Laura Miller - By Way of Accident

It’s been nearly nine years since my last day beside that old creek bed where I grew up, and I’m only two weeks from graduating college. And I think the only reason why I think about those days at all anymore is because of the girl who I spent them with. I have no idea where she ended up. In the end, she was only there for a page in my life really. But kind of like when you move something on a wall after it’s been there for a long time, and its place is bright but everything around it is faded — that’s how I feel about her. She wasn’t there very long, but when she left, everything around her memory sort of dimmed.

But a lot has changed since those days alongside that creek, I guess. I finally learned that those g’ s mean something at the end of a word. Where I come from, everything ends in an n . And I learned that Brooke was right. You really do lose a lot of stuff when you move. I lost that creek. I lost the best summer job I ever had. And I lost her. But then I guess that’s all in the past now.

“You gonna eat those chips? River!”

“Huh, what?” I ask, catching the stupid look on Tim’s face.

Tim followed me to the University of Missouri. Most people where I’m from don’t bother with college. They just take over the family business, which is usually the farm, and make a living doing what his father and his father did. But we didn’t have a farm anymore, and besides, my grandpa was right, I wasn’t much cut out for farm work anyway. That said, Tim’s family still had a farm, and I’m still not sure why he left it. I’ve asked him, but he’s never answered me. Maybe he discovered that the Maker’s cutter didn’t have a farm boy in mind when he made him either. And maybe he’s just too ashamed to admit it. Or maybe Tim just found out how many more girls there are here than there are back home. I’d put my money on the latter.

“You gonna eat those chips?”

“Uh, no, you can have them.” I toss the bag at him.

He catches it and immediately rips into the chips and starts stuffing his face.

“What are you always daydreamin’ about? Dude, you got a girl none of us knows about?”

I look over at him and laugh quietly to myself before I shake my head. “Naw.”

“You dreamin’ about Audrey again? You know, I really thought you two were gonna make it — at least for another month or so.”

“Funny, dipshit.” I sit back in my chair and notice he’s still staring at me. It makes me feel uncomfortable, and he knows it. Does he want me to say something else? “What? No,” I say. “I’m not dreamin’ about anything — or anyone.”

He stuffs another handful of chips into his mouth. “Too bad about her ex-boyfriend, right? Man, that guy’s a piece of shit, which means that girl ain’t worth it.”

I only nod my head. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I say, even though it’s still hard to admit it out loud. Audrey and I only dated for three months. It was fast and fun. I had picked up early on that she wasn’t over the last guy she had her talons in. She had mentioned once they dated for three years and that they were still friends. That should have been the cue for me to run, but I’m a glutton for punishment, and maybe I didn’t care either. Maybe I didn’t want it to be anything more than fast and fun.

“River!” Tim’s voice cuts into my thoughts. And he says my name as if it’s not the first time he’s said it either. It forces my eyes in his direction.

“See you tonight?”

“Uh, yeah,” I say, nodding my head.

He’s standing in my doorway now. How’d he get there so fast?

“Okay.” He starts to leave and then stops. “Oh, and hey, remember Dustin’s out, so we got this other guy he knows to play second, so you’re playin’ first. Remember?”

“Got it,” I say, giving him another nod.

He smacks the door frame with his open hand like he always does for some reason, and then he’s gone.

I sit back for a second and stare at the blank wall. I’m a little off today. Maybe it’s because of Audrey. Maybe it’s because I’m a senior and weeks from graduating and I don’t have the slightest clue what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. Or maybe it’s something else; I don’t know. I’ll graduate in a handful of days with a degree in newsprint journalism, but I don’t have a job lined up and people say no one is hiring. And since papers look as if they’re on their way out, I have a feeling that diploma will be worth about eight cents — and that’s only because I figure that’s about how much it probably cost to print it.

I reach into my desk drawer and slide out a Sports Illustrated magazine. Inside the magazine, stuck between two pages, is an envelope. I pull it out and flip it over. On the back side is the outline of two red lips. Sealed with a kiss . I tap the corner of the envelope a few times on the edge of the desk before I sit back further in the chair and stare at the mark her lips made once upon a time. It’s hard to believe she held this envelope once — that she once brought it to her lips and that those same lips once held a love and a hope I once held too. But now, I hate this envelope, almost as much as I hate the letter inside. I shouldn’t even have either of them anymore. I don’t know why I torture myself. But it’s all I have left of her, and I just can’t bring myself to let them go, I guess.

I toss the envelope onto the desk and just stare at it some more. It was the last letter she sent to me. The return address says some little town in Illinois. Maybe this was her good-bye letter; I don’t know. All I know is that I never heard from her again. But for some reason, I’m still sitting here, staring at this old piece of mail. I almost feel like a thirteen-year-old girl, still carrying it around with me. And that’s why I hate it. I hate it because it’s the only thing in my life I just can’t seem to part with.

I suck in a quick breath and then force it right back out again. Then before I know it, I’m looking over my shoulder to make sure Tim is good and gone before my fingers reach for the envelope, part the two lips and pull out the fading piece of blue stationery. I unfold the letter and set the envelope down. And instantly, my eyes are reading the last words she ever wrote to me:

I had a dream about you last night. We were together again, and we were happy.

…

Please don’t forget about me.

I’ll write again as soon as we’re in our new place.

XOXO

Love,

Brooke

I fold the letter and slide it back into the envelope, not missing the two red lips again. That was it. That was the last time I heard from her. And I’m pretty sure I’m crazy for holdin’ onto her for so long. We were only kids back then. She’s probably got a boyfriend. Hell, she could have a husband. I’ve tried to look her up on Facebook. I’ve even sent messages to six different Brooke Sommerfields. So now, every Brooke Sommerfield in the country and one in Canada has pretty solid evidence to believe I’m a creep, and I’m still no closer to finding her. It would have been nice if the inventor of the cell phone would have come up with his little idea just a few years earlier. I must have really used up all my luck the day I met her because I’ve had bad luck ever since she left. Really, who isn’t on Facebook? Or maybe she’s got one of those private accounts someone was telling me about, where you can’t even find her name even if she were on there. Anyway, it must be fate tellin’ me that summer in ’99 was just a fluke, a beautiful accident, a perfect mistake. Now, why can’t I bring myself to believe that? Part of me just wants to let it be and move on — for good. But the other part of me just won’t let me just let it be.