𝐭𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐢𝐝𝐬 ❨ original ❩

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐰𝐨

"HEY COLE, IT'S SARAH."

His palms were sweating. His heart was thumping and his eyes were crying. Her voice. It was Sarah's voice.

"I guess right now your thinking 'What the hell Sarah. You're dead.' Well, to put it bluntly, yeah I am."

Lord, what he wouldn't gave for her to be sitting beside him right now.

"I know I don't have much time left. I had a hospital appointment earlier on and they told me it wasn't looking good. Right now I don't know where the hell you are, because your kinda pissed at me but we'll get to that later. I promise."

His stomach squeezed in on itself. He wanted to cry, scream, hit something. Anything would have been better than listening to this.

"Its pretty simple. I've experienced my own fair share of grief and even though I'm dead, I'm gonna miss you. And I know you'll miss me too. So I made these. Hoping that you'll get to spend a little more time with me than we both thought."

Help him? With the grief? It was making things worse. It hurt to hear her voice. It pained him to imagine her talking as if she was already dead. But she was. She was dead.

"Before you start overthinking like you always do...."

Cole could hear her faint giggles through the cassette, almost like a drifting memory.

"I'll explain. On each cassette there's a memory. Our memories. Specific events, moments that may have meant nothing, but could now mean everything. I read once, sometimes you will never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory. So I've captured our moments and recored them on nine tapes. However, theres a catch. Along with nine tapes comes six polaroids. Those polaroids are memories that were literally captured at that moment in time. Memories that, after you receive them, you'll hold on to forever."

Cole closed his eyes and his head on his forearms that were placed on the desk.

"Tape number one. The first day of school. I remember it like it was yesterday. All the typical groups that never change. And then there was me...and I guess you."

...

The halls were crowded with people, and the chaos was perfect, like a movie. There was the couple that was always making out on the left side of the hall, and about ten feet farther down, the cliquey girls. Opposite them, the cliquey jocks, and between them, the parade of band geeks with their huge instrument cases. There were the aerospace tech kids who never did anything but make paper airplanes and the fashion kids that wheeled mannequins and clothing racks down the halls. And then he saw her.

The small girl looking scared and confused with the blonde ponytail and white cotton dress, clutching a sheet of paper as if it would disappear any second.

Part of him thought about going up to the girl to help her but all the reasons not to just came flooding in, as if his body chemistry just sent them a blanket invitation. He could feel the soft panic that could grow or fade depending on what he did next. Growing up the courage he walked over to her tapping her on the shoulder.

"Hey. You... You look a little lost? Do you, do you need any help? At all?" He stuttered.

"Em, yeah actually I could do with the help. I'm looking for room twenty three?" She asked showing him the sheet of paper in her hands.  And she smiled. A smile flashed across her face from beneath reems of hair. It created slight dimples and creases that moved her freckles. Even though it was gone quickly, it was still there.

"Oh, yeah!" He spoke a little to excitedly. "I mean yeah, sure ok. It's just down this hallway." Cole smiled, before leading her down the hallway.

Sarah could hear his shaky intakes of air as he repeatedly tightened his grip on the straps of his bag.

"I'm Sarah, by the way. Sarah Davis." She smiled, and Cole thought he had never seen something so beautiful.

"Cole Smith." He released a heavy breath before holding out his hand for her to shake.

"Are you okay?" She asked after a moment. Not out if ignorance, not out of annoyance but of concern.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm totally fine."

She smiled gently, "You just seem a little nervous."

Shaking his head he laughed, "I'm not."

Cole could feel the heat growing in his cheeks. He knew they must have been beyond an attractive rosiness. They must have been marking him out as a social incompetent. Cole felt as if all his insecurities were writ large across his face and there was nowhere to hide. As his anxieties mounted they became a circle, like a song stuck on repeat.

Sarah threw her head back and giggled, "Sure okay." and Cole could easily decipher her sarcasm.

"Hey! I'm not, okay!" His laughter built up inside him much like water behind a dam, making his shoulders shake and his stomach hurt.

"Okay, okay! I believe you." She smiled.

"Sort of." He heard her mumble and as he turned to state at her he noticed her fighting back a smile while biting her lip.

He smiled brightly, "Alright, lis-"

"Oh look we're here. Well, I'll see you later Cole Smith." Her brown eyes shone like precious jewels and she held his gaze long enough to make him feel insecure.

"Hey! This isn't over." He shouted after her.

After arriving at the door she turned back towards him. "To be continued." She spoke her laughter echoing through the hall and with that he watched her walk into the classroom disappearing from sight.

...

"I didn't believe in love at first sight. However, I did believe in seeing someone across a room, or even in a school hallway, and just knowing somewhere within you that they are going to matter to you. And for me, it was you. It was you Cole Smith."