Page 107 of One Night

As usual, she's distracted. I set the book down. "How do you know I have a boyfriend?"

She points to my face. "Because you have a big smile."

"Maybe I'm just happy."

"Because you have booooyfriend." She giggles and covers her mouth.

"Okay, you're right. I have a boyfriend. Now let's read the story." I pick up the book.

"What's he look like?"

There's no way she's going to concentrate on reading now. Our time's almost up so I decide to just talk to her.

"He's tall. Got dark hair. Dark eyes."

Her face lights up. "Like Prince Charming?"

I laugh. "Yeah, I guess. He also plays in a band. He plays guitar and he sings. He's really good. He even wrote a song about me."

"Wow," she says in a dreamy tone.

"Yeah, and he writes me letters."

She scrunches her face up. "All of them?"

I have no idea what she's talking about. "What do you mean?"

"My teacher makes us write the letters and I don't like it. I get to the D and want to be done."

It takes me a moment to figure out she's talking about the alphabet and learning to write letters. I forgot that kids her age probably don't even know what letters are since they've been replaced by texts and email.

"I didn't mean those kind of letters," I say. "Letters are a note you write someone to tell them something. Instead of talking to them or calling them on the phone or texting or emailing, you get a sheet of paper and a pen and you write them a note."

"What does it say?"

"Anything you want. It can say what you did today or how you feel about them or it could tell them to have a good day."

"Do only boys write them?"

"No. I write them too. We take turns writing to each other." As I say it, I realize I haven't written Dylan a letter in days. I'll have to write one. Even though we're officially dating, I'm still going to keep writing the letters and I hope he does too.

"What do you tell him? That he's cute and you loooove him?" She sings the words and then giggles.

"No, I haven't told him those things, although he IS cute."

"Do you love him?"

Do I? No. Of course not. We just started dating. So then why do I feel like I do?

"We haven't dated long enough for me to love him," I say, deciding it must be true. It's the only thing that makes logical sense.

"Are you gonna get married?"

"We have to be in love first before we think about that."

"Emily." A woman appears at the door. She's short, with petite features, dark hair, and big brown eyes. She looks just like Emily. Must be her mom. "We have to get going."

Emily stands up and hugs me. "I have to go."

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