S A R A

Ch 16

16

It was late May when he sent the note. A heavy weight cream paper folded neatly into an envelope with my name on it, and nothing else. As if we were in some old school movie.

He didn't even know my last name; he didn't need to. I can recall so easily the way it felt in my hands.

The note was tucked into the mailbox of my house, with one corner peeking out. I was walking from school and was the first one to get home before the rest of my family. Naturally, I was intrigued, and though he was the first person I wanted to hear from, he was also the last that I was expecting to actually hear from.

When I walked into my bedroom, I dropped my bag on the floor, sat on my bed, and unfolded the envelope, careful not to rip anything.

It was a handwritten note, and before reading anything, my eyes scanned the note and the first thing my eyes fell on was his name, signed at the bottom.

Haden.

I could feel him writing this, I could feel his hand pressing on the pen onto the paper and connecting dots and lines to put on paper what he thought, what he felt.

My heart skipped a beat and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do this. I was just learning to live the kind of life I knew before him. The cut was just beginning to heal only for me to go straight back to the knife after seeing this, knowing it was him, knowing he thought of me and something inside him prompted to do this. To contact me. I think my hands shook.

He wanted to meet. He wanted to meet, and for me it was the scariest thing. I didn't know how I was going to react, that is how deeply he was placed in my subconscious. Almost as if, I was a different being, something outside of myself whenever I was near him.

I didn't get it, I was confused, maybe that's why I agreed to the meeting. Not directly...he wrote that he was going to be at the Gardens and that it was up to me if I wanted to see him. If not, he would understand.

He wanted to see me.

I looked at my watch. I had three hours. I scrambled. I went for a run up the winding trail behind my house. It was green, and I was getting drunk on oxygen. I went home, took a shower, and stared at my bare face, with my wet hair. My green eyes looking more colored from my pink rimmed eyes.

Was I crying in the shower?

I put on my green velvet dress. The one with the open back, that I got on sale at a store on Sunset Boulevard. Saleslady at the counter told me it was worn to a movie premiere in the 90s but "still looks spanking new, huh? Was it Jurassic Park or Scissorhands?"

I almost took it off and put it back on the hanger. It went above my knee and I wasn't sure how much attention I wanted to bring to myself tonight. But I kept it on, and on my jean jacket over top of it.

My hair dried naturally and I didn't do much else to it. It was getting lighter as the year warmed up. At the last moment I took a drink out of a wine bottle as I contemplated staying home. But no, I called a taxi beforehand and it was too late to turn around anyway since he was here. I popped some gum, hoping the cabby wouldn't notice anything, hoping no one would notice anything and that I just disappear, but that was foolish.

The address that I gave the driver, given to me by Rand via his note, was unclear. He said the Gardens, he didn't specify which gardens, but I thought that I knew. Was it intentionally that he did that? Was it still if I knew anyways?

I believed that it was where I ran out on him the first night. Perhaps this was his way of a re-start - an attempt to alter the past.

When the car pulled into Griffith Park, I paid and stepped out. Not absolutely sure where to go, I re-read his note: