She ran her fingers over the coarse edges of the small rectangle in her hand. Yellowed
and falling apart, the slight breeze from the open window lifted the disintegrating flap open and
closed again. She caresses her thumb over the postage stamp on the back, looking down at the
classic American flag square that occupies the top left corner. The ink from the backstamp still
holds on tightly to the paper, except for the fading date that has disappeared through the years of
touch. She studies the penmanship of the address again as if she doesn’t already have every
stroke memorized. Reese Wilson, in beautiful cursive letters, addressed to the house she is
currently moving out of. The bottom left corner of the envelope she holds has worn away to
nothing, revealing a slight glimpse of what’s inside. She takes a deep breath and flips it over in
her hand, carefully lifting the decaying flap.
The yellow paper still smells of his cologne, or maybe the ghost of its familiarity lingers
in her sense of smell. She sets the envelope down and unfolds the paper to reveal its two even
creases, two lines crossing one another, creating four perfect boxes among the page. The letter
starts with its anticipated “My dear Reese.” At the memory of his voice, cadence, and tone as he
once spoke those words directly to her, a shiver glides down her spine as the threat of tears
pierces her eyes. She reaches for the envelope again and pulls out the second thing that lives
inside of it. A photo. A square polaroid, to be specific, of two people laughing and holding each
other. At the sight of this, the tears crawl down her cheeks. One at first, but the growing pool of
them in her eyes quickly spills over, sending many more down the curve of her face. She wipes
them away quickly and flips the photo over. On the back, a date and two names appear in
smeared ink.
“Reese & Eddie, September 3” reads the photo.

She can never seem to place the year the photo was taken, only that she was young and in
love. Her first love, the one that always hurts the most. She was wearing an old band shirt with
ripped jeans, her blonde hair falling down her back in a long, loose braid. It’s not pictured but
she remembered wearing her black Chuck Taylors that were practically falling off of her feet
from years of wear. Her eyes are closed in the photo, a response to the flash of the camera, but
her smile is as wide as the ocean is deep. The true happiness that exudes from her, a smile that
you can see even as she’s facing halfway away from the camera, tells the whole story. The man
next to her, only slightly taller, holds a drink in one hand as his other rests around her shoulder.
Her arm was folded up to hold his free hand that lay on her shoulder. He smiles wide as well,
though his eyes remain open, looking at her. His dark hair and dark eyes stand out against the
overexposure of the rest of the photo. She takes a deep breath in and blows out slowly, pulling
the picture in towards her heart before placing it carefully back in the envelope.
Her eyes like daggers stare at the letter, open right in front of her, begging to be read. Her
eyes wander over the page, finally landing on the last sentence, which lies a few lines down from
the rest of the text. “I’m glad we met.” That line has always stood out most to her, because she
sometimes disagrees as she remembers that those were the last words she ever heard from him. If
that was the case, she often ponders, then how could that be true? She lifts the letter to gaze over
the rest of the words. Black ink dances across the page in beautiful cursive letters, laying out
every important detail of their relationship. Another tear falls, remembering the way he cared so
passionately about his words. This tear, though, falls directly onto the page, leaving a slightly
darker, rippled freckle. Her thumb finds the other textured spots across the page, representing all
of her escaped emotion from past readings. At the remembrance, she folds the paper back up in
two fell swoops, the creases beginning to rip at the edges from continuous opening and closing. She slides it into the envelope next to the photo and closes the flap on top, willing her past
goodbye again.

Edited and Reviewed by Zoe Carter