when we were young // bryce hall

epilogue

caitlin's pov 

flashback 11 years ago...

"I don't wanna leave." I cry. Tears stream down my young and innocent face. My best friend wraps his arms around me with sadness. 

"Don't leave me." Bryce cries. We sit on his lawn with devastation that today is the day I move across the county. I watch my parents take boxes out of the house across the street and put it in a moving truck.

"Don't forget me. Promise?" I question.

"Promise." We link our pinkies before he gets up, grabbing a box and an old-school poloroid camera from the patio table. "Look." He demands, opening the metal box. "Mommy gave it to me so we could make a time capsule."

"What's that?" I ask with confusion. I look into the box. It has a toy truck that my mom let me get him for his sixth birthday, a mini stuffed dog we always played with together, pictures we colored together and a few pictures of us- one from the beach, one from my birthday, one from the playground and one from the first day of his kindergarten, I'm younger, but I came and picked him up from school with his mom that day.

"We put memories in it and we can burry it." He explains. He gets on his knees and uses his hands to burry a whole in the dirt next to a bed of flowers we helped his mom plant this spring. He then drops the box in the small whole and turns to me.

"Smile." He instructs, holding out the camera.

"But I'm sad." I protest. He puts on a thinking face before saying,

"Think of how fun your new house will be." 

"So you're not sad anymore?"

"I am." He assures. "But I want you to be happy always."

I smile at him and he snaps a picture twice quickly. Two almost identical pictures are printed of us. He lays one in the top of everything else in the metal box and gives me one.

"And you will be my best friend always." He tells me.

At that moment, my dad honks the moving truck horn and signals that I have to go.

"Always." I repeat. I hug him tightly, picking up my stuffed rabbit and get into the car. My mom starts the car as a new set of tears roll down my face. She follows behind my dad in the moving truck and I roll down the window, keeping my eyes on Bryce.

I watch him in the distance. Tears run down his face, but he gives the biggest smile. "Be happy Caitlin. I love you always." He shouts.

"Love you always."