Before I Met You

Chapter 7

Later that day, we ate supper out on the patio while her grandpa told stories from when he was in world war 2 with his older brother. It was just getting dark out and the purple and yellow sunset was going down, making the clouds become indivisible. It made me think about the time when I was little, maybe in the 2nd grade and my mom would take me on walks.

Sometimes we would sit on the bridge in front of the sunset and have picnics.

It was something we did almost every warm Saturday, when the weather was hot and the gardens were full of flowers. The sunset would always follow us and I remember asking her, "How come everywhere I turn, the sun is always with me?"

It's a stupid question now that I think about it. She probably thought that too, but I was only 8. She let out a small giggle. "The sun doesn't really follow you. It's just that it's so far away and since we can't see the side of it, or the back,it looks like it follows us. But that's just a trick."
"Oh."

I was pretty sad when she told me that, because I thought the sun really did follow me, and that we were best friends, and that day I thought I really lost one.

Her grandpa also brought up the time they owned a fish. Their conversations are pretty boring, but interesting at times. It warms my heart, especially when he told us random space facts when we were cleaning up the living room, but back to the fish.

"We would keep him right by the window, so it could have sunlight and the flowers to look at outside."
My face softened. "Awww that's so cute. What was its name?"

"His name was Einstein," he said.
Leona and I both stole glances and then I looked back at him trying not to laugh. "You named your fish Einstein?"

He nodded. "Einstein was almost like our best friend. We had him for months. We had won it at a carnival and couldn't wait to go to the store and buy him his own fish bowl and food."

Leona noticed that I was highly confused, so she informed me, "They can't have any pets like cats and dogs because of all the hair that sheds. It messes up their health and can get them sick."
I nodded.

He took a deep breath and then his eyebrows dropped, along with his face. "One weekend we took a trip to go see her sister, and when we came back, we found him on the floor."
My smile quickly faded.

Her grandma had wiped her mouth with the heart shaped napkins she made and said, "Yeah, apparently he jumped. It was his favorite thing to do."

'Then why call him Einstein if the thing wasn't even smart?' I thought to myself.

I heard sniffing and looked next to me. Leona was in full tears. Snot was running out of her nose and everything. She reached from across the table and grabbed a bunch of tissues while still sobbing.
"That's so sad," she said, looking at me. I pretended to agree with her.

Yeah, her grandparents are very strange. Leona and I helped clear the table and get the dishes inside while they went and took their medication, and after that I went back to the room and facetimed David since I haven't had a chance.

He was rearranging his bookshelf like he always does and I could've sworn he just did it the other day. "The books have to be in order if they're series, the authors have to be together, and I don't want a romance book with a horror," he said.
"No one even goes in your room besides us, so it's fine." He shook his head. "Everything has to be perfect."