“Well, this is my formal request for the slutty brownies for movie night.”
“Anything for you. Here.” I hand her the paper bag. “Cinnamon roll for your trip. Get all sugared up with your caffeine and you’ll forget the sun isn’t up yet.”
Jo opens the bag and peers in. “Fuck yes, I love cinnamon.”
“I know. Go. Catch a train. See you later.”
“Later, El,” she calls, heading down the stairs. “Happy first day of school!”
Smiling, because a run and a conversation with Jo is an excellent way to start the morning, even if I am out coffee and a cinnamon roll, I head upstairs. Walking up the final flight, I open the door to my apartment. We may all have separate units, but we never lock the doors. Since it’s just us and the one empty unit and the exterior door locks, we never really saw the need. The second I open the door, a tiny ball of fur comes skidding into the entryway, tumbling to a stop at my feet, a green leaf hanging out of her mouth.
“Killer,” I groan, bending down and scooping her up, holding her so she’s eye-level with me. “We’ve talked about this. We don’t eat the plants.”
She tilts her head to the side, her tongue lolling out and the leaf dropping to the floor. She looks so ridiculous I can’t help but laugh. “Okay, little menace, let’s go check out the damage.”
I set her down and study the living room window seat where I keep all my plants. It’s not so bad this time, just a torn leaf off of Barbara—as in Walters. Yes, I did name all my plants after famous people born in Boston. Why do you ask?
Killer zooms around me, bouncing up on her hind legs and setting her front paws on my knee, bumping her head against my leg. I drop my hand and pat her head. “You got lucky this time. Keep those teeth off the leaves.” She lets out an excitable bark and drops down, spinning in circles. I chuckle, watching her tiny body race around. She’s a ridiculous dog, and I love the shit out of her.
After filling up Killer’s food dish and setting up the coffee machine and flicking it on, I head back to my room to take a quick shower. Dressed in the dark wash jeans and button down that serves as my teaching uniform, I pour a cup of coffee, dump Cinnamon Toast Crunch into a bowl—an inferior but stillsatisfactory substitute for the cinnamon roll I didn’t get to eat—and settle down at my kitchen island, tablet in hand, to do the thing that has become a part of my morning routine every day for the past six months.
Opening a browser, I navigate to the Boston property records website I have bookmarked and type in her name.Amelia. Just Amelia. No last name. No other identifying details. After six months, I know it’s an exercise in futility. She could be a renter. She could live with someone else who owns the property. She could live outside of Boston proper. I’m scientist enough to know the number of variables is infinite. Not to mention the fact that searching for someone in a city of more than half a million people with only a first name is a ridiculous thing to do. Searching for a woman I spent a grand total of six hours with on an airplane more than half a year ago is borderline insanity.
But there’s the minor detail of my inability to get her out of my head. Her gold and green flecked brown eyes haunt me. I hear her raspy voice in my dreams and wake up hard and wanting. The sound of her laugh flits through my head, and I think I would do almost anything in the world to hear it again.
It’s giving full blown creepy stalker.
I’ve dated. I’ve had girlfriends, one so serious I thought I might marry her until it all went sideways. But no one, not one single person, has ever had a hold on me the way my mystery girl from the plane does.
Doing the only thing I can think of to get Amelia out of my head, I reach over and grab the little cardboard box that’s been sitting on my kitchen island for the two weeks since Christmas. Opening it, I grab one of the postcards at random. I’ve read them all, but the words hit me all over again like it’s the first time.
My Dearest Clara,
Summer is turning into fall now, and it has been five months since I have heard from you. You are always on my mind. Your voice is never far from my thoughts, and your face comes back to me in dreams. And I wonder. What has happened to you, my love?
I am, as ever, yours.
Always,
Henry
Okay, so maybe I picked the wrong one if forgetting about the girl invading my thoughts, the one whose face visits me in dreams, was the goal.
Like it does every time I read one of the postcards, my brain spins, wondering what happened to Henry, and whether he and my great-grandmother ever found each other. Since she married someone else and built an entire life, I’m betting they didn’t.
The burning need to solve this mystery—to find Henry and his Clara—comes roaring back. I haven’t told anyone about the letters; somehow it felt like they were left there just for me to find. But I decide to let Cece in on the secret as soon as I can. Clara was her mother, so if anyone would know, it’s her.
Taking the last sip of my coffee, I push the box and my tablet aside, shoving a couple spoonfuls of cereal into my mouth. With Killer curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor, fast asleep, my apartment is quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes me think about what it would be like to have someone here with me. Someone to share breakfast with and laugh with over coffee and Killer’s ridiculous antics.
I have a good life. A happy one full of family and brothers and love and fun. But ever since my relationship ended a coupleof years ago, I’ve felt this gnawing ache in my gut that feels a lot like loneliness and a deep desire to be understood. To beknown, all the way down. Not just as Elliot, the always happy guy who likes everyone and organizes all the things and remembers birthdays and can handle my shit and everyone else’s too. But as me. The person who feels too much and whose brain sometimes goes dark and who does things like bring plants back to life and rescues a tiny dog from a shelter on a whim because she looked sad.
Even my brothers don’t really know all the sides to me.
They could, if you let them see.
The thought is as sudden as it is unwelcome and I push out of my stool, groaning becausefuck introspection.
I wash my bowl and mug and set them on the drying rack by the sink, then fill up a to go mug with my second cup of coffee. Killer wakes up just as I’m leaving the kitchen, and I stoop to rub a hand over her soft head. “Stay away from my plants. Cece is stopping by to get you in a little bit. You’re hanging with her today.”
