Dakota, with love

1

"Ah!" I yelp as three boxes fall on the top of my head. I'm standing in the top floor closet trying hard to arrange. the boxes that are limiting my space for shoes on the upper shelves. However, these aren't just any boxes.

These are those kinds of boxes that you store things that are needed to be kept away ... hidden from the rest of the world. I sigh. These boxes cherish memories; stories I don't want to re-read. They ache too much ... but I want to have a small little peek. Wouldn't hurt anyone, right? That's what I always say. These boxes are like an ex-boyfriend or that long lost friend. At some point in time, curiosity bites you in the ass and you're left wondering what the hell happened to them while you were living your own life. The boxes were just that; a peek inside my past – my teenage years.

I let out a frustrated sigh yet again as I open the lid of one particular box. It had 'Junior Year' written all over it, and no, it wasn't because it was literally written all over it with a bright magenta Sharpie. Oh, what am I getting myself in?

"Nostalgia, Dakota. That's what it is," Carson once told me. When I told Carson all about the boxes, it was like she already knew what I was going through – she is the closest thing I have to a twin sister after all. I know it isn't supposed to ache this much.

I remember that one time where Dean my oh-so-dear husband said that I was stuck in a hole called 'The Past' ... the fight we had when he dared to go on and on about the subject was just all in all distressing. I recall him setting off to the garage; grasping his feathery pillow and covers from his side of the bed, and slumping them over his able-bodied back. I guess I need this; I need this insight into what was.

"That gum that's stuck under my old pair of shoes is the past stuck on your ass. Get a grip for God's sake," he exhilarates. I slapped him right after that and stormed out of the living room.

Fumbling inside the box, I'm sitting onto some other five dusty boxes and in the same time making sure not to fall inside them and creating a mess, literally. Gracie wouldn't like the mess, and I wouldn't dare giving her the idea that I'm reminiscing up here, yet again. She would tell Dean, I roll my eyes at the thought. Dean once told me that I couldn't be the wife who's stuck in 'high school period'... Like high school was the best time of my life. He particularly said that I couldn't be that wife. He wants Mrs Brimshee to focus on the now. Then again, he's the one who's more focused on his job than this actual wife who he's supposed to cherish like ... crazy.

I've always known that Dean has his high standards, everybody knows that. It's hard to feel like your husband is depressing you. You see – his high standards are like a discouraging mother. I gave up trying to make him feel any content with what I used to come up with to seem like a fine wife ages ago, thus, I hired Gracie. Him and I aren't exactly a him and I anymore.

"We're doing our own thing," that's what I told Carson. We disagree on a never-ending list of things, mostly it's our career-lives. He owns a clinic up town and I'm a stylist; you all know they have nothing to do with each other. Though, he was good to me at the start and I was so convinced that he would never make me feel unwanted ... unloved. I was, at the time, convinced that he would be the guy a girl would visit Paris with ... and he was, he really was. I promise you, he was; Dean was such a sweetheart back when the clinic was out of the question. I still remember the time he tried to cook me seared sea-bass just to impress me. I grin, that was some night that's for sure. I instantly smile as I come across a picture of Carson, Theo, Mason and I at some senior party. We are laughing, all of us in love with the moment. Theo and Mason are rocking a spiked up hair-do, holding pints of beer. Mason's looking at me with that look – that I'm-so-damn-happy-I-came-running-after-you-from-Miami look. 

 Theo and Carson look so adorable, I think to myself. Who knew they'd end up getting engaged and planning their upcoming wedding in July? I would've never believed that my ex-ex- boyfriend would end up being my best friend's fiancée. Oh and Mason? Let's just say he ruined it all for me. Ten years ago, Mason Dooley was a phenomenon to Pop Culture ... and he was my boyfriend. It terrified me just because he was supposed to be a fling – nothing more and nothing less. It's like – he was my summer love back when I had visited my father in the summer. He was supposed to be my Miami fling – and we all know that summer flings have a due date. I never thought I would actually fall in love with him, for me it all seemed far too impossible. Firstly I was dating Theo ... yes, that happened. It never occurred to me that it would turn into that kind of love; that kind that got him shipped out to Chicago with me for a while. I guess we went too far off from expiry dates.