A/N: This came into my head while listening to my radio. Recommended listening- Me and Charlie Talking by Miranda Lambert. I am planning a series of one-shots in this universe. . .two more of which are semi-written. . . Anyways, please enjoy, and R&R!
The woman sat at her desk, wrapped in her robe, hair eloquently coiffed, flipping through an old photo album, and chewing on her pen as she considered what to write, how to talk about everything she was thinking. Slowly she began to write, letting her thoughts and feelings pour out. . .
It's funny, I know I'm going to see him again today. I haven't seen him, not for these last ten years, but I remember. I look at these pictures and I remember. I remember us as kids, walking in the woods behind my house, playing on the railroad tracks that ran behind it, thinking we could bury coal and turn it into diamonds and just like that, our friendship and our love would be forever. Holding hands and saying it, maybe stealing a kiss, and that was it, that was love. And then we got older, and I remember . . . It got more serious then, and we promised we'd be together forever. Of course, when you're sixteen, forever is the rest of high school and we were together for all of it. I look at these pictures: four years of homecoming, and we went to Prom together, as if that would seal everything.
And then we graduated, we were eighteen, and the whole world was in front of us. Momma and Daddy couldn't afford to send me away to school, so I was staying here, but Charlie, Charlie always had his dreams, he was going to go away, he was going to leave us, leave this town, but he'd come back for me, I knew, because we'd promised each other forever. And then. . . I got letters, I got postcards, and we talked on the phone, and he came home that first summer, even though his parents had moved away. In a way, it was like things hadn't changed, that he had never left- we watched the fireflies come out at night, laughing at the antics of my younger sister catching them in mason jars, showing them off to us and using them as a nightlight, releasing them the next morning. But, I think even then I started to know that forever wasn't quite as long as we thought it was going to be.
Charlie went back to school, and I went back to school, and the letters and phone calls got fewer and farther between, and I started to think, was forever really going to be that. I remember that phone call, it echoes in my head like I just hung up the phone, "I'm not coming there this summer. I've got an internship." It was the last time I really spoke to Charlie. I got mad at him, how could he leave me behind like that? He knew, right? We'd promised each other forever and he was just throwing it away. It's funny how, at twenty, it's such a big deal to stay away for a summer, to stay apart. The things we thought we knew back then, but now we know how little we really did know, how little we understood.
And then, here we are, I graduated, I found a job, same sleepy town, I'm teaching in the same school we grew up going to. I walk these hallways and I watch these kids, and I see me and Charlie all over again. Talking, and holding hands, and believing that that's love. What I wouldn't give to believe in love that way again.
Then there's today, my baby sister is getting married. Will's a good man, he'll be good to her, and he loves her very much. I see that, and I'm glad for her, but I think of Charlie, of that love that I lost, I never quite found anything to replace it. Just like my sister all those years ago, catching fireflies in a jar, showing them off, making nightlights, but they only last for a night, and you know in the morning that you have to let them go or they'll be dead. That's what this was like. Charlie and I burned bright, and we burned fast, but we didn't last forever. I hope that it will be different for Lizzie and Will. I think it will be though- no, I know it will be. There's something different about them, something more permanent maybe. Not quite as childish in their thoughts and their love, maybe just that they're older.
Funny how things work out though. Apparently Will knows Charlie, they went to Grad school together. Charlie's supposed to be at the wedding. The first time he's been back to this town since that last magical summer ten years ago. I don't know quite what I'll say to him now. Time and distance have a way about them, they make things different. You're not quite the same as you thought you were, but I wonder, when I see him, what he will say to me. If he ever wonders what it would have been like had he come home, had we both not walked away. . . But, I guess you can keep thinking on that, somehow you have to let things go, let them change. I've got to go, Momma's calling and Lizzie's going to need help with her dress and her veil. This is probably the only place I can confess, that I can tell how much I regret everything that happened
Slowly, she closed the photo album, wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes. She knew better than to look at the photos, especially today. She donned her royal purple dress, proud to be her sister's Maid of Honour, and went to help her sister prepare.
Later, she returns, pulling the pins out of her hair, looking at the pictures she had taken on her phone- Lizzie and Will dancing, a silly sister selfie, and there, in that picture, Charlie laughing with Will, Lizzie looking uncomfortable, wanting to be nice to her new husband's friend, but remembering the boy who broke her sister's heart. She sees her journal lying out, the pen marking her place . . . she put the photo album away, but she forgot about this in her rush. As she goes to pick it up, it falls open, and without thought she picks up the pen and begins to write:
I saw Charlie again. He looks almost the same as I imagined he would. He asked me to go for a walk in the woods behind our house. I think I'll take him up on it. We owe it to each other, I think to talk and make our apologies for all the hurt and pain we caused each other. Maybe, someday, we can be friends again . . . only here will I say maybe we could even be more . . . be more than the fireflies, be forever.
Smiling to herself, she closes the journal. She know she'll see him tomorrow, go walking again, and maybe, just maybe, things could be different, could be how she always thought they would be.