All That Matters

“Wanna know a secret?” Theo whispered. Hallie nodded, smiling happily. “I love you.” 

Seventeen-year-old Hallie beamed as she threw her arms around him.

Theo spun her around, both of them absurdly happy.

Seventeen-year-old Theo grinned, Hallie’s hair was shining in the light of the setting sun, glowing like liquid honey. Her eyes shone joyfully, more beautiful than any jewel or flower could ever hope to be. 

Eighteen-year-old Theo held Hallie’s hand when her dad never came back. He held it even tighter when a policeman knocked on her front door. 

Eighteen-year-old Hallie squeezed Theo’s hand until it turned red when her world ended. She held on for dear life, because he was the only thing keeping her up. 

He held onto her, letting her sob into his shoulder when they lowered her dad’s coffin into the ground. 

She held right back when people started throwing dirt, and saying nice things they didn’t mean. 

Twenty-year-old Theo stands at Hallie’s Mom’s grave. Planting Bluebonnet and Hollyhock flowers. Alone. 

Twenty-year-old Hallie hasn’t been home since her dad died, she couldn’t bury her mom too, Theo had gone for her. She didn’t want to have to do it again. 

Twenty-five-year old Hallie stands alone on her front steps.

Drenched with water, soaked to the bone from the rain pouring down on her. She couldn’t move, her body was frozen, her feet were stuck, staring numbly at her hand and wondering when it had all stopped being such a perfect fairytale. 

The rings in her palm glinted dully, unworn, and unloved by those that would have once danced for hours after receiving them. A paper covered in running ink rested underneath them.

Twenty-five-year-old Theo walks away from her as the rain starts falling. Turning his back on the girl who’d just held a ring out to him, the girl he’d just told no. 

Twenty-three-year-old Theo pushes a shopping cart at three a.m. through the store. Scooping up snacks and bickering with Hallie. Humming to the song playing overhead, and making bad puns with food labels. 

Twenty-three-year-old Hallie lounges in the shopping cart. Snapping pictures with the Polaroid camera he’d gotten her for her birthday. Doodling stars on his arm with a green sharpie, while she snuck some unneeded ice cream.

He doesn’t say anything when she flinches away from the Bluebonnet flowers next to the register. Only lowers his hand into the cart for her to hold. 

Twenty-one-year-old Hallie isn’t ok, her parents are both dead and her sister left. Just packed up and left a note. 

Hey, need some space, see you around, love ya little sis. 

Twenty-one-year-old Theo held Hallie as she sobbed. 

Theo said nothing two months later when he found out his brother had been killed in Afghanistan. Said nothing when his brother’s commander handed him a folded flag. 

Hallie never asked where the framed pennant came from, she didn’t wonder about all the casseroles in the fridge, didn’t spare a second of thought on Theo’s red eyes, or the collars of his shirts that smelled like salt. 

She didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell. He just kept smiling; Hallie hadn’t liked his brother; she wouldn’t care anyways. 

Hallie still held his hand, still hugged him when she felt like her world was being destroyed. 

Nineteen-year-old Theo buys a typewriter at the thrift store. He finds ink for the antiquated device. The first thing he types is for Hallie. A poem, about a girl with honey hair, and a laugh that made him smile, no matter how many times he heard it. 

Nineteen-year-old Hallie rushes past a waiting Theo on her porch, not seeing the carefully folded paper in his hands, and ignoring him when he starts to speak, she drags him to the garage. Showing him the car, her mom had just bought her. 

Theo slips the paper in his pocket, and doesn’t bring it out again. 

Twenty-two-year-old Hallie realizes she’d never said it back. Had never said the words that he had whispered to her on her

Eighteenth birthday. Had never comforted him with the same affirming words that conveyed just how much she cared for him. 

Twenty-two-year-old Theo didn’t need a realization. He had thought about it days later, thought about how she hadn’t recast his words to him. 

That had been four years ago, he knew she wasn’t going to say it back. He’d stopped waiting a long time ago, but he loved her, and she needed him. 

So that was enough. 

Twenty-four-year-old Hallie sat at the kitchen counter at nine a.m. The house is quiet. She browses lazily online for wedding rings, scrolling flippantly through items that she should have been ecstatic even thinking about. She can’t decide between gunmetal gray and rose caret gold. 

Twenty-four-year-old Theo runs over the trail, sprinting past others on the path. His feet flying over the ground as he easily passed through the woods and started up the hill. He’d seen Hallie looking at rings during breakfast. He wondered if she would ask his opinion. 

Twenty-five-year-old Hallie holds out the ring she’d ordered three months ago online, to Theo. Doesn’t even say anything, just holds it out expectantly, the matching one already on her finger. An appointment circled on her calendar for a courthouse appointment.   

Twenty-five-year-old Theo opens the poem he’d written so long ago instead. Handing it to her, her eyes gliding over the first few lines of Sunshine Girl and Bottle Boy. He’d written it for the two of them. 

When she hadn’t read it, he knew, when she hadn’t asked, he knew, when she hadn’t said it back, he knew. 

She didn’t. 

He took the ring off her finger, placing it with his in her palm. 

"No you don't" He whispered, turning his back " I know what you're going to say, and no, you don't"

Hallie stared after him helplessly. She'd been about to say 'I love you'.