Open When I'm Gone

26. Hello Love.

"Look at that!" Jolie bounces in her seat as we fly through the clouds. The sun reflects through the water, creating light streams of rainbows that glance off each other.

"That's the most... wow." Her eyes are out the window, big as saucers as she watches. But I can't even watch the sky pass by, because I can't seem to keep my eyes off of her.

She has this look in her eyes like nothing else matters except the colors flashing through the sky.

I didn't think she could look any more beautiful, and yet she always finds a way to prove me wrong.

I think my heart might stop when I feel the warmth of her hand intertwining with mine, her eyes never meeting mine

"What do you want to listen to?" She asks me, her free hand offering me the left earbud of her wireless headphones.

I can't help but smile, clicking into her phone sitting between us, scrolling till I find what I'm looking for: her coveted playlist that she has spent hours compiling and editing until it was perfect.

The piano notes of the first song hum out between us, and in the corner of my eye I can see her smile. Bright and wide, the type where you can almost see her bottom teeth peeking out.

I feel the music reverberating through my bones. The lyrics intermingle with the drums that slide through the tunes like honey.

And it feels like this is one of those moments. One that in ten years I'll look back on and say 'wow, it's really the small moments that make up a whole life.'

The small moments make the world seem so big.

I grin back at her, my eyes heavy with sleep.

I feel her hand still in mine as I drift into the darkness.

***

I see the blue before I even see the house, almost neon against the pale blue sky and the ocean across the street. It feels like a photo, with birds gliding through the sky and the people speckling the beach like stars.

The cottage sits right up against the road, the bright blue of the old siding in such stark contrast with the yellow door pressed up against the right side of the building. Bright colored flowers wrap around the small lot, framing the pathway to the front door with tulips in every shade of the rainbow.

"We're here!" Alyssa screams, splitting my eardrums in at least five different places as she jumps out of the car almost before we come to a stop. "We're here, we're here, we're here!"

Jolies laugh rings out down the street as she tugs on my hand, chasing after her little sister and into the atrociously colored house.

I can't help but smile as I slide out of the rental car Mitch and I picked up at the airport. The sun is so warm on my face and I almost feel all of my muscles relax, the built up tension from the past few days flowing from my muscles like melting ice.

It's like I can take my first deep breath since Christmas.

"Simon, come look at this!" Jolie shouts from inside the door.

Mitch just smiles at me, a look in his eyes that tells me that none of the family calms down from this moment on.

It's not hard to believe.

The old wood door creaks when I push it open, the smell of sea air is almost stronger than it is outside, even with the beach only blocks from where we're staying.

The floorboards groan as we roll the suitcases into the cottage. But not like a creepy this-beach-house- is-haunted way, more like a nostalgic sound. Like the house you would remember even long after you had grown up. The type of sound that brings back memories of sour lemonade on warm summer days, after a long day of swimming.