I groan, pulling down the last two boxes in my tiny storage closet. It can only be so many places. It’s not like I have a ton of space to hide things.
I tear open the box.
Dammit.
It’s not even clothes.
I start to fold it back together, then pause when I spot my middle school yearbook.
I bend the cardboard open and plop down on the floor in front of it.
I pull the yearbook out with a smile, more than ready to take a trip down memory lane. This is the one box of old stuff I kept from my childhood.
I rummage through it. Polaroids. Yearbooks. Old letters from friends… and Matt.
Yeah. I definitely have to read some.
I tap my camera and take a picture of all the notes folded into weird little shapes, some with pull tabs and others tucked into themselves, and send it to Matt.
Look what I just found.
He’s in Chicago for a private event at the nightclub he co-owns with Leo. He flew in yesterday and is coming home late tonight. He wanted to fly out a day early to take Cole to dinner, but Cece said they already had plans.
He responds a minute later.
Matt
Holy shit. I can’t believe you have those.
What do they say? Should I be embarrassed?
I pick one up. My name is scrawled across the front in his shitty handwriting, simple and all caps. It’s folded into itself, and I already know there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to refold it once I untangle it.
I open it.
Babe,
God. He was already calling me babe back then?
I can’t stop thinking about second base. My parents are gone tonight. You should come over.
-Matt
I let out a laugh. “Oh my God,” I say aloud. I have no idea when this was written, but we were definitely way too young to be going to second base.
I snap a picture and send it to Matt.
Why am I not surprised?
Matt
I knew what I wanted even back then.
I still think about that day. I’ll never forget it.
I honestly can’t even remember the first time we did that. It’s all a blur.
Matt
