Wherever You Are

Three: The Swan

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Charlotte,

I do not expect you to remember me, my name, or the way you felt. However, I do expect you to remember the letters you sent me, in specific, number 367. Two days after the year in which I had disappeared and the last letter you sent. I am so very sorry for any heartbreak and sorrow I had caused- or still do. That is not what I meant to happen, in fact, I did not mean for any of this to happen. I would rather not talk about it so bluntly here on this piece of paper, though, so like you had requested nearly fifteen years ago, I am now willing to give you that one last memory. Finding out you have come back to town, as same had I not too long ago, makes this even more of a possibility. Meet me at the pond on Hickory Lane today December 21st at 7:00 P.M. if you wish to speak.

Jack

My mouth was hanging open, no, it was broken and now resided open, as I finished reading what he wrote for me and crashed down onto the wooden floor. My head was in a rush, as my blood circulated throughout me like race cars to a track.

Jack had wrote to me. Jack. The Jack in which I was nearly engaged to. The Jack in which had disappeared before my eyes 15 years ago. My Jack...

"Charlotte, are you alright?" my mom wondered after just waking up and coming into the dining room. Seeing her daughter lying helpless on the floor probably scared the daylights out of her, but once pushing over the note on the ground and having her reach down to read it, she immediately knew what was going on. "This can't be right, this has to be a fake," she screeched, calling for my dad who was groggily getting up from bed as well. Apparently I was the early bird in the entire family. I thought to myself, before being helped up by my dad and having him read the fine cursive on the note.

"Oh heavens..." he whispered, looking to my mom and then back to me. "Is this real? Did he drop this off to you?" he asked me, sending me to shake my head and tell him I found it under the front door when I woke up and went to get something from the car quick. "Then if he didn't give this to you directly, it has to be fake. There is no way fifteen years later he just randomly decided to pop in and say hello," he told me, folding the note back up to how it was.

"Honey, I'm sorry, but I have to agree with your father on this," she noted, before patting me on the shoulder and walking into the kitchen to prepare some coffee for breakfast. Sighing and looking over to my dad who handed me back the note, I didn't want to believe them after getting so worked up about it, but I just had to. I was married for crying out loud, and so even if this was the real Jack, seeing him was not even an option.

"I'm sorry too..." my dad hesitated, before following my mom and entering the kitchen. Standing there in the middle of the dining room, then, I felt hopeless. Not only because the letter wasn't real- or at least didn't seem real - but because I got so worked up over something that I knew I shouldn't have.

Jack was a thing in the past, a part of my life I didn't want to recall. He was my lost love, someone who I had spend every waking minute with and nearly married 15 years ago. When he disappeared, however, I thought my life had ended completely. He tore out my heart, ripped it to shreds, and left me there to glue it back together. Pulling myself together was the hardest part, but I knew I had to move on and a year later, that is exactly what I did. I moved to another state, got married, and started the career I always wanted. I had done everything any other woman would have in my situation, yet I still got worked up over this letter from him.

"Hey there," I heard Luke say unexpectedly, as he came downstairs as well and kissed me quick on the lips for the first time in what seemed like forever. "I see you were early to wake up today. And still in your pajamas?" he smiled to me, before tugging on my blue pajama pants and top, and looking to the note in my hands. "What's that?" he asked, sending me to dart it to my side and shrug it off.