Present Day
After my walk along the property line, I decided to go into town and get some groceries.I hadn’t planned on being home this week, so we had mostly emptied out the fridge before we packed up for the beach, hoping to not come home to spoiled and rotting food on the shelves.
It was a nice morning and I remembered why I loved this small town so much.As I walked to the store from my car, at least three of the other patrons stopped to chat with me.Mostly everyone in town knew me because of my small shop of beautiful designs, so there was always something to have nice small talk about.
I grabbed all the necessary meal ingredients and headed to the checkout, remembering to enter my phone number for the bonus points that were automatically applied to Dylan’s school account for fundraisers.
When I got back to the house and unloaded the groceries, I carefully placed the pack of chicken on a dish towel inside the fridge so I could use it for dinner tonight.We were going to have Dylan’s favorite, Fettuccini Alfredo with grilled chicken.
* * *
There’s not a lot to do when you’re not working on a busy schedule, and I’m kind of bored.I’m not used to being bored; I don’t know what to do with myself, so I’m aimlessly walking around the family room when I decide to light a candle and turn on some music to dance.I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and began to vacuum the floors.
There I was, nodding my head along to “Shake it Off” and feeling free, dancing around and using the vacuum as my microphone until the song played out when I was caught off-guard at the opening beats to the next song that began to play.
“Close your eyes, make a wish.”
It was a song I hadn’t heard in years, and, in fact, I refused to allow a CD or mixtape to remain in my house that had this song on it.
It was our song.
“And blow out the candlelight.”
I slumped down onto the floor, hand on the vacuum that was still running.And I found myself lost in my thoughts again.
THOUGHTS OF HIM
The vision I had had so many times of him, older and grown up, flashed into my mind.I thought about how I wished I could bring him back.That I could bring him back for me and for Dylan.That we could have been a happy little family.He used to sing this song to me during our long-distance phone calls.It’s kind of funny, actually; how this song became our song.It was during that first Christmas break when we met, and we had been talking on the phone about favorite things and Steff was playing music in the background of her bedroom.
Lee was at Ryan’s house and heard the music playing through the phone when he thought it would be funny to grab the phone and tell me that Lee wants this Boyz II Men song to be our song.
“What?”I had asked.
“No, stop!Nevermind Ellie, don’t listen to him.”Lee was trying to grab the phone back.
“I’ll make love to you…”Ryan started singing the song through laughs.
“You want that to be our song?”I asked teasingly
“Well… I mean…” I could hear him trying to figure out what to say.
“Okay, okay that can be our song, but only if you sing it to me!”I told him.
And he started singing it.I remember, I could actuallyhearhis smile through the words while he was singing.He had that kind of smile that could bring you to your knees.But then I snapped back to the present and stood up to finish vacuuming the living room.Nothing good ever comes from looking back, Ellie.
Chapter Eight
ELLIE
20 years earlier
It’s June and I’ve been looking forward to seeing Lee this summer for 6 whole months!Mom is taking us to visit Grandma and she promised we could make a stop at Steff’s house for a couple days.I grabbed my sparkly pink spiral notebook, the one I always use to write letters in and jumped on my bed.
Dear Leebie,
School is out and I’m officially in high school!I started my next letter to Lee to answer all of the questions he asked in his.I’ve been holding off on writing my response because the last couple weeks in school were busy.
I tried out for cheer and made the squad.But I decided to quit because you’re supposed to be here all summer for practice and Mom is taking us out to see you!!Well, we’re going to visit Grandma, but she promised we could spend a day or two at Steff’s house and I can’t wait to see you, I’m so excited!=)
