Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 76136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
sofia
“You have a delivery,” Addison says, walking into my office. I look up from my computer screen and see she is carrying a crystal vase of flowers and a square white box in the other hand. “They smell wonderful,” she notes, putting the vase at the corner of my desk, the smell of roses fills the office. “And this is for you.” She hands me the box. “I wonder who they are from?” She winks at me.
“Yes, I wonder,” Clarabella says, walking into my office. “What does the card say?”
“I have no idea,” I reply, looking at the white box in my hand with a big light blue satin bow. I pull the sash as it falls away from the box. Opening the box, the white card is on top of the tissue paper.
My name is written in the middle of the card, and I know that writing. Taking the card out, I read what he had written to me.
I loved you before. I love you now. I will love you always.
M.
My heart speeds up, my stomach gets tight, there is a mix of emotions I’m going through, and it feels like I’m on a merry-go-round that has yet to stop but is going full speed around. “Um,” I deflect, not sure I can repeat what is on the card without my voice quivering. I don’t even bother looking up at them when I hold the card out.
I don’t know who takes it until I hear the gasp. “Oh my,” Addison says, and I blink away the tears in my eyes. I see her hand it to Clarabella, who looks down at the card, her eyes going as big as saucers as she turns back to look at me.
“What’s in the box?” she asks, and my hands tremble as I pull the tissue flap open on one side and then on the other.
A frame sits in the middle of the box with three picture slots. Before, Now, After are the headings under the three picture slots. I am not the one gasping when I look down at the first picture in the box. It was taken on our first night out four years ago. Matthew is looking at the camera with his hat on backward smiling, and my face is turned to his side in profile and is filled with such a big smile that my eyes crinkle at the sides.
My eyes go immediately to the next picture taken late last night after we finished cleaning up my kitchen and putting away the food my grandmother sent. He was telling me about how nervous he was with my grandfather and also telling me he’s going to put white hockey tape on top of the Ring camera. He had me laughing so hard, I had tears in my eyes. He pulled me to him and kissed my lips before he whipped out his phone. I had no idea how the picture even came out because as soon as he took it, he put the phone down, and then picked me up and took me upstairs where we took a bubble bath together.
“Is that?” Clarabella asks, leaning over. “Pictures?”
“It is.” I swallow down the lump, looking at the empty slot for the third picture.
I pick up the frame and turn it to her. “Whoa,” she says, “is that—”
“It’s nothing,” I say, trying to grab it back from her and tuck it back in the white box.
“Is that?” she asks as she looks from one picture to the next.
“Yeah, it’s the same picture, just a couple of years apart,” I confirm, trying not to dwell on it, while also trying not to freak out that he still had the picture of us lying around that he could have found it.
“How is it that you have the same look in both pictures?” Clarabella laughs while she asks the question.
“I do not!” I shriek. “I certainly do not.” I look over at Addison, who has a scared look, probably because I sound like a crazy lunatic right now.
Clarabella is unfazed by my tone and all she does is look at me and burst out laughing even more. “Yes, you do.” She hands me back the frame. “It’s there in both pictures. It’s love, and it’s written all over your face.”
I put my hand to my chest in shock, as if she had just told me the tooth fairy wasn’t real the morning after I lost a tooth and came up empty-handed. “I don’t love him.” The words taste wrong as soon as I say them, and I hate it. “I like him.” My eyebrows shoot up. “A bit.”
“You’re lying.” Clarabella points a finger at me. I look down at the frame, and I can’t even try to tell her that she’s full of it. If I didn’t know myself and I looked at these pictures, I would probably—most likely—think the same thing.