Isabella looked around and seemed to find the spot she was looking for. Sitting down, she pulled her notebook out of her bag and patted the seat next to her. Ripping a page out of her book, she handed it to me, along with a pen. I slid in next to her and looked at the paper.
“Write down the best thing that happened to you this morning. It can be anything, really. But it has to have happened this morning.”
Curiously, I stared at the blank page and debated what to write. Finally, I started scribbling away until I had written down my answer. She had already finished hers, and she smiled.
“Fold it in half so I can’t see it and write today’s date on it.”
I did as I was told and she pulled two envelopes from her bag. Did she really carry around envelopes? She flattened them on her notebook and I realized that she had actually made the envelopes out of some construction paper. She wrote my name on one and put her name on the other. She handed me the one with my name on it.
“Here, put your note in this.”
Still super confused, I did what she said. I watched her do the same, and then she pulled out a sheet of stickers and sealed them. She looked around again for a minute, a look of sadness reaching her eyes for a second. Then, a smile came to her face and she took my hand and pulled us both up. She started to rush now, dragging me behind her as we ran across the football field. I started to laugh.
“What is going on?”
Isabella looked over her shoulder.
“You’ll see.”
A few minutes later we were standing in front of a locker. She started to unlock it and I frowned. This was the senior hallway. I knew it wasn’t her locker.
“Whose locker is this?”
“Giovanni’s. Don’t worry. He won’t open them.”
She placed both our envelopes on top of her brother’s book and closed the locker again. Then, she smiled at me.
“Do I get to know what’s going on now?”
“Marco and I used to do this every day at lunch. Then, Giovanni would hold our notes in his locker until the end of school on Friday, so we wouldn’t cheat. Marco and I would open the whole week’s worth of them over dinner that night. Sometimes they even matched, but mostly it was just a way for us to end the week on a positive note. Remembering all our best moments.”
Tears appeared again, and Isabella forced them back. I really wished she would just cry. Let it out. I reached out and touched her cheek. Her expression softened, and she whispered, “Thank you. I… I had forgotten how much I missed doing this. But I’m glad now, my last note wasn’t given to him.”
I pressed my forehead to hers, aching to really kiss her. To give her one of those kisses where it feels like you finally found a place you belonged. Because I swear right now, I belonged with her. It didn’t matter, though, because she didn’t belong to me yet, and if I kissed her now, it would just make us both feel worse because nothing would be there, like always.
“Can we do this again tomorrow?”
There was no way Isabella would want to keep doing this, but it was such a beautiful idea, I had to just ask.
She blinked up at me and then whispered, “You would really keep doing this?”
Nodding, I pulled her into a hug.
“Forever, if I’m lucky.”
She melted into my embrace and whispered, “Let’s hope we are both lucky, Liam, because I don’t think I will ever forgive myself if we never share a real kiss.”
The bell rang and I forced myself to let her go. We stood in the hallway just staring at each other as the rest of the students started rushing through the corridors heading toward their next classes. Neither of us noticed Giovanni open his locker behind us until he smiled.
“Envelopes again, eh?”
Isabella blushed.
“Is that okay?”
Giovanni looked to me and then to his sister, a huge grin on his face. He pulled a textbook out of his locker and closed it. A moment later, he pulled Isabella into a hug and whispered, “This is my favorite moment of the day because it means I’m finally starting to get my sister back.”
This time, it was me pushing the tears out of my eyes. A rush of guilt hit me and I felt my heart break for reasons I wasn’t ready to think about. I was happy Isabella had a brother who cared so much about her. Not everyone did.
