she had already shoved the small machine into her hand,
Ursa forced out a reluctant “okay”,
This made her smile before she uttered a thank you and left before Ursa had the chance to change her mind,

Ursa laid on her bed, the small recorder in her hand, her eyes rested closed and her finger hovering over the play button,
“hey its Nadia, and this is going to be a solo broadcast of this year since Ursa has been forced to go to this…what’s it called ‘Christmas youth camp’, I mean honestly what even is that supposed to be, she should of just snuck out of it and spent Christmas and new year’s with me…but hey I’m sure she’ll enjoy lecturing me about all the stuff I forgot to say now. Anyway let’s start off with how many peppermints we consumed this year….8, 000, I mean it’s not the best but better than last year.
In school news we pranked Mr E, stole his toupee and superglued it to his car, couldn’t get it off for weeks, I publically humiliated Dylan when he decide it was okay to cat call, Ursa took a video of the whole thing including him crying…..sorry I can’t help laugh, that video is still on the internet now and it’s got about 500,000 views. Alex asked out Ursa and she turned him down for the fifth time, the boy will never learn.
This year’s Halloween outfits were Mad Hatter and Alice, from Alice in wonderland just to be clear, I was obviously the hatter and Ursa was Alice. Again this year she made the costumes…I think I’ll start calling her Miss Ever So Talented Ursa, I bet shell love that.
Oh I almost forgot in march we ran the whole oval sixteen times for no apparent reason, I’m still hurting now, it felt good though with the wind and air and at the end when we collapsed and just rolled around in the grass, we couldn’t stop laughing and we also couldn’t breathe so it sounded like some horrible chocked laughter….yeah that’s definitely going into the top moments.
Okay, I think I’m done, I know these are usually a little longer but Ursa isn’t here so it’s not as fun, so I guess bye for now, I love you Ursa, you better help me burry this since you weren’t here to record, until next time this has been our yearly friendship recap”

Ursa opened her eyes, silent tears streamed down her face, but, she felt something shift, it felt like a piece of her heart had been sewed back on, Ursa knew what she had to do, this was her push. It was late, but it had to be done now, so she grabbed her coat and the recorder and left, she walked and walked till she got there. 
It had once been a bike track, but had now heavily over grown, with trees and shrubs, it had been where they buried all the recorders. She dug the whole with her hands, in the spot where the earth was soft, then placed the recorder inside, before covering it over.
She sat there on her knees and looked up at the sky, into the universe and she remembered the rest of that conversation that took place that night on her lawn.
“Nothing lasts forever, we all eventually die”
It was silent but for barely a moment,
“but…not all of us, we leave things behind for people to remember us, so were never actually gone, even stars do that, they can leave dwarfs and even black holes, and we remember them from that. Just like people we remember them for what they did and what they leave behind, you’re never really dead, as long as there are people willing to remember you”

And Ursa realised that things would get better, that she would get better, she knew it would take time, but she now knew Nadia would never really be gone, shed remember her at the sound of crunching autumn leaves, at the taste of peppermint, every time she looked up at the stars, Nadia would be there and instead of crying she’d smile, because Ursa wasn’t going to let her die, her memory would live on with everything she was. And Ursa was grateful to have known her, to have been her friend.