After the Fire: Friendship, Loss, and What Remains

Chapter 1: New Court Days

Before the fire, before the grief, and long before the quiet silences that would stretch between us, there was New Court School in Bray. That was where Josephine and William first met — two kids walking the same halls, sitting through the same lessons, learning side by side. It wasn’t a school people talked about much outside the town, but inside those walls, friendships were built the way all meaningful ones are: slowly, through time and little things.

Josephine stood out not because she talked much — quite the opposite. She was gentle, observant, and spoke in careful doses, like someone rationing her energy for when it was needed most. William was louder, more impulsive, full of stories and laughter. They made an odd pair to outsiders, but it worked. Maybe that was the beginning of everything that followed — the way they balanced each other.

I wasn’t there with them in New Court. My connection came later, but I always felt like I was catching up to something strong and unspoken between them. By the time I really got to know them, the foundation had already been poured: Josephine and William were best friends, and that bond ran deep.

When I first came into the picture, they welcomed me in without fuss. Josephine especially made room for people gently, without asking for anything in return. She had a way of making even silence feel safe. I began to notice the way she listened more than she spoke — how she remembered the little things others would forget. William brought the stories, the chaos. Josephine brought the calm.

Their friendship began in that little school in Bray, and for years it held steady through routine and habit — school days, walks home, birthdays and holidays. Back then, no one could have predicted what was coming, or how hard that bond would be tested.

But in the beginning, all of it was simple. Pure. They were just two kids with their whole lives ahead of them. And I was the outsider slowly becoming