red

four.

I moved to West Cheshire a couple months after everything happened, for I had to get away from a town painted with Thomas's memories. I picked my art career back up, but my work was never the same without Thomas's hand wrapped around mine as I painted and created. My family never knew why I had left Thomas. I didn't want them to. So I told them we just drifted apart, and decided to part ways mutually. Which was so, so not the case.

Often nights, I had horrible, horrible nightmares about Thomas. Often days, I woke thinking that I was with him, and we were okay. But then I remembered how I broke everything, and there was no fixing it.

It was almost two years after the break, and I had come back down to Liverpool to attend an important company banquet of my father's with my family. We had all piled into a cabbie for the ride up to the chamber, and everything, I mean everything, reminded me of Thomas.
The ice cream parlor we often went to on hot summer days. The skating rink where we fell many times trying to skid on ice during the cold winters. The pavilion at the park where we made a hideout for the unexpected rainstorms that interrupted our fun-filled adventure days. The museum where I took Thomas to his first art gallery. And at last, the Liverpool Community Meeting Centre, where we first met those four, long, years ago.

Finally, we arrived at the banquet hall, got escorted to our table, took our seats, ordered our food, and everything was fine and normal. We talked with the young couple that shared the table with us. I got along nicely with the wife, Elise, who was an art professor at an art school in France. I showed her pictures of some of my work off of my mobile, and she offered me a spot on her art program for the upcoming semester. This lightened my heart a tad bit, seeing as I was already twenty-three and still had not managed to put my art skills to good use. I looked around me, then, at all the wonderfully brilliant people surrounding me with laughter and good times. At my mum, who was laughing away with my dad, enjoying this fancy evening out. At my two sisters, one who will be graduating from university next spring, and the other just entering grade school. At my baby brother, who was now a toddler, mashing his potatoes with his fist, making a right mess of his plate. I looked at my family, at Elise and her husband, at the venue, at the people all around me, and realized, life is still continuing.
I must do the same.

"Anne Alice?" Mum poked me, breaking me from my thoughts. "Can you get me some punch from the dessert table, love?" She giggled a bit. "No more champagne for me, I'm afraid."

I smiled and gently took her glass flute from her hands and made my way to the dessert table across the chamber. I reached the bowl, poured some punch into Mum's glass, and was just about to turn to leave when a tall and lean young man came beside me and started fumbling around clumsily to pour his own glass. I took one glance; he had flaming-red hair, like Thomas. My heart stopped. The last thing I needed was to run into someone who looked exactly like Thomas.

"Excuse me," he said, "are there any napkins over there?"

I stopped breathing.

I'd recognize that voice anywhere.

It was him.

Breathe, I thought. He can't see, remember? Just walk away.

But I had to look at him, just once.
I slowly turned my head to face his, and all the air inside me grew stiff. Those eyes, how I missed those eyes. Oh, how I longed to wrap myself in those arms once again. But there was something different about him. He was searching. He was looking.

He could see.

There was suddenly a loud crash, and it took me a moment to realise what caused it. I had dropped the glass flute, red punch everywhere, Thomas studying my face intensely, neither of us moving, waitors cleaning up the glass shards around us. I thought about running as fast as I could away from Thomas before he somehow figured out who I was. But before I could move, Thomas opened his mouth, leaned in, and with the softest whisper, he said:

"My hair is red."

Thank you for reading my very first story posted on Wattpad. This particular story has an extremely deep meaning to me, and I can't stress enough how much I appreciate you taking the time to read it. Depending on the popularity this story gets, there may or may not be a follow-up short story on the life of Thomas and Anne Alice. Let me know if you're interested in that!

For those wondering, Thomas certainly did recognise Anne Alice by her presence. He sensed her movements and knew at once who they belonged to. I love this. I love their bond. You have no idea, I love these characters.

I also suddenly realised I never described what Anne Alice looks like. Please, by all means, I leave this imagination up to you. Take Anne Alice and mold her into your own character. Leave a comment and describe your Anne Alice to me. I'd love to hear.

Thank you again, loves. Means a lot. So very excited about our next journey. Xx - Ophelia