Filed to story: The One That Got Away
I’ve always been the kind of person who saves things. Not the big, meaningful stuff-no whales, no world peace, no grand causes. Just small, slightly ridiculous things. Porcelain bells from touristy gift shops. Cookie cutters shaped like feet or stars or dinosaurs that I’ve never actually used, because honestly, who needs cookies shaped like feet? Ribbons I might wear in my hair someday. Old notes. Love letters.
Out of everything I keep, the love letters are my favorite.
They all live in a teal hatbox my mom found at a vintage store downtown. It’s a little scuffed around the edges, but that’s part of the charm. The letters inside aren’t from anyone else-I’ve never been the kind of girl who gets love letters. These are all from me. I’ve written one for every boy I’ve ever loved. Five letters in total.
When I write them, I don’t hold back. I write like he’ll never see a single word-because he won’t. I pour everything into those pages: every secret thought, every tiny detail I noticed, every feeling I kept bottled up. Once I’m done, I seal the envelope, carefully write his name on the front, and tuck it into the hatbox.
They’re not really love letters in the usual sense. They’re more like goodbye letters. I write them when I want to stop being in love-when I’m tired of thinking about him all the time. After I finish one, something in me settles. I can eat my cereal without wondering if he likes bananas in his Cheerios too. I can listen to cheesy love songs without secretly pretending they’re about him.
If love is something that takes over your body, then maybe these letters are my way of casting it out. My own little exorcisms. They’re supposed to set me free. Or at least, that’s the idea.
Josh is technically Alice’s boyfriend, but sometimes it feels like my whole family is a little bit in love with him. It’s hard to tell who loves him most. Before he was Alice’s boyfriend, he was just Josh-the boy next door. He moved in five years ago, but it feels like he’s always been there.
My dad loves him because he’s a guy, and my dad is completely outnumbered at home. He’s an ob-gyn, so he spends all day surrounded by women, and then he comes home to three daughters. Girls, girls, girls, twenty-four seven. Josh talks to him about comics and actually goes fishing with him. Dad tried taking us fishing once, but I cried when my shoes got muddy, Alice cried when her book got splashed, and Kitty cried because, well, she was basically still a baby.
Kitty adores Josh because he’ll play cards with her for hours and act like he’s having the time of his life. They make these little deals while they play-“If I win this hand, you have to make me a toasted crunchy-peanut-butter sandwich, no crusts.” That’s Kitty. And even if we’re out of crunchy peanut butter, Josh will sigh and say, “Fine, pick something else,” but five minutes later he’s grabbing his keys and heading to the store to buy some anyway. That’s also Josh.
As for Alice, if I had to explain why she loves him, I’d probably just shrug and say it’s because the rest of us do.
Right now, we’re all in the living room. Kitty is on the floor with a giant piece of cardboard, pasting pictures of dogs all over it. There are scraps of paper and glue sticks scattered everywhere. She hums to herself as she works and then says, very seriously, “When Daddy asks what I want for Christmas, I’m just going to say, Pick any one of these breeds and we’re good.'”
Alice and Josh are curled up together on the couch. I’m stretched out on the carpet in front of the TV, acting like I’m watching it, but really I’m focused on the giant bowl of popcorn Josh made. I keep reaching in, grabbing handful after handful, like it’s my full-time job.
A commercial comes on for perfume: a girl is running around the streets of Paris in an orchid-coloured halter dress that is thin as tissue paper. What I wouldn’t give to be that girl in that tissue-paper dress running around Paris in springtime! I sit up so suddenly I choke on a kernel of popcorn. Between coughs I say, “Alice, let’s meet in Paris for my spring break!” I’m already picturing myself twirling with a pistachio macaron in one hand and a raspberry one in the other.
Alice’s eyes light up. “Do you think Daddy will let you?”
“Sure, it’s culture. He’ll have to let me.” But it’s true that I’ve never flown by myself before. And also I’ve never even left the country before. Would Alice meet me at the airport, or would I have to find my own way to the hostel?
