The Two Of Us | ✔

Chapter 1

I ran up the wooden stairs to get to the attic. "No running on the stairs!" mom's warning screams resonating from a distant childhood memory of when Sarah and I would chase each other around the house brought a small smile to my face, and I slowed down on the last few steps to the floor landing. I paced around the first floor of our childhood home, memories of me and my sister as children growing up here flashed before my eyes.

I went up to the middle of the square floor and pulled on the thin rope that hung from the ceiling. The trap door to the attic came down, revealing the small ladder attached to the door that led to the land of old, useless junk my mother would hoard. I carefully stepped on it, assessing the stability of the ladder, before climbing further. With achingly slow steps, I finally reached the dusty room, sneezing when some of the particles entered my nose. I took a long glance at the contents of the room. Two rusting, cob-web covered cycles, one of them having lost a wheel when Sarah rode it into the lake as an over enthusiastic kid. In one corner were two gigantic cartons of our toys, the pink of a teddy bear turning an odd shade of mauve and the white bunny I couldn't sleep without as a child mutated into a mud-covered rabbit. A lone tear fell from my eyes and ran down my cheek at thought of how well mom preserved all these things after the two daughters moved out to lead their own lives.

My attention was caught by a box that was partially covered by some old curtains that my mother, for some odd reason, didn't have the heart to dispose. I strode towards the box, kneeled and pulled it from under those shoddy old curtains, realizing that it was a box of my secret contents which I had hidden when I was leaving for college. I removed the dusty lid that covered the box and saw the heap of letters that Andrew had written to me when we were an item back in high school. Both of us being the crazy romantics that we were, wrote poetry to each other almost every day, leave it in each other's lockers for the other to swoon. After all, we both had AP English back then, our shared love for literature was like water to a blossoming flower. I opened one of the letters and read the contents of it:

Thy beauty makes my heart flutter,
Like a bee to a flower,
I gravitate towards you,
So strong is thy power.
And to you I shall mutter,
Sweet nothings and fly away,
As I leave you blushing,
And await the day we meet again,
And again, and again...

I began to mentally smack my forehead as I read the lines, suppressing the urge to smother myself to death. "How did I ever believe this was romantic? I wonder what cheesy nonsense I wrote to him. I think he broke up with me realizing how absurd our means of professing our love was." I muttered to myself. I glanced through some more of the letters and an odd one sticking out, with no fancy envelope like the others from Andrew. I pulled it out, noticing that it was already opened. I pulled out the paper the envelope enclosed, symmetrically folded thrice. The handwriting was impeccable, a beautiful cursive, unlike Andrew's scrawl. I tried to recall who had such a beautiful writing, my brain failing to bring up any faces or names to mind.

I began to read the contents of the letter:

You know, it won't be too late till the cops realize it was you over there that night. David Irving told them he remembered seeing someone there, but he was so high he couldn't remember what that person looked like. Stay safe. You never know when your secrets can come back to bite you.

"No signature, no addressee. That's odd." I thought to myself as I turned the page over. "Why can't I remember reading this letter? It is clearly a warning. But for what? Who wrote this? To whom, specifically? Why is it here amongst my belongings? Who is this David Irving?" I ran my fingers through my hair, my head swimming with these questions, trying to place the handwriting and the name to someone, anyone. I was subconsciously biting my little finger when I heard the front door slam pulling me out of my reverie. "Lo!? Are you home? I saw your car in the driveway." Sarah's voice rang through the empty house. I immediately pushed the box back where it was, jumped off the floor and shoved the letter into the back pocket of my jeans and slowly went down the attic ladder. I leaned over the bannister and saw a hazel haired head near the stairs and called out, "Yeah, I'm up here." She looked up at the sound of my voice, her chocolate brown eyes sparkling from the light that came in through the bare windows and gave this big, beautiful smile everyone swooned over. I went running down the stairs and she made a face and said, "No running on the stairs!" mimicking mom's shrill voice, and we both burst out laughing, filling the house with girly giggles after ages.

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Hey guys! It has been a while since I wrote anything and I have finally found something that will keep me motivated to complete this book.

This book is part of the Open Novella Contest that is taking place right here on Wattpad!

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