Love Letter

Lynne:

"That was unexpected," I say to my mother, closing her bedroom door. Her bedroom had changed a lot, unlike my father's office since the last time I had been in here. It was brighter than I remember from high school. It used to be a plum purple, and the curtains were a dark brown, making you feel like you were inside a rotting grape. Any time after my father's death when I had to help Kelly drag mom to her bed when we found her passed out on the couch or multiple times on the floor, I always thought I would be depressed with a room as dark as the one she had. When I say depressing – it was very depressing.

"Very," she says, taking another drink from her wine glass.

"It's not the end of the world," I say to her, sitting next to her on the bed.

"It isn't? My daughter is marrying a man double her age and could be her father. Who knows if they could even have kids together," she says with concern more than madness showing through. My mother was not always the cold-hearted mother she turned into after my father's death. She used to care about us kids. When she asked about our days, she never looked down on us like she does now. I know that my father had kept her in line with some of her wicked thoughts from showing through. The Christmas when she refused to find her first Christmas gift hidden, she did it jokingly. "I am not finding it," she told my dad with a coy smile on her face.

"Oh yeah?" my dad said, wrapping his arms around her. "I bet it will drive you crazy if you do not find it."

"I won't need to. I have everything I need right here," she said, looking at all of us kids in the living room, content showing in her eyes. She meant to say that my dad was everything that she needed. When he left, it broke her, and no amount of glue would put her back together.

"Well, when you put it that way...." I say, returning my attention to my mother, taking her cup from her and taking a sip of it. I wince at the taste since I had never tried wine before. I had promised myself I would never start drinking because I did not want to depend on it like my mom has allowed herself.

She laughs at my reaction even with all the doom sitting out in the living room waiting to be handled. I hand her back the wine glass where it rightfully belongs. "They probably won't even go through with the wedding. Lisa will probably freak before she has a chance of walking down the aisle," I say.

"And if she doesn't?" my mom asks me.

"Well, if she makes it down that aisle, this is if she even said yes to his proposal – then we will get through it. Together" I say, taking her hand. A creak from the door makes me look up to find Victor coming in with his eyes landing on my mother's hand in mine. I let him take my spot, patting him on the shoulder as I pass him. I walk out to find my family in different parts of the house. The boys are still with Keith and Carolyn next to the tree playing with their toys. With how mad Carolyn looked over the dropped cuss words, I was shocked she and Keith were still here. Ricardo and Lisa are kissing in the dining room, and I now know that her response is yes. The twins are nowhere to be found along with Kelly, and then there is Ian sitting on the stairs waiting for me; this was something I would never get tired of seeing. He was waiting for me and no one else.

He stands, taking my hand in his. Hand holding was something I had never done before, but with Ian, it feels natural. It is like riding a bike after you learn how to without falling off; it is like you knew how to ride the whole time. With Ian, all the hand-holding and hugs feel normal, like he has always been there. We make our way up to my room, and he asks me to sit on my bed. I am embarrassed for once for having a single bed wishing I would have just gotten used to the king-size bed like all my siblings did. He sits a box on top of my lap that is wrapped, and I am guessing by how uneven the gift wrapping is on the one side that Ian had wrapped it himself. It was endearing.

I stutter, "I didn't get you a gift...." I say, my face going crimson.

"Your gift was letting me come here today with you and your family," he says, waiting for me to open the gift.

"You mean my dysfunctional dramatic, messed-up family, and you would go running if you ever knew what was inside my mind," I say, looking down messing with the tape on the paper.

"Lynne?" he says.

"Yes?"

"Please shut up and open your gift," he says, looking at me. I laughed when he said, please shut up. I start unwrapping it and open the brown box that my gift is.

I pull out a rectangle box wrapped up in some black material. After I have removed the box from the material, I can tell they are the black under armor shorts that Ian had lent me the day we met on the bus. I look up at him, finding this incredibly sweet. He shrugs and says, "they look better on you."

The white box I had pulled out wrapped in the shorts is a brand new iPad, and it is sitting in my lap.

"Ian... this is too much... I can't take this," I say. If I wanted an iPad, I could have gone out and bought as many as I wanted but having someone else buy me a gift so expensive after knowing me not even two weeks was too much.

He takes the box taking out the Ipad that I see is already set up. I am looking at the home screen and am directly staring back at a picture of myself. I look up at him, and he says, "my stalking knows no bounds... You should probably make your pictures on Facebook private so creeps like me that are lurking in the dark cant stalk you as easily," he says, making me laugh. "Okay, now, this is what I wanted to show you. He clicks on the Kindle App and pulls up a screen with well over a hundred books loaded on it.

"What is this?" I ask, horrified that he would buy this many books along with an Ipad for me.

"This is my kindle account, don't worry, I didn't go and purchase you a hundred books within the last four days even though it is was very tempting. If I had a journal, this is pretty much what it would be," he says, placing the Ipad in my hands. It would take me months upon months to finish all these books.