by Laura Miller
She tries to smile, but it never reaches her eyes. Then all of a sudden her arms are wrapped around me. And I’m still just tryin’ to figure out what the hell just happened. I think we broke up. I think that’s what happened. After four years, our time just expired—as if it always had an expiration date or somethin’. And now, I’ve got the arms of the girl I’ve said I love you to every day for the last four years wrapped around me—and she’s sayin’ good-bye. Who knows, maybe I bored her. We had fun, but maybe not enough. She wants an adventure. But there’s only so much fun you can have plannin’ every detail of your life—even down to what poses you’re gonna do for prom pictures. But maybe that’s it. I bored her. Uncle Joe—and I know I’m not supposed to be listenin’ to him—once told me that you can do anything to a woman but bore her. Maybe that’s what I did. Regardless, I start to feel pissed off and sick to my stomach. And I just sit there as Amy pulls away from me. She’s got mist in her eyes, and she’s rubbin’ one eyelid with the back of her hand.
“I think this is the right thing for me to do. You understand? Right, River?”
I just stare at her. I don’t answer.
She presses her lips together and then leans in and gives me a peck on the cheek before grabbin’ her jacket off the couch. “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” she softly says. “We can’t tell the future. I just need this time, and then maybe someday, we’ll find our way back to each other again.” Her words blaze a hot trail back to me. Then I just follow her with my eyes as she disappears behind the door and out of sight.
My silent anger burns inside of me. There’s a part of me that feels as if she had no right to decide our expiration date—and for what? Me time? That’s a dumb way of sayin’ it—even for Amy. I force out an uneven breath, and I wait for my world to crash in on me. But I just keep sittin’ there, and it never does. I replay the four years we spent together, and I feel those damn pricks in my heart again, but after a while, each prick gets a little easier to take. Maybe it’s because I believe her. I really do believe she’s being truthful when she says she just needs time to concentrate on her new life. Too bad that concentration involves cuttin’ me out of her current life. Or maybe it’s because the second time a girl breaks your heart, it’s not as bad as the first. Or maybe our relationship really did just run its course—like Brooke and mine. Maybe everything really does just have an expiration date—one that you can’t see until she tells you she’s leaving, and then she’s gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Your Secret’s Safe with Me
We graduate high school tomorrow. And Amy and I both know what that means. We’ll be goin’ our separate ways. And believe it or not, I’m not so torn up about it. I loved Amy. But I never felt for Amy what I once felt for Brooke. Maybe I don’t know what love is. Or maybe Brooke just ruined me for every other girl; I don’t know. For a long time, I think I hoped Brooke would just eventually fade into the background. We were young—too young to even think about love. But yet, I loved her. I. Loved. Her. Or I thought I did. And now, when I think of love and what it feels like, I think of Brooke. Damn it, girl. What did you do to me?
I reel the fishin’ line back in and set the pole down onto the ground next to me. “What ever became of you?” I whisper to the wind. “Where did you go?”
I wonder what she was like in high school or if she played a sport or an instrument? Was she homecoming queen or the captain of the scholar bowl team? Did she ever find that bear she lost? But mostly, I just wonder if when she thinks of love, does she think of me?
“What the hell are you smilin’ at?”
I turn around fast and catch Tim makin’ his way toward me. Damn it, Tim. He’s always sneakin’ up on me.
“How’d you know I was out here?” I ask.
He sits down in the grass beside me and makes himself comfortable. “I’ve got eyes, don’t I? Your truck was in the driveway. You weren’t in the house. You weren’t in the backyard. So, I came lookin’ for ya here, and lo and behold, here ya are.”
He stretches both of his arms in my direction, and I just shake my head. Smart-ass.
“I heard about you and Amy.”
“What? From who?”
“Everyone.”
I pick up my fishin’ pole and cast the line out again. “Well, I guess it’s official then.”
“It’s for the best, man.” He pats me once on the shoulder. “I hear college ain’t a place to have a girlfriend.”
I push out a sigh and turn the handle back on the reel until I hear a click. “Where’d you hear that from?”
“Uncle Joe.”
“Tim, I told you...”
“I know. I know. I sort through his ramblin’s. I don’t believe everything he says.”
I nod my head in approval. I guess that’s good enough.
“You mad?” he asks.
“About what?”
“Amy.”
“Oh.” I shake my head once. “No. I think in the back of my mind, I knew it was comin’.”
“I hear she thinks you guys are gonna get back together later,” he says.
I bob my head as I slowly reel in the fishin’ line—just because. Ain’t no fish bitin’ anyway. “Yeah, that’s what she said.”
“Well, are ya?”
I laugh once. “I don’t know, Tim. We just broke up.”
He wrinkles his brows at me. “That doesn’t make much sense. You broke up. But you’re gonna get back together. Then why the hell break up?”
“Yeah, buddy, I hear ya,” I say. “I’m still tryin’ to figure it all out myself.”
He lies back against the banked grass, foldin’ his hands behind his head. “Well, you sound like you’re takin’ it pretty well.”
