The X Factor

Watching without you…

The new series started tonight. I watched it. Mum and Dad did too, but you know how much they hate the auditions stages. They were always more our thing. I missed your laughing. Your complaining about watching all the blurb. I even missed you fast forwarding through the truly awful acts.

I keep trying to imagine your comments, and what you would say; to imagine your laugh, and the way you would try to sing along, and end up going flat when you focused too much on remembering the lyrics. You never could stay in tune when you read, or focused on the lyrics, and yet, if you knew the words, you could sing beautifully. I miss that voice; the flat one, and the in tune one.

The episode has finished now. The last audition had this guy singing Angels by Robbie Williams (who is making a really good judge, by the way), and I could almost hear your voice singing along. You loved that song, even though you didn’t really do boybands.

I really wish you were here. In six days time, you will have been gone eleven months. It just doesn’t seem real. How can I have spent the last (almost) year on this earth without you.

That Saturday still feels like it happened yesterday. There are times, when I’m not concentrating and I can almost forget for a moment. I think you’re just asleep in your room, or in the camper van, but then I remember, and it’s like a punch to the stomach.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you not being here. There were times when you really annoyed me, but I’d give anything to be annoyed by you now. I’d give anything to hear you call my name.

I don’t know how many times I’ve said that over the last months. Too many times, probably, but there aren’t really any words to explain this feeling right now. I guess the closest I can get are these:

I MISS YOU

I think I always will, I can only hope that some day, it doesn’t hurt quite so much, but for now, I guess, I will just keep putting one foot in front of the other; just keep watching the X Factor, and maybe I can imagine that you’re watching with me from wherever you are.