Laura Miller - By Way of Accident

She laughs again and then settles back on my eyes. “Corn?”

Damn it, her eyes still make me nervous. That hasn’t changed. I push my lips to one side and just nod. “Yep.”

“And that’s all I’ve missed, huh?”

I nod. “Pretty much.”

She lowers her gaze.

“What about you? What have I missed?” I ask.

Her smile starts small and then grows wide.

“What?” I ask.

“I found Winnie-the-Pooh.”

I cock my head. “The original Winnie-the-Pooh?”

She nods. “The day we left this place, I found it stuffed in between two boxes in the basement.”

“So you never really lost it after all?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No, I guess not.”

She’s quiet then. We’re both quiet then. I’m thinking about the thing I lost in the move. Turns out, I found her after all too.

We both step over a fallen oak. We’re at the tree line that leads to the creek now. And I’m well aware Brooke hasn’t said anything about a boyfriend yet. But now, I guess, I’m pretty convinced there isn’t one. It might just be my wishful thinking, but I’m guessing she wouldn’t be here with me if she had one. Then again, maybe she would. I only know the girl who showed up at the creek that one summer nearly nine years ago. And there’s a lot of life in between there. And then, of course, there’s Amy. There’s Amy swimming around the back of my head. Amy, my friend. Amy, my ex-girlfriend. Amy, the girl who just wondered back into my life — and maybe even my heart.

“And high school?” I ask.

She shrugs her shoulders. “It was…high school. We stayed in one place for four years, and I ate questionable lunches and managed to sleep through most of Mr. Ethan’s classes. And I ran track in the spring…and my best friend and I drove way too many loops around town when I first got my driver’s license.”

I laugh. “I think that pretty much about sums up my experience too.”

She smiles as we keep walking.

“But you ran track?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “It turns out I wasn’t such a bad 800-meter runner. I hated every second of it.” She stops and furrows her eyebrows. “But for some reason, I never quit.”

I snicker under my breath. “Pain is in your nature, I think.”

She gives me a sideways look.

“You did bale hay with me once. Don’t think I forgot.”

She smiles wide, showing her teeth this time. “That I did.” Her lips start to slowly fall then, but the smile just barely remains as her eyes lock on mine.

“River, it…” she starts.

I wait for her to continue, but it doesn’t look as if she’s going to.

“It…,” I repeat, trying to coax her to finish her sentence.

She shakes her head. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”

I know it’s something, but I don’t push her.

“So, you’re a writer now?” she asks.

“Yeah. As it turns out, not many people read newspapers anymore, but someone forgot to tell me that when I was getting my degree.”

Another pretty laugh falls from her lips. “And even if they did…tell you…”

She pauses and I just nod. “I guess I would have done it anyway,” I say.

Suddenly, we’re at the creek bank. And all too soon, I notice the sun is setting. I look around. We’re about a mile away from the house. How did we even get here? Had we really walked that far?

“You want to sit down?” I ask her.

She looks at me like she’s thinking about it. “Okay,” she says at last.

We sit on the grass, and there’s still so much running through my head. I’ve heard some, but I want to know everything — everything I’ve missed. I want to…

“I can’t believe we’re here again,” she says, stopping my thoughts. Her voice is low but songlike.

I nod. “You know, I had my last perfect summer here.”

“Your last?” she asks.

“Yeah, life hit me after that — high school and decisions…and thinkin’ too much,” I add. “That summer, I didn’t have any of that.”

She smiles. “Yeah, I guess it was mine too.”

We’re quiet again, just listening to the tree frogs and the wind blow through the maples and the oaks and the river birch. A snapping turtle fans out its webbed feet and glides past us right under the water’s surface. It feels as if just yesterday we were both here together, both figuring out what life and love were all about. I wish there were something I could say or do that would erase nine years and that would bring us back to that time where we didn’t really know what to say, but we said it anyway.

“River?” Her voice breaks my thoughts again.

“Yeah?”

“It…wasn’t just the job…that made me want to come back here,” she says.

I watch her green and grays leave mine and settle on the water instead.

“And it wasn’t just that I liked it here either,” she goes on. “I mean, I did like it here — a lot; it just wasn’t the only reason.” She pauses before she continues. “River, I got a letter recently. And it made me remember. It made me remember how happy I was here.”

And just like that, the air in my lungs vanishes. It’s as if I turn smack-dab into a brick wall.

“It was from you.” She smiles at me. “From 1999.”

I can’t believe my ears. “Wait,” I say. “The letter I wrote you, saying that I hadn’t heard from you or got your new address, that one?”

She nods. “The envelope was full of forwarded addresses stamped onto it, and it was returned to you once, I think. But yeah, somehow, it eventually got to me.”

She pulls her knees closer to her chest. “But anyway, that’s why I’m back here,” she says.

I bite my bottom lip, then let it go again as her smoky eyes go to searching mine. “What?” she asks. She must notice my surprise.

“Brooke, I got a letter too…recently…from you.”

Her face goes blank. There’s a question on it; I can tell. But I keep going.

“I got it a couple months ago…the letter you wrote me back then.”

“Really?” Her eyes narrow, but in a way, they still kind of sparkle.

“Yeah,” I say. “I don’t know how, but it showed up at my parents’ house right before graduation, and…” I stop. I’m trying to decide if I want to tell her about my little ten-hour journey to her — about how I saw her with a punk in a truck, how I found her and then how I left her. I think about it, but in the end, I decide to keep that little part to myself…for now.

Her eyes turn down and follow a water bug skimming along the surface. “Oh,” is all she says, and then she’s quiet again.

I watch her fingers play with the hem of her skirt. And after a moment, she looks back up at me. “So, you didn’t get my letters either, until now?”

“Letters?” I ask. “There was more than one?”

She nods. “I wrote you two letters after we moved to Nashville.”

I know I’ve got a question hangin’ on my lips, but I set it aside. “I only got one,” I say.

“Which one did you get?” She looks sad all of a sudden, and there’s a seriousness in her question that I can’t figure out.

“It had your new address in it. You talk about liking eighth grade and telling everybody where you’re from.”

She almost looks relieved. I wonder why.

We’re both quiet then. I wonder where in the hell that second letter went — and what it said.

She smiles softly. “I had thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I convinced myself that I was stupid for thinking we’d stay in touch. I mean, I knew every time I moved, I lost things…people. I just thought — I wouldn’t lose you.”

My heart sinks to the bottom of my chest at her last words. “Brooke,” I say and then stop to gather my thoughts. “You didn’t lose me. I don’t know what happened with the letters. We sold the farm, and we moved, and I just never got them. But you didn’t lose me.”