I laugh under my breath—not because I’m happy but more so because I know I really don’t have a choice in the matter. Amy’s already made her decision. I can kick and scream all I want; it’s not gonna change her mind. Plus, I don’t really feel like kickin’ and screamin’ anyway.
“Amy’s a nice girl,” I say.
He’s quiet for a second before he opens his mouth again. “But she’s not Brooke.”
I look back at him. I want to tell him he’s wrong—that I’ve moved on, that Brooke’s moved on, that four years is a long time to think you still have somethin’ and that thirteen really isn’t an age when you should be makin’ any decisions about life. But no words come—probably because I don’t believe any of it myself. And I’m pretty sure that probably makes me a damn fool.
I sigh and then catch a fish swimmin’ in the water near us. This pond is stocked full with fish, and I never catch a darn one. I guess it’s a good thing I really don’t come out here to catch any.
“Don’t worry, buddy,” I hear him say behind me. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
I slowly force out a breath. For all of Tim’s odd qualities, his redeemable ones sure do a damn good job of savin’ him.
I return my attention to the pond then, and I think. I think about Brooke. And after a while, I come to the conclusion that a part of me will probably always be waitin’ for her. And even when I get to the end of this life and she’s not there, I think I’ll still just wait. It’s the cruel reality of love, I think—that once you find it, it’s yours to carry. And even if you lose it and never find it back again, I think you still just keep on carrying it...and waitin’—long after the curtain closes.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Four Years Later
Senior Year of College
It’s been nearly nine years since my last day beside that old creek bed where I grew up, and I’m only two weeks from graduating college. And I think the only reason why I think about those days at all anymore is because of the girl who I spent them with. I have no idea where she ended up. In the end, she was only there for a page in my life really. But kind of like when you move something on a wall after it’s been there for a long time, and its place is bright but everything around it is faded—that’s ho
w I feel about her. She wasn’t there very long, but when she left, everything around her memory sort of dimmed.
But a lot has changed since those days alongside that creek, I guess. I finally learned that those g’s mean something at the end of a word. Where I come from, everything ends in an n. And I learned that Brooke was right. You really do lose a lot of stuff when you move. I lost that creek. I lost the best summer job I ever had. And I lost her. But then I guess that’s all in the past now.
***
“You gonna eat those chips? River!”
“Huh, what?” I ask, catching the stupid look on Tim’s face.
Tim followed me to the University of Missouri. Most people where I’m from don’t bother with college. They just take over the family business, which is usually the farm, and make a living doing what his father and his father did. But we didn’t have a farm anymore, and besides, my grandpa was right, I wasn’t much cut out for farm work anyway. That said, Tim’s family still had a farm, and I’m still not sure why he left it. I’ve asked him, but he’s never answered me. Maybe he discovered that the Maker’s cutter didn’t have a farm boy in mind when he made him either. And maybe he’s just too ashamed to admit it. Or maybe Tim just found out how many more girls there are here than there are back home. I’d put my money on the latter.
“You gonna eat those chips?”
“Uh, no, you can have them.” I toss the bag at him.
He catches it and immediately rips into the chips and starts stuffing his face.
“What are you always daydreamin’ about? Dude, you got a girl none of us knows about?”
I look over at him and laugh quietly to myself before I shake my head. “Naw.”
“You dreamin’ about Audrey again? You know, I really thought you two were gonna make it—at least for another month or so.”
“Funny, dipshit.” I sit back in my chair and notice he’s still staring at me. It makes me feel uncomfortable, and he knows it. Does he want me to say something else? “What? No,” I say. “I’m not dreamin’ about anything—or anyone.”
He stuffs another handful of chips into his mouth. “Too bad about her ex-boyfriend, right? Man, that guy’s a piece of shit, which means that girl ain’t worth it.”
I only nod my head. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I say, even though it’s still hard to admit it out loud. Audrey and I only dated for three months. It was fast and fun. I had picked up early on that she wasn’t over the last guy she had her talons in. She had mentioned once they dated for three years and that they were still friends. That should have been the cue for me to run, but I’m a glutton for punishment, and maybe I didn’t care either. Maybe I didn’t want it to be anything more than fast and fun.
“River!” Tim’s voice cuts into my thoughts. And he says my name as if it’s not the first time he’s said it either. It forces my eyes in his direction.
“See you tonight?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say, nodding my head.
He’s standing in my doorway now. How’d he get there so fast?
“Okay.” He starts to leave and then stops. “Oh, and hey, remember Dustin’s out, so we got this other guy he knows to play second, so you’re playin’ first. Remember?”
“Got it,” I say, giving him another nod.
He smacks the door frame with his open hand like he always does for some reason, and then he’s gone.
I sit back for a second and stare at the blank wall. I’m a little off today. Maybe it’s because of Audrey. Maybe it’s because I’m a senior and weeks from graduating and I don’t have the slightest clue what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. Or maybe it’s something else; I don’t know. I’ll graduate in a handful of days with a degree in newsprint journalism, but I don’t have a job lined up and people say no one is hiring. And since papers look as if they’re on their way out, I have a feeling that diploma will be worth about eight cents—and that’s only because I figure that’s about how much it probably cost to print it.
