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...