Memories

Chase stretched out on the floor of his childhood tree house. It had been years since he’d been in the small wooden room, but he was pleased to discover that the people who’d bought his parents old house fifteen years ago had taken good care of it. They hadn’t allowed to it turn to rot and fall apart. Instead, they’d cared of it and replaced boards when they’d needed it, and had even made it bigger by adding in a second, albeit smaller, room.

He’d bought the house himself just two weeks ago, and it had finally been turned over to him just two days prior. The second thing he’d done after arriving, keys in hand, had been to walk out into the wooded backyard to find his old fortress. Of course, it seemed much smaller to him now than when he’d been a fifteen year old boy, and he’d had some slight difficulty squeezing his shoulders in through the opening in the floor, but that didn’t stop him from climbing inside to check it out.

And now, after spending most of the past two days getting everything moved in, he was back out in the old tree house.

It held so many memories for him. Years of playing on his own, or inviting friends over to climb through the branches of the old tree. Once he’d gotten older, he’d drug a bean bag chair out and had made this his fortress of solitude. He’d escape out here when he wanted to be alone, whether that was because he wanted away from his parents or because he wanted those afternoons and evenings of privacy as all teenage boys do. And then, there was that fateful summer afternoon a few days before his family moved away…

Sally Cole.

She’d been his next door neighbor his whole life and he’d had a crush on her from the moment he’d developed an interest in girls. They’d played together in his old tree house more times than he could count. He’d also spent more time than he would admit thinking about Sally while alone here with nothing more than a box of tissues.

And that afternoon, just days before he moved away and she was no longer a part of his life, Sally had come to him in his tree house. She’d told him how much she would miss him and how much she cared for him. And then, adding the final nail in the coffin surrounding his heart, she’d given him his first kiss.

That kiss had burned him all the way to his toes, searing itself into his very soul. He’d measured every woman and every kiss he’d had since against Sally, and they’d all paled in comparison. Nothing else moved him the way she had when he’d been little more than a boy.

She’d been his first love; his only love if he were being honest.

Chase stared around at the bare walls and decided that he would fix the little tree house up again. It wasn’t falling apart or anything, but he would work on it until it was no longer just a child’s hide away, until it was an escape fit for a grown man. It might seem silly for a man of thirty to want to hang out in an old tree house, but it held some of the best memories of his life and he was determined to hang on to them.

So he would reinforce the tree house, maybe add on a little balcony and enlarge the small doorway in the floor. There had been a small door that opened into the tree house years ago, but the previous owners must have removed it, and so he determined to add one in again. He’d put glass windows in to keep the weather out so that maybe he could put a futon out here.

As he made his plans, he moved into the second room so that he could look out the window there. He could see the house where Sally grew up in, and found himself wondering what had happened to her.

He’d written to her for the first few months after he’d moved away, always excited and eager to read her answering letters, but as more time had passed his parents had seemed upset that he continued to write to her. They’d feared he was holding on too tightly to his old life instead of branching out and making a new one for himself in their new home. They’d worried he wasn’t making new friends and that he was showing too strong an attachment to Sally for his age.

And then the letters had stopped, and his young heart had been crushed.

Then, six months ago, his father had passed away and his mother had revealed the letters that they’d hidden from him. He’d never known it, but Sally had continued to write him for the rest of that year, but his father had taken them all before Chase had seen them. And, even worse, he’d also taken Chase’s letters before they could be sent off.

Chase looked into the corner at the only other item in the tree house with him: the shoebox full of Sally’s letters. He’s read them all, and felt a deep, sorrowful pang at the heartache and anger in Sally’s final letters. She’d thought he’d moved on from her and forgotten her; that he couldn’t even bother to write her again. She’d wondered if he’d even been reading her last letters.

The final one had been so angry, almost hateful, that Chase has feared she’d never speak to him again. But, knowing he’d not been alone all those years ago, he’d hoped maybe things weren’t so far gone.

And so, after he’d arrived two days ago, before he’d even walked out to the old tree house… he’d gone over to Sally’s old house. Her parents still lived there he’d discovered when he’d been buying the place, so he’d left all his old, unmailed letters in a bundle in their mailbox. And with them, he’d added one final letter, explaining what his mother had revealed to him and that he’d be waiting in the old tree house at the same time as they’d shared their one and only kiss all those years before if she wanted to see him again.

He wrote to her that his feelings had never changed.

And so, for the past two days, he’d lain there waiting and hoping to hear footsteps. Praying she would come to him.

He looked at his watch and sighed as another day passed and Sally didn’t show up. He didn’t have a clue if Sally was still living in the area, or if she was single or (heaven forbid) married by now…but he’d decided that he would come out to the tree house for as long as Sally had kept writing to him. He’d come out here every day for the next year if it meant she might come along one day.

He’d just straightened from his position at the window when he heard someone coming up the ladder behind him. His breath caught in his throat as he froze in place, afraid to turn around and discover it was only his imagination getting the better of him.

“Chase Ridley?”

A smile broke out on his face at the sound of her voice and he turned around slowly. A sense of rightness settled over him as he came face-to-face with the only woman he’d ever loved.