Always There || Greta Van Fleet

Chapter 30: What If

"Josh, we should let them get settled in." His mom said, reaching her hand out for him. "You can come over later." They were leaving already? But.. I wanted to meet Jake.
"Okay.. um.. you can come over whenever you want. Just knock on the back door and I'll come out and play." Josh said, turning back to me.
"Okay." I laughed again, going back over to my mom.

"Well, it seems like you already made some friends." She said cheerfully, taking my hand and leading me into the house. "But now I get to show you your room!" She lead me up the stairs and down the hallway to the biggest bedroom I had ever seen.
"Now, this is a big girl room so you have to keep it clean, okay?" She said, leaning in the doorway. I went in, looking all around. I couldn't believe this was all mine.

I then climbed up, looking out my window to see that it overlooked the house next door, my heart now beating faster at the thought of it possibly being Jake's, and maybe one day when he wasn't so shy, him and I could talk after everyone had gone to sleep, getting our own pair of walkie-talkies and sending little notes through paper airplanes. I couldn't wait.

And I couldn't have been more wrong.
But I'd be lying if I still didn't occasionally think about.. what if.

I reached under my bed, pulling out my journal that I had had for almost my entire life. I only wrote in this one on special occasions, for things I knew I would want to remember every detail of, and I had been waiting for what felt like forever to finally write about today.

Dear Journal,

Tonight Josh and I finally had our first date, and it went perfectly. He even brought me flowers, lavender roses. I didn't think boys actually did that, but he has always exceeded my expectations in every sense of the word. As badly as I wanted to have that special moment at the end of the date, I just couldn't wait to kiss him, and every time feels like the first time, making me fall for him over and over again. I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self that I would finally get to be writing about this day, I know how badly she wanted this.

I stopped for a moment, flipping back to the very first entry which was from the day we moved in. My mom had gifted me this journal, laying it on my pillow for me after I got out of the bath that first night.
"This is the first day of our journey together, and I want you to write down all of your special moments so one day you can share them with your daughter. But more importantly, so you can revisit them whenever you want. And always write about them while you're still feeling them, that's when you're the most honest."

I couldn't help but smile at the first page.

I have a big girl room now and I'm writing this from my brand new big girl bed. It's HUGE!! I can't wait for tomorrow. Maybe I can go and play with our new neighbors Jake and Josh. Josh is really nice and wants to play games with me. Jake is so cute. I hope he likes me. I'll write back tomorrow.

xo, Jaime.

If only younger me would have known. I kept flipping through, noticing my hand writing get better, the entries slowly starting to be written with crayon, to pencil, to pen and in an instant, the hearts surrounding Jake's name switched to Josh.

I think it was the first time that Jake ever brought a girl home. I was heartbroken. She was so pretty. She had straight blonde hair and bright blue eyes and brand new clothes, everything about her was shiny and new and.. perfect; she was everything I wasn't. He was so nice to her, not shy at all, only making me wonder what was wrong with me that she deserved to be treated this way, and I didn't. It was then when Josh brought me to his secret tree off in the woods, one with the perfect branches for climbing and we spent the afternoon together alone, just talking about life as we watched the sun set off in the distance, and I loved every second of it.