In the Moment//Ed Sheeran

E.P.I.L.O.G.U.E-Bethany

December, 2015

The snow crunched under my feet and I smiled, happy to be back somewhere where it snowed. I had finally gotten a place in Colorado after Mina convinced me it was a great idea. It was true. Colorado was a diverse place, and had the perfect setting to help me start my new books. I took after my mom, what could I say?

Mina has told me to run ahead and grab up a spot in at Starbucks, so that was what I was on my way to do. A sudden gust of wind blew my hat from my head and turned to catch it just in time before it fell to the soggy ground.

At the angle I was standing, I could see right into a small coffeeshop. A man with a face I could never forget even if I wanted stared back at him, but blue he's wide with amazement. Of course it was Ed Sheeran. Everyone living in a modern time knew it was Ed Sheeran. The fluffy red hair, the signature beard and endless tattoos. It wasn't how I remembered him, but I owned a computer and I had googled him a few times in my life.

"What are you doing! You are suppose to be saving us a spot in line!" Mina laughed, grabbing my arm and pulling me away rom the window. I wanted to go back and call for Ed, but I hardly believed he actually remembered me anyways. Of all the women he had seen in his life and fallen in love with, I was just a drop in the ocean.

I let him go.

"I'm so deprived of caffeine right now," Mina said as we walked towards Starbucks.

"Bethany!"

Mina and I brig turned around at the same time to see Ed leaving coffeeshop in such a rush the Taylor Swift hardly had enough time to catch him. I gaped at him as he stood, ten feet away, outside in the winter with no coat on. His cheeks and nose became red and I could tell her was cold but it didn't matter.

"Bethany!" He said, hurrying towards me. Before I could even comprehend what he was about to do, his body slammed into mine and I was almost knocked over if it weren't for his arms around me. His mainly scent filled my nose and I backs unsteady.

"Ed!" Taylor shouted, running after him. I managed to wedge my arms between the both of our bodies. It was wrong. It shouldn't have felt that way hugging him, like I was hugging a stranger.

I pulled away quickly. Taylor looked at the awkward scene. "Please tell me your name is Bethany."

"Well, it is." I nodded.

"Bethany Cartwright." Ed finished. I looked over at Mina and she had a vacant look in her eyes. Somewhere along the line after I left Suffolk, we met again at a family gathering. She told me what she was sorry for what she had done to me when we were sixteen, and I believed her. We actually had the potential to be best friends, and we did end up becoming best friends. Sisters almost.

Ed looked over at Mina and she looked attention the ground. Ed took her in a little less enthusiastically. I didn't want him to alienate her. I forgave her and he should too. I grabbed Mina's arm.

"It was nice seeing you again, Ed." I smiled, although I wasn't sure. I put my hat back on top of my head and turned to walk away. The younger, sixteen year old me wanted to stay, to jump on him like I did when I missed him greatly. I wanted to kiss him and feel like a little girl again, but I wasn't a little girl. I was a grown woman and I couldn't turn back time. Trying to stay with him would be like spilling sand into a sieve: nothing would hold, it would all fall through the little holes.

Ed grabbed my arm. "I have to go too. Let me have your number so I can call you one day."

Call me? I think. I had been stupid enough to not remember his phone number and instead have it written down in the cover of a book I lost before I left Suffolk. I spent weeks trying to remember any arrangement of numbers but they were always wrong. By the time it came to me in a dream, hitting me like a sack of bricks, I called Ed, but his mom said that he had left. Left to where? I still didn't k ow but I realize it in two thousand and thirteen when I heard his name on the radio. She promised to give me his number after he settled down, but she never did because he never settled down.

"Oh," I said, hesitantly. Ed pulled out his expensive phone and handed it to me so that I could make a new contact. I added my number under Bethany, then passed it back. He handed it to Mina as well who looked extremely surprised.

I let my eyes my eyes fall over to Taylor swift, whom I hadn't addressed despite being a fan. "I'm Bethany. I'm a big fan." I told her.

She placed her hands over her read cheeks. "Oh my god. You're Beth. You're the Beth. God I though e made you up!" She said. She covered her thin arms with et hands and began to shiver. "You guys should come inside so we can talk."

Being invited by Taylor Swift to talk inside was a once in a lifetime chance, but I knew that I couldn't. "I'm sorry we have to go." I say. Was it that I had to leave or that I didn't want to be too close to Ed? I was scared of my own feelings.

Ed's lips were beginning to turn blue. He nodded. "I'll call you, Beth."

I was going to tell him that he didn't have make promises, because I did and I broke mine. But I wanted him to call me. It was foolish because I knew he probably had another woman in his life, a Beth 7.0. An older, prettier, more experienced, and knowing Ed, more talented version of me.

I nodded and looked at the ground. It felt like the end. A brief story that hardly have two thousand words. But I had a feeling it wasn't the end. It was the beginning again.

*completed 2:43 December 5, 2015, hiding behind the counter at work while this cute boy looks at me like I'm crazy.