The Infinity Sign

Chapter 7: His Gentle Touch

Dedicated to Jake Vander Ark for giving us The Accidental Siren and Lighthouse Nights. If you want to read something brilliant, go on and read his stories. (@JakeVanderArk)

Chapter Seven: His Gentle Touch

“Is it wrong to love you, Renee? Is it too ridiculous to feel this damn aching inside my heart because I just met you a month ago? Is it wrong to hope for infinity… to wish that I could hold you forever? Is the mere idea too absurd in your mind? No. For me it’s not, sweetheart. I’m telling you: Screw logic. No matter how unreasonable it is, there’s only one thing I want you to see and understand: I love you. To infinity and beyond.”

-Mitchal

 The mysterious silhouette of the cursive letters seemed to dance gracefully in its newfound spotlight. Warm radiance coming from the floral light gave way to a magical show across the piece of paper. The taped note was not easy to ignore. It had this kind of pull—something nameless yet undeniably strong, as if the writer wrapped the fire of his emotions around the words he used. Bold and sweet—it was a classic treasure waiting to be discovered after almost two decades in the darkness.

Without the mark on the side of the page where it was taped, it would be hard to see it as exceptional. Probably just another letter from a loyal suitor. But no, the dark blotches etched on the paper gripped the muscles inside my chest. It proved the value of the note—of the words, of the writer.

Tears. Tears accompanying a note of a supposedly fiery young love. How ironic.

If only I could burn the leather book, I would have done it. It would surely catch fire, turn to ashes and vanish like an irrelevant piece of old memory.  It would no longer cast a shadow on Mom’s unspoken teenage years—a part of her life that she seemed to hide inside her pocket. But no, Mom taped it at the first page of her diary. It was something special. Something worth to be hidden from the violence of time and discovery.

Staring intently at the carefully scribbled words – not my mother’s handwriting for sure – my mind had been fueled by a rushing train of questions.

Why did Mom keep a box filled with memories of her teenage lover all these years? Why did the thought of revealing what’s inside it hurt Dad so much? Who was Mitchal?

“Earth to Brooke,” the man’s distorted voice sounded from my forgotten cell phone. It was placed against my ears but it seemed a hundred miles away from me. “Hey, Brooke. Brooke?!”

“Y-yes,” I closed my eyes and shook my head, the way they were doing it – dramatically – on TV. Clearing the ruckus forming inside my brain, I asked, “Sorry, who’s this again?”

I heard a loud, exasperated sigh. “It’s Ethan. Ethan Collins. Ethan Forget-me-not Col—“

“I can hear you perfectly now, dimwit,” I interrupted his rough and obviously annoyed introduction. The guy probably saved my number during the time he got my phone. “It’s six a.m. for meatballs’ sake. Why did you call?”

When he spoke, his normal deep voice had been altered by the device—he was in a place with poor service, no doubt. “Did you see my camera? You know, at the park.”

Who was Mitchal?

My mind snapped out of the thoughts when I tried to recall the events last Saturday. “Ah… Yeah. Yeah, I saw it.”

“Really?” his voice changed into something gleeful, defeating the continuous static, “Where did you see it? Do you think I could still get—“

“It’s inside my backpack, Ethan,” I drew out a sleepy breath. “Safe and sound.”

The phone was too old-fashioned to provide a hologram, but the image of Ethan’s face lighting up with great relief was vivid in my mind. I smiled, almost surprised with the shallow sense of genuine humor. His voice became clearer despite the constant failure of the dang signal.