Loving Mr. Daniels (4 page)

So, get to reading the list. NEVER open a letter until after you’ve completed the task. And for God’s sake, take a shower, brush your hair, and put on some makeup. You look terrible. Kind of like a hybrid love child of the Devil and Big Bird.

I’m sorry about all the tears, and I’m sorry you feel so lost and alone. But trust me…

You’re doing great, kid.

-Gabrielle

I moved to the second piece of paper and stared at my ‘bucket list.’ I wasn’t surprised at how accurate the list was with some of the things we used to talk to each other about doing. Sky diving, read the complete works of Shakespeare, fall in love, publish a novel and have an awesome book signing with cupcakes, have twins, date the wrong guy, get into University of Southern California. Those were just some of the things I’d dreamed of doing. But then other items on the list were a little more Gabby than they were me.

Forgive Henry, cry because you’re happy and laugh because you’re sad, get drunk and dance on a bar, give Bentley his promise ring back, take care of Mom, recreate the infamous scene from
Titanic
.

The front door of the apartment crept open, and I saw Mom standing in the living room, pacing back and forth. I placed the letters back into the box and closed it. Moving out of the bedroom, I stood before her, and she stared at me for the longest time. Tears filled her eyes, and her mouth parted as if she wanted to say something to me, but nothing came out. Her shoulders rose and fell, leaving nothing but quietness.

She looked so broken, worn out, shattered.

“I’m leaving for Henry’s tomorrow,” I said, shifting my feet around on the carpeted floor. For a brief moment, Mom began to shiver. I thought about taking the words back and staying put in the apartment. But before I could offer that up, she spoke.

“That’s good, Ashlyn. Do you need Jeremy to drive you to the train station?”

My head shook back and forth. My heart pounded against my chest as my fingers formed tight fists. “No. I’ll figure it out. And just so you know, I’m not coming back.” My voice cracked, but I bit back the tears. “Never. I hate you for leaving me when I needed you the most. And I’ll never forgive you.”

She glanced to the floor, her posture falling low. She then looked up at me one more time before moving back toward the front door. “Have a safe trip.”

And with that, she left me standing, once again, alone.

Always remember our first glance,

And I’ll promise your heart that I’ll be enough.

~ Romeo’s Quest

The next day came fast. I was sitting outside of a train station on top of a large suitcase. I’d never been on a train before today, and it had been quite the experience.

Three things I’d learned about trains: One, sometimes strangers sit next to you and snore and slobber, but you had to act like it was normal; two, a can of soda would cost you more than buying a herd of cows; three, the train collectors looked exactly like the guy in the movie
Polar Express
—minus the whole computer-animated character thing.

Trains always seemed cooler in the movies and in books, but really, they were just cars that ran on tracks. Which made sense, seeing how they called each link of a train a ‘car.’ Well, almost each one. The front one was called the locomotive and the last one was called the caboose.

A smile ran across my face as I thought about the word caboose. Say that five times without giggling.

Caboose.

Caboose.

Caboose.

Caboose.

Gabby.

Oh no.
I was laughing out loud and crying at the same time. All roads led back to my sister. The people walking past me probably thought I was crazy because I was laughing so hard by myself. To scale off the crazy looks, I pulled out a book from my purse and opened it up. People could be so judgmental sometimes.

I tossed my purse back on my shoulder and sighed. I hated purses, but Gabby had loved them. She’d loved everything about dressing up and being pretty. She’d been super good at it, too. Me? Not so much, but she’d said that I was beautiful, so that counted for something.

You know what the best thing about purses was? They could carry around books. I was reading
Hamlet
for the fifth time in the past three weeks. Last night, I stopped at the part where Hamlet wrote Ophelia telling her to doubt everything she saw except for his love. But the silly girl still went on to kill herself later in the story. The curse of being in a Shakespearean tragedy.

As I was reading, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man pulling his luggage out of the train station. He proceeded to lean the luggage against the side of the building. It was strange to call him a man because he wasn’t that old. But he was too grown to be called a boy. There needed to be a word for the in-between years. Maybe moy? Ban? Banmoy?

This banmoy had also been in my car—car being our link of the train—and I’d noticed him right away. How could I not? It wasn’t often that I found someone beautiful, but he was the top of the line. His hair was long—too long. At least that’s what I thought until he ran his fingers through the dark brown hair and it lay perfectly on his head.

Total blushing from me.

On the trip to Wisconsin, he’d sat two seats behind me. When I’d gone to the bathroom, I saw him tapping his fingers against his thighs in a rhythmic pattern, and his head was rocking back and forth. Maybe he was a musician. Gabby had always been tapping her feet and rocking her head.

He was definitely a musician.

He noticed me noticing him, and when he looked up to find my eyes, he smiled pretty wide. Which made me feel pretty small. So I adjusted my stare to the navy, coffee-stained carpet and hurried on my way. His eyes were so blue and filled with interest. For a second, I thought they were a passageway to a different world.

Beautiful.

Breathtaking.

Brilliant.

Blue eyes.

I sighed.

