That was how I spent the next three days, helping my mom go through what felt like endless boxes of junk in the attic. I was beginning to think that she was a real hoarder. I was throwing out way more than her because some of it I’d never seen in my life. Other times, it was like reliving all of our military travels one box after the other. One labeled San Antonio, two labeled Germany, one for Indiana. The home movies that we couldn’t watch were added to a pile to figure out how to put on the computer. Baby clothes were stashed away for my and Mel’s future children. The best childhood drawings were kept. The rest tossed. My old writing was a definite keep.
And the whole time, I talked. My mom listened. We didn’t solve anything. But the work was cathartic, and so was the time with my mom.
On the third day, when we’d finally reached a midway point that meant we could get to the farther back boxes, I stumbled on one labeled Natalie College. I ripped into it.
I wasn’t surprised to find swimming trophies and medals, old school notebooks, and notes that Amy and I had passed back and forth. I laughed at a stack of pictures that we’d taken with a disposable camera that included mostly the sides of our faces, blurry images, and general nonsense. I put that box aside and rifled through the one underneath it.
My hand stilled on a picture of Amy and me in Paris together the summer after high school graduation. It had been taken only days before I met Penn, tipping my world off its axis forever.
I carefully placed that in the Keep pile, and when I glanced back inside, my gaze snagged on a bit of shiny metal half-hidden underneath a baseball cap. I moved the hat aside. My breath caught, and I gingerly reached inside and pulled out the love lock.
Tears welled in my eyes as I held the precious thing in my hand. A little lock with the letters P & N on it. Penn had given it to me that night in Paris. A tribute to my romantic sentiments, as I’d been so sad to hear that the city had removed all the locks from the bridges. He’d wanted us to have our own.
I’d come home and promptly thrown it into my stuff. Too angry with him to keep it, too in love with him to get rid of it. Oh, young love.
This was a relic. A remnant of the girl I’d been when I first met him. Young, innocent, eager and desperate for someone to really see me. Penn had been it. He still was it. He’d always been it. The guy I measured everyone against. The one perfect night, ruined by the worst possible morning.
But that was all gone. Replaced by the last year and a half of time together. Every smile and kiss and laugh. Every writing session and Totle snuggle. Every time he’d just looked into my eyes and known. Like I had known. All along. Even if we’d both made mistakes along the way. And tried to wreck it all.
And now, he was there again. In Paris, without me.
I clutched the lock in my hand and decided then, No. No, this wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to stay here another minute and wait for him to make a decision. Agonize over whether he was going to come back from his conference or at the end of the summer. Wonder if he could forgive what I’d done.
My eyes slid to my mother, and she just smiled. “Did you figure it out?”
“I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re young. You’ll grow out of trying to be anything else.”
I kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Mom.”
“I love you. Now, go get him.”
I raced down the stairs and into my room. I found the open suitcase I’d brought from New York with me. The mound of designer clothing that Penn had insisted would help me fit in. He’d been right.
I dumped it all out on the floor.
Then I found the few outfits that I’d left here in Charleston before moving to the city. The bohemian clothing that had always been my staple. Whether or not I fit in had never mattered to me.
I liked flowy shirts, flare jeans, and moccasins. I wanted embroidery and tie-dye and excessive patterns in my life. I wanted it all.
I hastily threw it all into the suitcase. I snatched my untouched computer bag off of the table, bought the first plane ticket to Paris, and vowed to make this right.
Chapter 39
Penn
“Penn, your work on the Aristotelian ramifications in sexual partnerships is so fascinating,” Dr. Angelica Duval said as we stepped out of the final panel for the afternoon and back toward the lobby.