After and Before

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Dedicated to hepburnettes for the lovely banner to the side. Noelle, I don't know how much worth a dedication is [you did win the Watty's YAY] but consider this chapter my congratulatory gift to you :)

Listen to 'Colors' by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals in the sidebar.

On that note, I'm nervous. Possibly scared.

   

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Hey, Kai.

It's been a year since I last thought of you.

How long would that be since we ending things?

A year?

A year and a half?

More or less.

But you'd probably know better than me.

With your phone that beeps every fifteen minutes to remind you of something that needs doing, somewhere that needs going, someone that needs meeting and some other -ing that needs -inging, you would definitely know.

Thinking about all the things you did to remember things brings to mind your Post-Its.

God.

You used to put them on every thing.

Even my every things ended up looking like they were shrink wrapped in neon squares of paper sometimes.

I'd get pissed, naturally.

But you would just scribble 'Mr. Grouch' on a Post-It, slap it on me and smile.

And that made me smile too.

Maybe you wrote it down on a Post-It that, eighteen months ago, was the last day that we were happy.

And then the sun set.

And it rose.

And we ended.

Wanna be poet. I can imagine you saying that if you were next to me right now.

But I actually am kind of a poet now, Kai.

Sorta.

The university newspaper published two of my poems. And two's not a lot, I know. But I'm a college freshman and two to me's two million.

I'm legit now. Not just the guy who scribbles random bullshit on the back of your Post-Its.

(So maybe those things weren't useless).

Who would have known Joe Jennings would actually go to college to become a poet?

Since I'm being honest, you.

You knew even before I did.

You gave me a stack of college applications. And you stared me in the eye until I picked one out. And you watched while I filled it up. And you made sure I mailed it.

That was one of the many days where you occupied every moment and every thought.

Today became one of those days.

And I don't even know why it happened.

Or how.

I wasn't in any of the places we used to go. I wasn't doing any of the things we did. I wasn't talking about the things that ate up days of our time.

I wasn't doing anything to remind me of you.

But I remembered anyway.

And just like that, there you were.