The day Alexa first took me to the cave ironically turned out to be my last day in mulligan village. For a while. The cave was something I’ve never seen before. It had these fluorescent ice pieces that hung from the ceiling.
“Are you sure we are allowed to be here?” I asked
“We probably aren’t allowed.” She said simply. Alexa was a risk taker. I on the other hand, was not.
“How’d you find this place?”
“Well I was at the library and I found this map of mulligan village in the 1920’s. It was incredible! Anyways, this cave used to be the villages tourism industry.” Alexa said this with a sparkle of passion in her eyes. I always wondered how she got that.
“So...why did they stop?”
“They deemed it unsafe.” Alexa replied with a grin.
“Come on, let’s go!” Alexa tugged my arm and we were off.
We moved in the absolute worst time possible.
I’m not kidding. It was that season that was in between reason.
Not winter not fall.
When you step out, you see it all.
The leaves are gone.
The air is chilly and mean.
It smells like old books.
Not that I don’t like that smell.
It’s just, it makes you want to curl up and hide in a nook.
It’s the middle of the year for gods sake!
Damn I hate it here, upstate
When I first met Alexa at the library, she handed me a small yellow sticky note.
“Here” she said, shoving it into my sweaty hand “What is it?”
“Read it!”
I was young back then. Thirteen probably. I dunno. I read the note carefully.
“Meet me behind the oak tree”
I don’t know why I did it, to be honest, but now that I think back to it, I am glad I did.
When I arrived at the oak tree she started questioning me.
“What’s your name”
“Fern”
“How old?”
“Thirteen”
“Same! What do you like to do?”
“Read? I don’t really know. People don’t ask me that. It’s more: your moving fern.”
“Well, I’m asking you.” She said with a grin.
We played this game a lot. Under the oak tree. And then one day, it happened. She stared at me through the moon light. I stared back, unsure of what was gonna happen. She leaned in and her face collided with mine. I was in love. That was the day I promised never to leave her.
Not that I have ever been good at promises
I suppose I should start from the middle of it all, I mean, if I start from the beginning, I would take up the whole ducking 750 words. When I moved to mulligan village, I was angry. Bored. We moved around a lot so I was used to it. But nothing prepared me for who I saw. Alexa. I had known her before. I was sure of it. “Hey” said Alexa right as I had gotten out of the car. “Hey-“ that’s when I realized
She was the girl I was in love with.
We thought it would of solved all of our problems. Who got the money? Who kept the house? Drunks aunts fighting over silks, and old grandpa threatening his will. But what if we burned the money? Burned the house? Burned the silks from then and now. But as I walk back on these ruins, I see what I’ve ruined. I killed them. Killed my sweet innocent cousins. Lighting the fire would have been easy enough, burning the stuff. We should have had a plan. Set a time to light it and abandon. I light it first and I die last.
I remember the day I met you I remember the day the world left you Every day I search for that sparkle in your eyes. I never seem to find it No surprise. When we saw each other We could not be separate from one another But that was then. I should stop asking “when” When when when when Because that was then
