Cutie Alert!

Chapter 2: Memory Lane

Chapter two
Memory Lane

Alex

Of all the freaking people in my freaking life who would show up on the freaking first day of freaking school, it had to be freaking him! Why? Did he get bored of all the gorgeous girls in Holland and decided to come and haunt me? What did I ever do to him that was so horrible that he’d decide to come and haunt me for the rest of my freshmen year? Ugh, being fifteen was hard.
Hey, don’t give me that look. I may not be making any sense right now, but I’m still not spilling so you could write it all over your blog. Oh, alright, I’ll tell you. I’ll need some hardcore evidence though.
So, that is how I ended up in my room at the end of that day – and after trying to avoid that cutie all day long. I instinctively went towards my closet, and opened it. Having only a little brother gave me the privilege of having my own room. So, I had to step on my tip toes to reach the upper drawer in the closet – I was tall by nature, but that closet was gigantic – and I felt a box. I quickly grabbed it, and inspected it once I put it down on the floor. The box was white and medium-like, containing nothing but memories of those amazing – I mean, sad days. I blew on it to blow away the dust, and opened it.
Everything was exactly the way I remembered it. The pictures were still there, intact and not ripped. There were the tickets to that Taylor Swift concert he took me to, there were the souvenirs I got from our school field trip to that Art museum: the miniature knock-off of the Mona Lisa, the weird looking pen with the feathers on it, the refrigerator magnet that looked like the Scream, and lastly, the gold pen he got me, custom-made that had my name engraved on it.
I got out the pen and looked at it closely. I wrote short stories and poems a lot, and this pen’s ink was Soy Ink – Cole had researched it and discovered it was commonly used in the Newspaper Association of America, and that it was environmentally friendly and safe. But, I never got myself to ever get this pen out of the box.
I put the pen aside and started getting out the photos. I wasn’t the type of girl to have a photo album, but I liked taking photos a lot, which would explain that the amount of photos I had were over 50 photos.
My heart ached at every photo I saw. It just contained so many memories that I spent a long time trying to hide and bury at the end of my brain. There we were, Cole and I, in front of a waterfall from when we went to Rio – our old school was very conscious about us getting to learn by activities, not in a dull class. And that’s us at the zoo, at the fair, on a rollercoaster, at the carnival, at the gym, at the beach, in my house, in his house… man, how love struck was I?
See, Cole wasn’t just any cutie. He was, well, he was my first date, my first boyfriend, my first kiss, and my first love. I know fourteen may have been too young for love, but I swear that was what it was. I dreamed about him all the time, I got butterflies in my stomach every time he called my name, I got goose bumps when he touched me, and he manages to steal my breath away every time I get lost in those beautiful green eyes of his…
Whatever happened between us, you ask? Well, it wasn’t simple, but it sure as hell wasn’t that complicated either. I remember it clearly like it was yesterday, when it was almost a year ago. Cole and I were the couple, the one everybody wanted to be. We scarcely had any fights, and trusted each other with our lives. But then, one rainy November night, I tried calling him and he wouldn’t pick up his phone. I tried calling Dylan, his twin brother, I tried calling his older sister Helen, and I even tried calling his parents, with no avail. When worry consumed me, I put on a raincoat and grabbed an umbrella and raced to his house. His house was this very beautiful luxurious palace, too pretty to be called a house; since his Dad owned a record company and his Mom was a graphic designer and worked for the most important magazines and publishers of all time, he was loaded.
I was at the front gates when his doorman, Mr. Sully, stopped me from entering the house.
“Hey, Mr. Sully,” I said, worry marks showing all over my face. “I’m here for Cole?”
Mr. Sully looked at me as if I were crazy. “Mr. Martin? Dear, he and his family moved out this morning.”
Yep, you didn’t hear me wrong, that’s what he said. So imagine my shock and disbelief when I entered his house to realize that it was completely empty of any furniture. I had sat on his stairs for who knows how long until Mr. Sully came to tell me I had to go. Holland, he had told me. They had moved to The Netherlands that morning, his mother’s home town. I had gotten out of the now empty mansion, heart-broken. I had made my way home, avoiding my parents and my brother as much as I could, and hid in my room and cried all night. I’m not really one to cry, but then, I felt as if my heart was ripped out of my chest.
Almost two months later – that’s 8 weeks, 2 days and 5 and a half hours – I opened my Facebook account and saw that I had a message from him. I was ecstatic, of course, since that was the first time he tried contacting me since the move. But, my smile was wiped when I read the message. I remember the words by heart: