11 Reasons Why

#9: Memories

11 Reasons Why

© Bree Stonefield, 2013

9. Memories

 He didn't have a really good memory. It wasn't like he'd had an amnesia... it was just that he rarely remembered things that she would never forget.

Sometimes it could drive her up a wall. He forgot the little things he'd done, the lyrics to the song he'd played, the word's he'd said that had made her fall in love.

It made her feel sad how she was the only one who remembered. But really, she didn't mind retelling him their history and slowly falling back in love all over again.

Early March, 2011

GRANT and I were lying down on the grass in my backyard, staring up at the bright sky. He put one arm underneath the back of his head while the other was mindlessly playing with my fingers. I started to giggle girlishly when his fingers purposefully slipped and tickled my side instead, and I smacked his hand away lightly.

                "You know I hate being tickled."

                "You hate a lot of things," he chirped.

                I made a humming noise. "Yeah. I hate you."

                "Naaah, you don't."

                "Okay, so maybe I used to hate you so, so, so much. But then you turned out to be—"

                "A much sexier guy than you'd thought I would be? A decent, fine gentleman? A total hottie?" he suggested cheekily.

                "—less of an annoyance than I'd thought you'd be. Eh, I can tolerate you."

                He gave me a side grin. "Oh, you so love me, Ali. Just admit it."

                I was quiet for a while, before saying quietly without looking at him. "Maybe I do."

                And just like that, the air between us seemed to have shifted. Lately, we rarely ever exchange the magic words to each other. Granted, we'd only ever said that particular sentence only a couple of times, and the moment we said those words were still one of those special moments between us.

                It was still a big thing. I still wasn't used to saying that—each time I told him I loved him always felt like the first time. No—it felt like I was being brought back to the days where I hadn't had him in my life and how I had been missing such a huge piece of myself that he held. Every time I told him I loved him and he told me he loved me, I was reminded of how lucky I was to have him in my life.

                Saying how I loved him reminded me of how we were once just strangers who started to tolerate each other and became friends... who ended up falling in love along the way.

                I closed my eyes and my mind started to drift back to the days where we were nowhere close to being lovers. Looking back now, everything was so funny. We were so young back then—and we both are still young right now—and remembering our childish antics got me thinking how the me that I had been ten months ago would've laughed to tears at the prospect of dating Grant Preston, or even falling in love with him.

                "Do you remember the first time I told you I loved you?" Grant questioned softly, his tone lacing with tenderness and with my eyes closed, I could imagine the small tug at the corner of his lips.