Maybe they were a passageway to a better world.

On another note, people should never use train bathrooms. They were pretty gross, and I’d stepped in someone’s gum.

When I walked back to my seat, my heart tightened in my chest because I knew I would have to walk past Mr. Beautiful Eyes again. My eyes stayed down until I reached my seat. I released a breath, and then my head involuntarily turned toward him. What?! Dang my eyes for wanting another glance his way. He smiled again and nodded toward me. I didn’t smile back because I was too nervous. The strange blue eyes made me so flipping nervous.

That was the last time I saw him. Well, until
now
.

Now, I was standing outside the train station. He was standing outside the train station.
We
were standing outside the train station. And I moved my eyes over to him for a moment. Heart putters. Major heart putters.

Trying to play it cool, I twisted my head in his direction to make it seem like I was looking past Mr. Beautiful Eyes to see if Henry was coming. In all reality, I was just trying to get a peek of the banmoy against the train station wall.

My breath picked up. He saw me.  Moving my feet against the sidewalk, I hummed to myself, trying to play cool and failing dramatically at it. I held my book upright in front of my face.

“‘
Doubt thou the stars are fire. Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar. But never doubt I love,’
” he quoted.

My book dropped down to my lap. I stared at Mr. Beautiful Eyes with confusion. “Shut up.”

His grin disappeared and a level of apology filled his face. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just saw you were reading—”

“
Hamlet
.”

A finger brushed across his upper lip, and he stepped closer. Putter. Putter. Heart. Heart. “Yeah…
Hamlet
. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you,” he apologized, and his voice was very sweet. Almost what I thought honey would sound like if it had a voice. I didn’t really need an apology though. I was just happy to discover that there were other people in the world who were able to quote William.

“No. You didn’t. I-I didn’t mean shut up as in the, ‘close your lips and stop talking,’ type way. I meant it more in the way of, ‘Oh crapballs, shut up! You can quote Shakespeare?!’ It was more
that
style of shut up.”

“Did you just say ‘crapballs’?”

My throat tightened up. I sat up straighter. “No.”

“Um, I think you did.”

He smiled again, and for the first time, I noticed how disgusting the weather was. It was ninety degrees outside. My palms were sweating. My
toes
were sticky. There were even a few specks of sweat dripping from my forehead.

I watched his mouth open and I parted my lips at the same time. Then I shut mine fast, wanting to hear his voice more than my own.

“Visiting or staying?” he asked.

I blinked. “Huh?”

He laughed and nodded once. “Are you visiting town or staying for a while?”

“Oh,” I replied, staring at him for too long without saying anything else.
Talk! Talk!
“I’m moving. Here. I’m moving here. I’m new in town.”

He raised an eyebrow, interested in the small fact. “Oh? Well.” He pulled the handle of his suitcase with his right hand, moving closer to me. A full-grown grin brushed across his face, and he extended his left hand my way. “Welcome to Edgewood, Wisconsin.”

I looked at his hand and then back up to his face. Pulling my book to my chest, I wrapped my arms around it. I couldn’t touch him with sweaty palms. “Thanks.”

He sighed slightly, yet his grin remained. “All right then. Nice meeting you.” Pulling his hand back to his side, he began walking away toward the taxi that had just arrived at the curb.

I cleared my throat, feeling my heart pounding against Hamlet and Ophelia’s pages, and my mind started to race. My feet demanded that I stand up, so I leaped from the top of my suitcase, knocking it over.

“Are you a musician?!” I screamed toward the banmoy, who was disappearing down the strip. He looked back to me.

“How did you know?”

I took my fingers and tapped them against my novel in the same rhythmic pattern he’d tapped his fingers on the train. “Just wondering.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Do I know you?”

I scrunched up my nose and shook my head back and forth. I wondered if he saw the sweat fly from my forehead. I’d hoped not.

Slowly, his teeth bit down into his bottom lip. I saw his shoulders rise and fall from the small sigh he released. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

He nodded and ran his hand through his hair. “Good. You gotta be eighteen to get in. They’ll make you wear a stamp and they’ll double-check IDs at the bar, but you can listen and stuff. Just don’t try to buy alcohol.” I tilted my head, staring at him. He laughed.
Ohhh, what a beautiful sound that is.
“Joe’s bar, Saturday night.”

“What’s Joe’s bar?” I wondered out loud. I wasn’t sure if I was speaking to him, to myself, or to those damn butterflies ripping my insides to shreds.

“A…bar?” He voice raised an octave before he laughed. “My band and I are performing at ten. You should come. I think you’ll like it.” He proceeded to give me argumentatively the kindest smile in the world. It was so gentle that it made me cough nervously and choke on air.

He held his hand up to me and smiled as he waved goodbye. With that, he closed his taxi door and he went his own way.

“Bye,” I whispered, watching the car pull off. I didn’t look away until it rounded the corner out of the lot and went far, far away. I looked down to my book clenched in my hands and smiled. I was going to start from the beginning again.

Gabby would have loved this weird, awkward moment.

I just knew it.