The Brooch

Andrew Wellington Pt 1

And there he was, Andrew Wellington, in the flesh. After two long years, without so much as a whisper or a fond farewell... He had returned to Ponchas, almost as if he had never left...

Maple couldn't believe her eyes as he was just standing there before her. He was real and not an illusion like the other times before. He was older and he looked it...

He was high and lofty and was dressed to the nines in his sharp blue blazer, that brilliantly complimented his dark hair and piercing gray eyes. There was no doubt in his posture as he stood strong and assertive, like a prince among men. He was bronzed as if he had been kissed by the sun. His eyes twinkled as his chiseled chin, clenched at the sight of her. In his five o clock shadow, with his soft reddish pink lips, he managed to form a smile that sent shivers up Maple's spine. What made matters worse, his strong masculine smokey scent lingered in the air, as it cruelly invaded her nostrils...

In that long quaint hallway of the Abba church, as a lucent light cascade from the end of the vacant surroundings, a ting of an unfamiliar sound echoed in the foyer. Like the church bells ringing in an unsung hum...

The sun was vibrant on that early Sunday morn, as it so brilliantly drifted through the stained glassed casement windows.

There was no doubt something was in the air that day. Not just the glistening that sparkled on that spring eve. Or the cool, gentle, valley breeze, that settled just over the mountains nearby. And it definitely wasn't the smell of clean cut grass that whiffed around that colossal church... There was something much more. And it suddenly haunted Maple to the core...

Her heart felt like a thousand drums beating in the wild, as she instantaneously laid eyes on Andrew...

He had been now nearing the age of twenty three. Somehow, Maple had managed to erase him from her thoughts. But to her dismay, and on that very morning, all the emotions she felt as that young, vulnerable schoolgirl came flooding back like a tropical storm...

He was after all, the first boy she had ever taken fancy to. But all those feelings she thought that she had cleverly thrown away, like an old piece of trash of yesterday's news, came gushing back. And with a vengeance...

But why? Maple wondered... Why were these unwanted emotions now invading her soul as she frustratedly and secretly pondered.

Standing there in her long apricot and off the shoulder dress, that barely covered her now caramel shoulders, Maple could instantly feel the blood escaping her naturally peach round cheeks as if she had seen a ghost....

While the wind danced in her long black curls, and her mouth still ajar, after a fashion of stillness, like statue of a woman in renaissance, Maple finally managed to come back to her momentary reality to form the words...

"Andrew..."

"You should close yo mouth." He said with a peculiar grin... "you're catchin flies. Isn't that whut yo momma always says?"

"Umm... whut are you doin here?" She uttered aghast!

"Well how do, to you too." He chuckled. "Why else? I'm here foe the weddin."

"Is that all?" Maple wondered.

"Is there more?"

"No... I mean no. I jest... I didn't thank you would ever return is all."

"Why?" He asked.

"I don't know." Maple murmured. "I jest..."

"Thought I ran away?"