tied together

finally.

I fiddled with my watch as I waited for school to get out for the weekend. We had just finished watching an hour documentary in History, and I couldn't wait for tonight.

I was going on a date with the boy I loved.

"Bye Noah." I would wink at him as soon as the bell rang. I hurried out to my sister's car. As I opened the door, I had a huge grin on my face. 

"What's this huge ass grin for?" My sister Victoria playfully punched me. "Well it's finally the weekend, and I asked Noah on a date! He agreed." I smiled happily and connected my phone to the aux. I blasted Electric love, letting my hands feel the spring air out of the sunroof. My sister just grinned.

We arrived home at last, and I ran straight to my dad. I gave him a hug before heading up to my room.

My dad always needed hugs. We had lost our mom almost five months ago to a car accident and my dad struggled with it daily. He tried his hardest working two shifts to keep us in our house and fed, but eventually, we were forced to move to a smaller home. Luckily for us, it was still in the same town, so I kept my friends.

Unlucky for us, Victoria and I had to share a room. My side was always a mess, I was more of the tomboy. Victoria kept everything clean and organized and loved to wear dresses, unlike me who preferred jean jackets or sweats. I wasn't the prettiest girl, sure I was skinny, but I was around 5'4 with brown hair and blue eyes. Freckles dotted underneath my eyes and across my nose, and my cheeks were always a flushed light pink. 

Tonight was different. I skipped over to my sister's closest and picked out a soft pink dress with little white dots on it. I changed into it and worked on curling my hair. Noah was picking me up at 5:30, and it was already almost four.

After my brown hair cascaded in curls down to my middle-back, I applied some foundation, concealer, blush, mascara, eye shadow, and the most perfect pink lipstick. I tied my hair half up with a pink ribbon. I put on some white heels and finished the look with a gold heart necklace. I checked the time to reveal 5:25. My heart raced in butterflies as I headed downstairs. 

Time passed. 5:30, 5:40, 6:00. Noah never showed. I was hoping it was just traffic or that he was running late. I anxiously turned my phone on every minute watching the time speed by. Finally, I texted Noah.

6:12 PM

Where are you? You were supposed to be here

by 5:30 and you haven't texted me since.

Read 6:13 PM.

Hello? You read this.

This message could not be delivered.

He had blocked me. The text turned green. This was the guy I had been in love with since day one of Freshmen year. He led me on and stood me up.

I ran to my room, slamming the door. Something heavy fell in the closet and I went to fix it.

"What was that?" Victoria yelled from the kitchen. 

"Nothing, my water bottle fell." I lied.

But in fact, it was a box that seemed to be old. I went over to my bed and dusted it off.

Property of Eleanor Smith, 1965.

It was a box of my mothers, back when she was around 14. My stomach turned excitedly and I opened it. Old papers that were stained were shoved in the box, covering a journal that read The love of my life.

I assumed it was my dad. They had been so in love. But pictures of probably the finest man instead poured out, and so many pages had been filled, the entire journal was almost complete. One picture had tiny letters written under it that said "my love, Ponyboy. July 6th, 1965". 

Ponyboy. What an odd name. I grinned and read through the pages. This was the man to fall in love with and trust with your life. I flipped through each page, reading it completely and begging for something like this to happen to me.  Oh, what I would do to go back to the '60s. 

My eyes started closing so I decided to get ready for bed. I changed into an oversized t-shirt of my moms, wiped my makeup off, and took my hair out.  I brushed my teeth and was off to bed.