Page 101 of Duke's Daring Bookworm
“Jess, you ok?” Charles called from the kitchen. He had insisted on cleaning up after the breakfast he had also insisted on making, and I was more than happy to let him do it.
“Fine,” I called out quickly so he wouldn’t join me.
Too late, it seemed. He walked through the door just as I called out to him. “You don’t sound fine.” His tone was kind, and it broke my heart, just a little.
I wished he wasn’t kind, and that he didn’t have that stupid, handsome face.
“I said I’m fine.” The words came out more aggressively than I wanted, but I couldn’t seem to stop whatever was happening to me. “I just dropped a box on my foot.”
“Let me help.” He moved towards me, and I snapped.
“I don’t need your help!”
“Okay.” He stopped where he was and put his hands up in a placating gesture. I deflated immediately. Whatever my personal feelings, he didn’t deserve to be yelled at.
I should have apologized, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, I bent over and picked up the box so I could carry it over to where he was standing. “I’m just looking through theboxes my grandma left.” It was as close to an apology as I could manage right now.
He took the box from my hands with a small smile, and I knew he understood and accepted my apology. “Let’s see what the wily Charlotte left behind.”
“Wily Charlotte?” I asked with a laugh. “Yes, that fits. She was wily.” I grabbed another box and sat next to him on the bed to look through it.
This box had photos of my grandparents through the years. Most of them were taken right here in this cabin or the surrounding woods. From the looks of it, they had been coming to this place for decades before my grandfather died. They looked happy and free, and so young it was shocking. It’s weird to think about my grandma as a young woman in love, but I supposed everyone is young at some point.
“Look at this one.” I passed the photo over to Charles. They were at a lake. My grandma had on what was likely a risqué swimsuit for the time. The photo was slightly blurred, and my grandpa had grandma in his arms. She was looking at my grandpa with the most devoted look I have ever seen anyone wear. “The way she looks at him. Like he’s her whole world.” A part of me yearned for that kind of love, and I let myself believe, for just a moment, I could have it with Charles.
Charles said nothing. He had moved closer to look at the photo, but I hardly noticed until that moment. I looked up at him, and my heart ached with what I found. He looked a little sad and lost, but his eyes never left me. That look wormed its way into my chest, burrowing down deep where I couldn’t excise it without hurting myself. That wasn’t good.
“Anyway,” I said, glancing away, “I wish I knew my grandpa. I’ve seen pictures of them and heard her stories, but I never got to see it for myself. It just seemed like they were so in love.”
I put the picture to the side and looked through the box to see what other treasures it held. At the bottom was a vaguely familiar box, and I brought it out for a closer look. It occurred to me I shouldn’t recognize any box here, but this one had flowers that were tickling my brain. Then I realized why it was familiar. This was my box. I hadn’t seen it in a decade, but it was definitely mine. There was even a moon sticker from when I was ten and obsessed with space.
I ran my hands over the top of it like I was greeting an old friend. “What are you doing here?”
I was almost afraid of opening the box, like something was going to jump out and bite me or destroy my sanity. I’m not sure which one would be worse, or more likely.
“Are you going to open it?” Charles’ voice was low, something in my demeanor must have tipped him off to the direction of my thoughts.
I shook off my ridiculous ideas about the box and unhooked the small latch on the front. It was still in excellent condition and opened easily.
My breath stopped when at what was inside. I wanted to slam the box closed, scream, throw it against the wall, run away. Instead, I sat there paralyzed. Of course. Of course, Grandma would put this here for us to find.
“Now that, I recognize.” Charles’ voice sounded like it was coming through a tunnel. He reached for it, and his action startled me out of the paralysis I had been experiencing. I almost slapped his hand away from grabbing it, but it was too late. Pandora’s box had been opened. Grandma’s stupid plan was going exactly as she had hoped, I’m sure.
Charles pulled a picture of us out of the box. It was large and glossy. We were dressed in over-the-top formal wear. My platinum blonde hair was teased and twisted and pinned into something that made my head hurt just looking at it. Charleswas behind me and had his arms wrapped tight across my much smaller teenage body.
Prom.
The Prom.
The beginning of the end of us.
“I told you I loved you for the first time that night.” He didn’t seem to have the same problem I did. His voice was too even, too matter of fact, like that night wasn’t momentous. Like that night wasn’t seared into my memories as one of the best and, subsequently, one of the worst nights of my life. It was too much. I couldn’t breathe under the weight of that night.
I looked down into the box again, dreading what I would find next. It was a stack of neatly and elaborately folded lined paper. Letters. Most were in the shape of an origami heart and all of them held tightly packed lines of teenage devotion and love. Some were unfamiliar with a return address in California, but held my name written in his familiar tight handwriting. He must have written them while he was in basic training after we had broken up, and my grandma held onto them this whole time. Hiding them from me. Protecting me from them. The world frayed and blurred at the edges of my vision, stubbornly keeping those letters in focus. I couldn’t do this.
I wanted to burn the origami letters when we broke up, but when I asked my grandma for a lighter, she refused. The next time I wanted to torture myself by rereading the letters, they were gone. Eventually, the old wound of our break up smoothed into a scar and I didn’t even think about the letter most of the time. I had been devastated they were missing and then grateful they were gone. Their disappearance served the same ultimate purpose as burning them would have, minus the imagined catharsis that would have come with the fire. Now, I knew what had happened to them.
I stood suddenly, and the box clattered to the floor, spreading its contents all around. I barely saw the mess as I fled from the room.