Josh must see the sudden worry on my face because he says, “Don’t worry. Your dad will definitely let you go if I’m with you.”
I brighten. “Yeah! We can stay at hostels and just eat pastries and cheese for all our meals.”
“We can go to Jim Morrison’s grave!” Josh throws in.
“We can go to a parfumerie and get our personal scents done!” I cheer, and Josh snorts.
“Um, I’m pretty sure ‘getting our scents done’ at a parfumerie would cost the same as a week’s stay at the hostel,” he says. He nudges Alice. “Your sister suffers from delusions of grandeur.”
“She is the fanciest of the three of us,” Alice agrees.
“What about me?” Kitty whimpers.
“You?” I scoff. “You’re the least fancy Song girl. I have to beg you to wash your feet at night, much less take a shower.”
Kitty’s face gets pinched and red. “I wasn’t talking about that, you dodo bird. I was talking about Paris.”
Airily, I wave her off. “You’re too little to stay at a hostel.”
She crawls over to Alice and climbs in her lap, even though she’s nine and nine is too big to sit in people’s laps. “Alice, you’ll let me go, won’t you?”
“Maybe it could be a family vacation,” Alice says, kissing her cheek. “You and Bella and Daddy could all come.”
I frown. That’s not at all the Paris trip I was imagining. Over Kitty’s head Josh mouths to me, We’ll talk later, and I give him a discreet thumbs-up.
It’s later that night; Josh is long gone. Kitty and our dad are asleep. We are in the kitchen. Alice is at the table on her computer; I am sitting next to her, rolling cookie dough into balls and dropping them in cinnamon and sugar. Snickerdoodles to get back in Kitty’s good graces. Earlier, when I went in to say good night, Kitty rolled over and wouldn’t speak to me because she’s still convinced I’m going to try to cut her out of the Paris trip. My plan is to put the snickerdoodles on a plate right next to her pillow so she wakes up to the smell of fresh-baked cookies.
Alice’s being extra quiet, and then, out of nowhere, she looks up from her computer and says, “I broke up with Josh tonight. After dinner.”
My cookie-dough ball falls out of my fingers and into the sugar bowl.
“I mean, it was time,” she says. Her eyes aren’t red-rimmed; she hasn’t been crying, I don’t think. Her voice is calm and even. Anyone looking at her would think she was fine. Because Alice is always fine, even when she’s not.
“I don’t see why you had to break up,” I say. “Just ’cause you’re going to college doesn’t mean you have to break up.”
“Bella, I’m going to Scotland, not UVA. Saint Andrews is nearly four thousand miles away.” She pushes up her glasses. “What would be the point?”
I can’t even believe she would say that. “The point is, it’s Josh. Josh who loves you more than any boy has ever loved a girl!”
Alice rolls her eyes at this. She thinks I’m being dramatic, but I’m not. It’s true – that’s how much Josh loves Alice. He would never so much as look at another girl.
Suddenly she says, “Do you know what Mommy told me once?”
“What?” For a moment I forget all about Josh. Because no matter what I am doing in life, if Alice and I are in the middle of an argument, if I am about to get hit by a car, I will always stop and listen to a story about Mommy. Any detail, any remembrance that Alice has, I want to have it too. I’m better off than Kitty, though. Kitty doesn’t have one memory of Mommy that we haven’t given her. We’ve told her so many stories so many times that they’re hers now. “Remember that time…” she’ll say. And then she’ll tell the story like she was there and not just a little baby.
“She told me to try not to go to college with a boyfriend. She said she didn’t want me to be the girl crying on the phone with her boyfriend and saying no to things instead of yes.”
Scotland is Alice’s yes, I guess. Absently, I scoop up a mound of cookie dough and pop it in my mouth.
“You shouldn’t eat raw cookie dough,” Alice says.
I ignore her. “Josh would never hold you back from anything. He’s not like that. Remember how when you decided to run for student-body president, he was your campaign manager? He’s your biggest fan!”