Page 30 of Not Over You

“Relive it? You make it sound like I don’t want to remember it,” he says, “I mean, I could have done without the turkey grease on your lips.”

“Oh, god, stop talking. Can we just forget that happened? Show me your little collection instead.”

“Little?” He looks at me like I’ve just insulted his manhood. “It’s taken me a very long time to collect all of this.”

“Okay.” I hold my hands up but can’t help but smile. “Show me what you’ve got.”

TRAVIS

I’m a hundred percent embarrassed that Nina has caught me with my baseball card collection. These are things that have been important to me for a long time. They aren’t really something I share with anyone, mostly because it’s a little lame.

“I decided a while ago that I wanted to collect something, but I wasn’t sure what. Then my grandmother showed me some of my dad’s baseball cards that he’d collected as a kid, and I was hooked.”

“Wow, I would have never thought that would be something you’d do. Seems so…” She tries to find the word.

“Dorky?” I finish for her.

“Well, yeah,” she smiles.

“I played baseball when I was a kid, and my dad coached our team, so we already had that connection with baseball. I guess it reminded me of the time when I was a kid. Made me feel close to my dad even when I was far away.”

“That makes sense. I never really had anything like that with my parents,” Nina says, her voice suddenly going somber. I know neither Grady nor Nina have a great relationship with their parents. Their dad skipped out on them when they were young, and their mom remarried but they never really got along with their stepdad. I think that’s why Grady and Nina are so close because they always supported each other.

Desperate to change back to a happier subject, I tell her something not even Grady knows. “I coach a little league baseball team.”

That has her perked back up. “Really? Like kids?”

“Yes.” I laugh, “As in a bunch of ten-year-old kids. It’s really the only thing I miss about living in Woodbridge.”

“Maybe you can find a team to coach here?”

“Nah, it wouldn’t be the same. My buddy Rhett and I coach together, that’s half the fun of it.” Only after I say the words, do I realize what she just said. She wants me to find a team here. Does she want me to say?

I put the box down next to her on the bed before taking a seat beside her. The bed dips under my weight, and the box almost slips off the bed. My heart hammers out of my chest as Nina grabs it at the last second.

“What’s this?” she asks, spotting the stack of letters tucked in with the baseball cards.

“Oh, those are actually love letters from my grandpa to my grandma. Want me to read you one?”

“Really?” Her voice goes high-pitched like she’s surprised I asked. Truthfully, I’m surprised too. “Sure, I’d love to hear one.”

I nod and grab one of the letters. Unfolding it, I start to read, “My darling Abigail. Not a night has gone by that I haven’t wished to be by your side, and now, the time has come. While you’re reading this, I am headed back to you and will forever be yours once more. War has not hardened me but made me stronger and more in love. I’m ready to start our family, our forever, our great love story. Love always, Harold.”

“Wow, that’s so sweet,” Nina says, her voice low. I look up and see her wiping away a stray tear. “These things have so much history written within them.”

“Sorry I made you cry,” I apologize, unsure of how to feel right now.

“No, it’s sweet. I get emotional about the strangest things. Don’t feel bad.”

“This was my great grandfather’s too,” I tell her. Opening my nightstand drawer, I take out my grandfather’s watch. “He had this during the war, and he put a picture of my grandmother, Abigail inside.”

Nina takes the watch from me and opens it up. Holding it up to look at it, she takes in the old weathered picture inside.

“She’s beautiful, Travis.”

“I know, she really was gorgeous. You would have really liked her.”

Silence blankets the room. With each passing second, the air between us seems to grow thicker. The hairs on my arms raise as goosebumps spread out.

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