I reach into my desk drawer and slide out a Sports Illustrated magazine. Inside the magazine, stuck between two pages, is an envelope. I pull it out and flip it over. On the back side is the outline of two red lips. Sealed with a kiss. I tap the corner of the envelope a few times on the edge of the desk before I sit back further in the chair and stare at the mark her lips made once upon a time. It’s hard to believe she held this envelope once—that she once brought it to her lips and that those same lips once held a love and a hope I once held too. But now, I hate this envelope, almost as much as I hate the letter inside. I shouldn’t even have either of them anymore. I don’t know why I torture myself. But it’s all I have left of her, and I just can’t bring myself to let them go, I guess.
I toss the envelope onto the desk and just stare at it some more. It was the last letter she sent to me. The return address says some little town in Illinois. Maybe this was her good-bye letter; I don’t know. All I know is that I never heard from her again. But for some reason, I’m still sitting here, staring at this old piece of mail. I almost feel like a thirteen-year-old girl, still carrying it around with me. And that’s why I hate it. I hate it because it’s the only thing in my life I just can’t seem to part with.
I suck in a quick breath and then force it right back out again. Then before I know it, I’m looking over my shoulder to make sure Tim is good and gone before my fingers reach for the envelope, part the two lips and pull out the fading piece of blue stationery. I unfold the letter and set the envelope down. And instantly, my eyes are reading the last words she ever wrote to me:
I had a dream about you last night. We were together again, and we were happy.
...
Please don’t forget about me.
I’ll write again as soon as we’re in our new place.
XOXO
Love,
Brooke
I fold the letter and slide it back into the envelope, not missing the two red lips again. That was it. That was the last time I heard from her. And I’m pretty sure I’m crazy for holdin’ onto her for so long. We were only kids back then. She’s probably got a boyfriend. Hell, she could have a husband. I’ve tried to look her up on Facebook. I’ve even sent messages to six different Brooke Sommerfields. So now, every Brooke Sommerfield in the country and one in Canada has pretty solid evidence to believe I’m a creep, and I’m still no closer to finding her. It would have been nice if the inventor of the cell phone would have come up with his little idea just a few years earlier. I must have really used up all my luck the day I met her because I’ve had bad luck ever since she left. Really, who isn’t on Facebook? Or maybe she’s got one of those private accounts someone was telling me about, where you can’t even find her name even if she were on there. Anyway, it must be fate tellin’ me that summer in ’99 was just a fluke, a beautiful accident, a perfect mistake. Now, why can’t I bring myself to believe that? Part of me just wants to let it be and move on—for good. But the other part of me just won’t let me just let it be.
I sit back and stare at those red lips.
“Shit!” I’m officially a damn girl. What in the hell is wrong with me? She’s like a song playin’ over and over again. I just can’t get her out of my damn head.
I snatch up the envelope and shove it back into the Sports Illustrated, and then I shove the magazine back into the drawer where it belongs—out of sight, even if it isn’t quite out of mind. Then I slam the drawer shut, pull off my cap and angrily rake my fingers through my hair.
“Damn it, girl! I’ve got to stop thinking about you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
You Got a Letter
“River? Can you hear me?”
I pull the phone slightly away from my ear. “Yes, Mom, I can hear you.” I don’t know why she feels the need to ask me that every time she calls.
“I’m supposed to remind you that your sister graduates on the fourteenth.”
“I know, Mom. I’ll be there.”
“I know,” she
says. “But you know how she is. She just wants to make sure you’re there.”
“I’ll call her,” I say. “I’ll tell her I’ll be there.”
“Okay. Oh, and Riv.”
She’s quiet.
“Mom?”
“Hold on, dear, I’m pulling it out of the drawer.”
My brows furrow. Pulling what out of the drawer?
“You got a letter today,” she says.
I think my heart stops mid-beat, but I wait for her to continue before I jump to any conclusions.
“The funny thing is that it looks kind of old.”
“Old?” I ask.
“I had your dad get the magnifying glass out and look at the postmark date. And it looks like it was postmarked on February 27, 2000.”
“2000?” It can’t be. All the air in my lungs instantly disappears, and I have to take a breath just to keep functioning.
I shake my head even though I know she can’t see it, and I find a kitchen chair and fall into it. I can tell she’s fiddling with the letter. “Mom, who’s the letter from?”
There’s a pause, and it’s the longest damn pause I’ve ever had to live through. “Mom,” I say again.
“It’s from Brooke, dear.”
She wrote me.
I don’t say anything. I don’t know how long I’m quiet. I’m trying to hold back my excitement. I don’t want my mom to know I’d run all the way home right now just to get my hands on that letter.
“River?”
“Yeah, I’m here. You sure it’s from her?” I know it is; I just have to ask.
I don’t hear anything except a little rustling of paper.
“I’m sure,” she says. And with those two words, I know she’s seen the red lips on the back of the envelope.
It’s quiet again. My heart’s racing. I’m excited, but something in me is a little sad too. She had written to me, and all these years, I had never known. There’s a part of me that feels she must have thought I gave up on her.
