Write Me A Letter

06 | second

CHAPTER SIX - SECOND

Xander,

Can I ever say no to you? Physically, I can. Emotionally? Not so much. The word always refuses to slide off my tongue when it comes to you. It's just two letters, one of the easiest words to utter yet my mouth shuts whenever my head screams it. No no no no, yet my heart would push against my rib cage and carve the word 'yes' onto the bones of my ribs.

I wish you never had to ask Izzy to come to the tree house. That's ours. I don't own you, will never do and your heart will forever be out of my grasp; just wind felt at my fingertips. But those memories inside that poorly constructed, wooden house that hung upon our only Oak tree are mine.

Mine in every sense of the word. Yet I'd let you taint those memories with her presence just because I loved you enough.

It's so funny, isn't it? Whenever I'd do something stupid, the reason would always be because I loved you enough. I love a person who could never deem me enough.

I'll give you this letter before you guys leave my backyard, and once you leave with this paper tucked between your fingers, and my crushed heart as dust on the soles of your shoes, please bring along all my memories of you.

They're all tainted with pain, anyway. No longer worthy to keep.

Brie

EVERYONE WAS LAUGHING EXCEPT FOR BRIE. She couldn't understand what was so funny about their colorful handprints on the wall of her childhood tree house.

Back then, the only mark on there was the small pink one that was left by the eleven year-old version of her. She still had braces back then and have just recently grew out of pigtails.

Bored and grumpy over not being allowed to eat more than three cookies, she stormed out of their house and climbed her safety haven. Her legs were wobbly and she was only beginning to learn how to climb without putting all her weight on her back.

Once inside, she just sat there, huffing. Her sweaty back pressed against the leg of a chair. The silence lasted for ten minutes until she spotted small tubs of paint below the window. They were all lined up against the wall. She picked up the pink one and glanced at the blank wall to her right.

She smiled. She knew what she needed to do.

Four years later, her handprint found friends. Paula, Simon, Jean, Troy and Ollie and soon enough, Xander came along.

He found the idea stupid at first. His palm was already coated in green, with paint dripping down his elbow. "Why do I have to do this again?"

"Memories," Paula said through a mouthful of Pringles. She was sat in a blue bean bag in the corner. "Years from now, we'd get to see our hands there and we'd laugh."

Xander's nose scrunched up, causing his glasses to tilt a little. He was a lanky fifteen year-old kid, but Brie still thought he was cute.

"Come on," Brie urged him with a grin. "One day it'll mean so much more."

If only Brie knew that it'd hurt so much more as well.