Dear Payton,

Chapter 14

Dear Payton,
It's November 23rd, 10:37am.
You and I are in the car, headed towards Chicago. You're in the front seat listening to Bruno Mars and whispering all the words. I'm in the back seat laying down and writing you this letter that I hope you never read. Anyways, I had a great time last night! It was so hard to see everyone again though, especially to say goodbye. I don't think we discussed this, but, I saw my dad. He came over yesterday at around 3:45 and said goodbye. We both cried when we saw each other, he looked so different. He started growing grey hair and his posture began to fall. He looked young for his age though, his eyes were still green and beautiful as before m. He told me how I looked a lot like my mother and how he was sorry for not being there for me. I didn't speak much, I was in too much shock. I invited him inside but he refused, he kissed my cheek and told me, "congratulations on your engagement with Payton. I love you & I wish you the best of luck in Chicago!" He walked away and as he did I whispered, "I love you too." He turned around and smiled to let me know that he heard me. I meant what I said, I'm really going to miss him. I'm going to miss everyone. But this is going to be a new start for us and I won't regret a single second of it. I love you.
Sincerely yours, Sam Wright Smith.

It's 2:26pm and we're finally in Chicago. I moved back up to the front seat and Payton grabbed my hand. "Sam, isn't this beautiful?" she asked. I smiled and looked back at her, "Just as beautiful as you!" Payton smirked and I leaned over to kiss her cheek. I then looked out the window and all I could see we're the beautiful, tall buildings and a peak of the water behind them. Payton pulled over at the Willis Tower and called Jeff to ask him where he was. While she was doing that, I got out of the car and sat on the hood. It was freezing outside and I had forgotten we were still in the middle of November. Payton gets out and walks over to me and sits on her hood with me. I smiled and asked, "Well, what did he say?" She hesitated for a little bit and took a deep breath. She wanted to capture this view and remember this feeling forever. She smiled and looked at me, "He said, that all of our stuff should be moved in today. The photography company, Angels Photography, hired movers to help move our stuff in. Apparently, he had been keeping contact with the apartment complex to make sure everything was settled and they told them we were moving in early." My eyes widened at how awesome it was. Her boss seemed really sweet and I thought she'd have a great time working with people like that. I smiled and said, "Baby, that's seriously so amazing! Maybe we should get going. We really need to make sure all our stuff made it to the apartment okay." She shook her head and said, "Yeah, let's go! I have 2 more weeks off before I start work. That's enough time to come back down here. Plus, I don't know the movers and honestly I don't trust Jeff to actually watch them. God knows he's probably gonna be talking to his clingy girlfriend on the phone the entire time." Jeff was dating this girl named Lindsey, Payton hated her. Lindsey had long blonde hair, perfect teeth, long legs, and blue eyes that you could see from down the street. She had a terrible attitude problem and she treated Jeff like shit. The last time Payton saw her, she told her that she was a slut and shouldn't be treating Jeff so badly. Lindsey didn't really like that and she slapped Payton in the face. After that, that was the first time I saw Payton actually punch someone and make them bleed. That was also the first time I realized how much I loved Payton.

It's 3:13pm and we had just arrived to the apartment. There were 6 trucks parked across the street and Jeff was in his truck on the phone. Payton and I parked right beside Jeff and got all our stuff together. Jeff hung up the phone, got out of the car, and knocked on our window. "Welcome home babes!" He said while handing us the keys and telling the movers to go ahead and start opening our moving pods. Payton grabbed my hand and we walked towards then 1st floor apartment. We walked inside and the apartment was so much bigger then we had imagined. The kitchen was beautiful and updated with stainless steal appliances and marble counter tops. It was an open floor plan and the dining room was small but a pretty good size for a table and chairs. The living was huge and had a beautiful, white brick, fireplace in the middle of the wall to the right of where I was standing. We turned around and there was a narrow hallway with all the bedrooms and a bathroom at the very end. The first room was a good size laundry room, with beautiful white cabinets and organizing racks. A little ways down from that was the first bedroom, it was a great size and had a built in vanity which I found pretty cool. Across from that bedroom was the master bedroom and next to that was the main bathroom. The master bedroom was perfect, the master bathroom was huge, and the closet was just as big as the master bathroom. The apartment was beautiful and I expected it to be a lot smaller because we were in such a big city.