by Lisa Levine
“Oh? Like what else?”
“Let’s go inside,” I said. “It’s getting cold out here.” I took her hand as we walked carefully down the slippery bleachers.
“I don’t think we can get inside,” she said. “Everything is locked up.”
We walked up to the main door that led into the building. There were several buildings on the campus, but the main one held most of the classrooms, the library, and the lunchroom. I pulled a ring of keys out of my pocket and fingered through them until I found the largest key that opened the main door. I pushed it into the old, rusty door lock and turned the handle.
“Wow! Did you get the keys to the school? How in the world did you manage that?” she asked.
“It helps to have money,” I laughed. “And to have the current principal as a company client.”
“So this is what you were so nervous about, huh? Getting caught trespassing at our old high school after hours. It’s pretty rebellious.” She grinned.
“No, this isn’t exactly what I’ve been nervous about.”
Ivy looked at me curiously, but I pulled her along to peek inside the band room before she could ask me any more questions.
“Remember that year that I tried the saxophone?” I asked her.
She burst out into laughter. “How could I forget that? I tried so hard to be supportive, but you were truly awful at it.”
We wandered the halls of our old stomping ground and ducked in and out of both rooms and memories.
“This is really fun,” she smiled as she wrapped her arm inside of mine. “This was a great surprise, thank you.”
“It’s not over yet,” I said as we came to the library door.
I reached into my pocket to get out the keyring again. The library had its own special key; I guessed they were afraid of kids stealing the books or something. I found the thin silver key that fit into the lock and opened the door. It was getting dark, but there was just enough light coming in from the windows to find the light switch and illuminate the whole library.
“Wow,” Ivy said as she looked around. “It feels so strange to be back here. This is where I used to spend almost all of my time.”
“I remember,” I said as I let go of her hand and watched her look around slowly.
There was an eclectic mix of both old and new in this large room. Of course, over the years, the school had remodeled and redecorated and made changes to the space. But there were also still some things that remained the same. Certain pieces of art or furniture or the old books that were still scattered between newer books on the shelf. It was almost a surreal experience to see your past mingle with the present.
“Do you remember where you always used to sit?” I asked her.
“Oh yes!” she said as her face lit up. She started to walk to the back corner of the library and described it as she went, and I followed closely behind. “It was this corner at the back of the library, right beneath the window. There was an old violet-colored chair there with real carved wooden arms. I used to sit back there all the time because it was quiet and solitary; hardly anyone ever came back there at all. My favorite days were when it rained and stormed outside. I would sit in that chair all day and skip my classes just to read and watch the rainfall against the window. I doubt that chair still exists, even back then it was old and raggedy and—”
She stopped dead in her tracks as she stared at the violet chair from her past that was still nestled against the very same corner beneath the very same window. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t believe it’s still here.”
“I remember this spot,” I said as she turned to look back at me. “I would always find you here. I knew that whenever I needed you but couldn’t find you, this is where you would be. Did you know that sometimes I would sit right over there?” I pointed to a table at the direct opposite side of the library. “And I would pretend to be doing my homework so that I didn’t get in trouble with the librarian for loitering, but really all that I was doing was sitting there and watching you read.”
“You were?” she asked in surprise. Her brow crinkled as if she were trying to figure something out. “Why would you want to watch me read?”
“You should go sit in that chair again,” I said, purposefully changing the subject back to the chair. “Just for posterity.”
Ivy smiled and walked toward the chair as if it were her most special place in the school, which it was. When she got to the chair to sit down, she found a folded note on the top of the cushion. The note was so old that the paper had yellowed. It was that sort of college-ruled paper, and it had a soda spill in the upper left-hand corner. The note had been opened and closed so many times as if it had been read and re-read over and over again while someone painfully deliberated about whether to give the note away to its destined recipient or not; that the paper had turned as soft as one of my old T-shirts. That note never got delivered to the person it should have gone to. It had waited many, many years to finally find its way into her hands. I knew because I had written it.
Ivy picked up the paper and held it up to show me with a questioning expression about what it was and why it was there.
“Read it,” I said softly.
She sat down in her favorite chair and smiled at the familiar feeling of it. Then she gently unfolded the note and read it silently as I read it aloud from memory while I stood in front of her.
“Ivy,
I know that we are best friends, so I probably shouldn’t be writing you this note, especially since this is my senior year and everything will be changing soon. I might not even end up giving you this to you, who knows.
I think it just makes me feel better to get it out on paper even if you never know.
I think I’m in love with you,
Easton”
I knew every word of that note by heart because I had read it over and over so many times before finally deciding that I would never give it to her. I still somehow couldn’t bring myself to throw it away after all of those years.
Ivy lowered the note, and I saw the stream of tears cascading down her cheeks and dripping off the bottom of her chin.
“You wrote this to me your senior year?” she said through her cracking voice that was trying not to choke on her cries.
“Yeah,” I said. “And I should have given it to you. I’m sorry that you never knew how I felt about you, Ivy. I just never had the courage to give you that note or to tell you. But all this time, I’ve loved you, too.”
Ivy started to cry. Her face contorted as it was overcome with emotion and she buried her head against her hands that still grasped tightly onto the note.
I knelt on one knee in front of her and gently lifted her face to mine as I kissed her. I felt myself start to cry, too. “I’m so sorry that it has taken me this long, Ivy. But I love you now, and I always have loved you, and I always will.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tiny black velvet box. I held it up for her to see and opened the top to reveal the glittering diamond inside.
“Ivy Graves, I have been waiting for you my whole life, and I can’t stand the thought of waiting any longer. Please marry me.”
Ivy threw her hands around my neck and kissed me through our tears and widening smiles. “Yes,” she said as I pulled her down with me and held her in my arms as we both fell backward onto the library floor.
I slid the ring onto her finger just as the rain started to patter against the window.
31
Epilogue (Ivy)
Bridget started to tear-up, and Ben needed to hand her a tissue before she ended up leaking all over the slice of pizza in front of her.
“That is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard,” she cried. “And also the saddest.”
“I don’t think it’s sad at all,” Ben said as he handed her another tissue. “You two are together now, and that’s all that matters. Sometimes people go through their whole lives being around the wrong person or chasing after the wrong thing. Fr
om what I can tell, the two of you stayed together even when you didn’t know how your story would turn out. You were chasing the right dream, even though neither of you thought it could be a reality. And now look, you’re engaged. Sounds like a fairy tale to me.”
“You would know,” Easton laughed. “You do manage a bookstore.”
“I think Ben’s right,” I said, realizing that he was much more of a deep thinker than I gave him credit for.
“So, when’s the wedding going to be?” Bridget asked.
“Soon,” Easton replied. “I don’t want to have to wait any longer than Ivy makes me.”
“We don’t really have to wait at all, do we?” I asked.
Easton looked at me excitedly. “I just thought that you would want to plan a whole big thing and invite a whole lot of people and everything. I’ll give you whatever kind of wedding you want,” he said.
“The only kind of wedding that I want,” I said, “is the one in which I become your wife. I don’t care about any of the rest of it.”
“So, you would just marry me tomorrow if we could?”
“Yes.”
Easton picked me up and carried me to the bedroom as he kissed me and whispered into my mouth, “I want to make love to you tonight and marry you tomorrow,” he said quietly enough that only I could hear.
“Yes,” I said. “A thousand times, yes.”
His tongue pushed into my mouth, and I forgot about everything else in the world except for having him.
“Are they coming back?” I heard Ben ask as we walked into the room, and Easton kicked the door closed behind us.
“Nope,” Bridget said. “But I’m pretty sure that we have a wedding to go to tomorrow.”